Glossary of Poetry Terms for Writing & Reading Poems The shorter final stanza of a poem, as in a ballade. epic A long, serious poem that tells the story of a heroic figure. Two of the most famous epic poems are the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, which tell about the Trojan War and the adventures of Odysseus on his voyage home after the war. epigram A very short, witty poem: “Sir, I admit your general rule,/That every poet is a fool,/But you yourself may serve to show it,/That every fool is not a poet.” (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) epithalamium (or epithalamion) A poem in honor of a bride and bridegroom. feminine rhyme A rhyme that occurs in a final unstressed syllable: pleasure/leisure, longing/yearning. figure of speech A verbal expression in which words or sounds are arranged in a particular way to achieve a particular effect. Figures of speech are organized into different categories, such as alliteration, assonance, metaphor, metonymy, onomatopoeia, simile, and synecdoche.

foot Two or more syllables that together make up the smallest unit of rhythm in a poem. For example, an iamb is a foot that has two syllables, one unstressed followed by one stressed. An anapest has three syllables, two unstressed followed by one stressed. free verse (also vers libre) Poetry composed of either rhymed or unrhymed lines that have no set meter. haiku A Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. Haiku often reflect on some aspect of nature. heptameter A line of poetry that has seven metrical feet. heroic couplet A stanza composed of two rhymed lines in iambic pentameter. hexameter A line of poetry that has six metrical feet. hyperbole A figure of speech in which deliberate exaggeration is used for emphasis. Many everyday expressions are examples of hyperbole: tons of money, waiting for ages, a flood of tears, etc. Hyperbole is the opposite of litotes. iamb A metrical foot of two syllables, one short (or unstressed) and one long (or stressed).

There are four iambs in the line “Come live/ with me/ and be/ my love,” from a poem by Christopher Marlowe. (The stressed syllables are in bold.) The iamb is the reverse of the trochee. iambic pentameter A type of meter in poetry, in which there are five iambs to a line. (The prefix penta- means “five,” as in pentagon, a geometrical figure with five sides. Meter refers to rhythmic units. In a line of iambic pentameter, there are five rhythmic units that are iambs.) Shakespeare's plays were written mostly in iambic pentameter, which is the most common type of meter in English poetry. An example of an iambic pentameter line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is “But soft!/ What light/ through yon/der win/dow breaks?” Another, from Richard III, is “A horse!/ A horse!/ My king/dom for/ a horse!” (The stressed syllables are in bold.) idyll, or idyl Either a short poem depicting a peaceful, idealized country scene, or a long poem that tells a story about heroic deeds or extraordinary events set in the distant past.

Idylls of the King, by Alfred Lord Tennyson, is about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. lay A long narrative poem, especially one that was sung by medieval minstrels called trouvères. The Lais of Marie de France are lays. limerick A light, humorous poem of five usually anapestic lines with the rhyme scheme of aabba. litotes A figure of speech in which a positive is stated by negating its opposite. Some examples of litotes: no small victory, not a bad idea, not unhappy. Litotes is the opposite of hyperbole. lyric A poem, such as a sonnet or an ode, that expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet. A lyric poem may resemble a song in form or style. masculine rhyme A rhyme that occurs in a final stressed syllable: cat/hat, desire/fire, observe/deserve. metaphor A figure of speech in which two things are compared, usually by saying one thing is another, or by substituting a more descriptive word for the more common or usual word that would be expected.

Some examples of metaphors: the world's a stage, he was a lion in battle, drowning in debt, and a sea of troubles. meter The arrangement of a line of poetry by the number of syllables and the rhythm of accented (or stressed) syllables. metonymy A figure of speech in which one word is substituted for another with which it is closely associated. For example, in the expression The pen is mightier than the sword, the word pen is used for “the written word,” and sword is used for “military power.” narrative Telling a story. Ballads, epics, and lays are different kinds of narrative poems. ode A lyric poem that is serious and thoughtful in tone and has a very precise, formal structure. John Keats's “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a famous example of this type of poem. onomatopoeia A figure of speech in which words are used to imitate sounds. Examples of onomatopoeic words are buzz, hiss, zing, clippety-clop, and tick-tock.

Keats's “Ode to a Nightingale” not only uses onomatopoeia, but calls our attention to it: “Forlorn! The very word is like a bell/To toll me back from thee to my sole self!” Another example of onomatopoeia is found in this line from Tennyson's Come Down, O Maid: “The moan of doves in immemorial elms,/And murmuring of innumerable bees.” The repeated “m/n” sounds reinforce the idea of “murmuring” by imitating the hum of insects on a warm summer day. ottava rima A type of poetry consisting of 10- or 11-syllable lines arranged in 8-line “octaves” with the rhyme scheme abababcc. pastoral A poem that depicts rural life in a peaceful, idealized way. pentameter A line of poetry that has five metrical feet. personification A figure of speech in which things or abstract ideas are given human attributes: dead leaves dance in the wind, