Glossary+of+Poetic+Terms


 * A Glossary of Poetic Terms for IGCSE **

The **Shakespearean:** //Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?// ||
 * **Term** ||  **Definition **  ||  **Examples **  ||
 * **Structure ** ||  How the poem is constructed. This relates to the number of stanzas in the poem, number of lines in a stanza, the length of the line, the pattern of rhyme and rhythm.  || Based on the number of lines in a poem and its rhythm, there are different types of poems such as ballads, haikus, limericks etc (see below)  ||
 * **Ballad ** ||  Originally a narrative song. The speaker of a ballad relates a story in stanza form, usually in quatrains-stanzas of four lines each. Ballads often have a consistent meter (same rhythm pattern in each stanza) and repeat key phrases.  || Any story set to music as a single song can arguably be called a ballad. E.g. //The Highway Man// by Alfred Noyes  ||
 * **Sonnet ** ||  The word //sonnet// comes from the Italian word //sonnetto// meaning //little song.// Sonnets are lyric poems of 14 lines and fall into two main types: English (Shakespearean) or Italian (Petrarchan). **Petrarchan** or Italian sonnet divided into one //octave// with a rhyme scheme of abbaabba, and one //sestet// with a rhyme scheme of cdecde, cdccdc, or cdedce.   The **Shakespearean** (or English) sonnet has three //quatrains// followed by a rhymed //couplet//. This follows the rhyme scheme of abab, cdcd, efef, gg.  || **Petrarchan ** or Italian sonnet: //On His Being Arrived to the Age of Twenty-three //, by John Milton.
 * **Narrative ** ||  A **narrative** poem is in some ways like narrative prose. It describes events and characters, real or imaginary, in story form.  || Forms of narrative poetry include the epic, the ballad  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Ode ** ||  An ode is a lyric poem that celebrates its particular subject. It is generally serious in tone  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Famous odes include Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" and Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn."  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Lyric ** ||  The term **lyric** is used to classify poems that aren't clearly narrative. In a lyrical poem, a single speaker conveys a thought, emotion, or sensory impression. Originally meant to be sung, a lyric poem can be of any length.  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">John Donne; Allen Ginsberg and Adrienne Rich. Many forms of lyric poetry exist including the aubade, sonnet, ode, elegy, and dramatic monologue  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Dramatic monologue ** || Dramatic monologues are poems delivered by speakers who describe themselves or relate events they saw or participated in. || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Robert Browning is known for his poetic dramatic monologues. ||
 * =====<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">**Elegy** ===== || An elegy is a lyric poem that praises a dead person or people. The subject may or may not be personally known to the poet.  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">For example, Shelley's "Adonais" praises his friend Keats  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Visual/ **  **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Concrete poetry **  || This is poetry written in a shape resembling an object, which enriches its meaning. || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">William Burford's poem "A Christmas Tree" is shaped in the form of a tree. ||

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.8pt; text-indent: -0.8pt;">the goal of living is to **grow**) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.8pt; text-indent: -0.8pt;">forgetting why,remember **how**
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Tone ** ||  The attitude of the author, as opposed to the poetic persona, toward the subject matter and/or audience. Tone is closely linked to mood  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Formal, ironic, light, solemn, sentimental…  ||
 * =====<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">**Rhyme** ===== || The matching similarity of sounds between syllables or paired groups of syllables, usually at the ends of verse lines  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.8pt; text-indent: -0.8pt;">in time of daffodils(who **know**

|| //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will” //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> Tennyson’s ‘Ulyssess’ || // A rainbow in the sky: // ||
 * =====<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">**Rhythm** ===== || A recognizable and variable pattern in the beat of the stresses in the stream of sound.   The regular reoccurrence of stresses and pauses. Rhythm helps determine a poem's mood and, along with other elements, the poem's meaning.  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Steady, irregular…  ||
 * =====<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Tempo ===== || Pace of the poem  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Quick, moderate, slow…  ||
 * =====<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Free Verse ===== || Free verse isn't constrained by a rhythm or rhyme scheme. Instead, poets rely on imagery, figurative language, assonance, repetition, and alliteration to infuse music into the poem.  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Walt Whitman, e.e. cummings, used this technique.  ||
 * =====<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">**Metre** ===== || The regular rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.  ||   ||
 * =====<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">**Foot** ===== || The basic unit of meter consisting of a group of two or three syllables with a fixed metrical pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Scanning or scansion is the process of determining the prevailing foot in a line of poetry, of determining the types and sequence of different feet.  Types of feet: **U** (unstressed); **/** (stressed syllable) ||   ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Iambic Pentameter ** ||  Consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, repeated five times in a row.  || //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">To **strive**, to **seek**, to **find**, and **not** to **yield** //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">.”  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Blank **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> **verse**  || Unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter. || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“//One equal temper of heroic hearts,//
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Couplet ** ||  A pair of rhyming verse lines, usually of the same length.  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">“//A grave’s a fine and private place,//  //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">But none, I think, do there embrace //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">”  ||
 * =====<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">**Caesura** ===== || This is a pause in the rhythm.  || //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Sometimes, the sudden rush // //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">of fortune**.** The municipal pipe bursts, // ||
 * =====<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">**Enjambment** ===== || In poetry, when one line ends without a pause and continues into the next line for its meaning. This is also called a run-on line. || // My heart leaps up when I behold //

It denotes a lack of harmony between sounds rather than the harshness of a particular sound in isolation (**cacophony**). || //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">“They foug**ht** the **dogs** and **ki**lled the **cats**… // **//<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Split //**//<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> open the **kegs** of sal**ted** **sp**ra**ts**,” // <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; text-align: right;">From //The Pied Piper of Hamlyn// ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Imagery ** ||||  Word, phrase or lines that evoke concrete sense-impressions by literal or figurative reference to objects, scenes, actions, or states.   Sensory imagery  # ** Visual ** imagery – sight
 * 1) ** Auditory ** imagery - sound
 * 2) ** Olfactory ** imagery - smell
 * 3) ** Gustatory ** imagery - taste
 * 4) ** Tactile ** imagery - touch
 * 5) ** Kinaesthetic ** imagery – movement
 * 6) ** Emotive (natural) ** imagery - emotions  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">"The gray sea and the long black land;/And the yellow half-moon large and low."  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">2. "only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle."  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">3. Smell the bad breath that "reeks."  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">4. "Come to the window, sweet is the night air!"  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">5. "he holds him with his skinny hand."  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">6. "Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling."  ||
 * =====<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">**Simile** ===== |||| A common figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison between two things by using words such as “like and as”  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">“I wandered lonely as a cloud”  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Metaphor ** ||||  Compares two different things by speaking of one in terms of the other. Unlike a simile, metaphor asserts that one thing //is// another thing, not just that one is like another. Very frequently a metaphor is invoked by the //to be// verb  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">“He is a pig”  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">"he brayed his refusal to leave"  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">“he was a mule standing his ground.”  ||
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">**Personification** |||| A form of metaphor in which human characteristics are attributed to nonhuman things. || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">“Invention, nature’s child” ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Onomatopoeia ** ||||  The sound of a word echoing the sense of the word.  || //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Hiss, crash, bang // ||
 * =====<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">**Diction** ===== |||| A choice of words used in a literary work.  ||   ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Style ** ||||  The manner of expression of a particular writer, produced by choice of words, grammatical structures, use of literary devices, and all the possible parts of language use.  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">ornate, plain, emotive, colloquial,  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Alliteration ** ||||  The repetition of identical sounds, most often the sounds at the beginning of words in close proximity. Alliteration is also a means of highlighting ideas through the repetition of similar sounds.  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">"**d**escending **d**ew **d**rops"; "**l**uscious **l**emons."  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">“Your never-failing **__s__**word made war to **__c__**ease”;  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Consonance ** ||||  The repetition of a consonant sound. This repetition can occur at the beginning (initial consonance) or in the middle of words (internal consonance)  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">1. **B**etty **b**ought some **b**utter  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">2. S**t**ru**t**s and fre**t**s his hour upon the s**t**age.  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Assonance ** ||||  The repetition of a vowel sound. As with consonance, the repetition can occur either initially or internally.  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">1. "**a**ll the **a**wful **au**guries" or "**a**pt **a**lliteration's **a**rtful **a**id."  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">2. "Her goodly eyes l**i**ke sapph**i**res sh**i**ning br**i**ght."  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Hyperbole ** ||||  Exaggeration for the sake of emphasis  ||  The common complaint: //I’ve been waiting here for ages//.  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Rhetorical Question ** ||||  A question asked for the sake of persuasive effect rather than a genuine request for information, the speaker implying that the answer is too obvious to require a reply.  ||  Milton says, “//For what can war but endless war still breed?//”  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Allusion ** ||||  A reference to famous events, places, or artistic works.  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Religious Allusions (Biblical/Koranic etc.). Literary allusions (to a well know work of lit. often Shakespeare)  ||
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">**Juxtaposition** |||| Occurs when two images that are otherwise not commonly brought together appear side by side or structurally close together, thereby forcing the reader to stop and reconsider the meaning of the text through the contrasting images, ideas, motifs, etc.  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">"He was slouched alertly" is a juxtaposition within a sentence.  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Paradox ** ||||  A statement or expression so self-contradictory as to provoke us into seeking another sense or context in which it would be true. Paradoxes are inherent in oxymoron and epigrams. Some paradoxes remain flatly self-contradictory.  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">‘The child is father of man’  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">‘Everything I say is a lie’  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Oxymoron ** |||| Oxymoron combines two usually contradictory terms. || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">‘bitter sweet’, ‘living death’  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Dissonance or cacophony ** |||| Harshness of sound and/or rhythm, either inadvertent or deliberate.
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Euphony ** ||||  When the sound echoes the sense of the line, it contributes to the **euphony**, or pleasant sound, of poetry. Cacophony is the contrasting term.  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">"**//Calm//** //is the **sea**, the **wav**es **wor**k **less** and **less**//."  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Pun ** ||||  An expression that achieves emphasis or humour by two similar sounding words (//homophone//).  || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">“Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a //grave// man.”  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Euphemism ** || An inoffensive expression used in place of a blunt one that is felt to be disagreeable or embarrassing. |||| //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Pass away //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> instead of ‘die’;  ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Pathetic Fallacy ** ||  The poetic convention whereby natural phenomena which cannot feel as humans do are described as if they could.  |||| <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">rain clouds may ‘weep’, or flowers may be ‘joyful’ in sympathy with the poet’s mood  ||

**<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif';">U ****<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">seful Website for Revision: ** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">[]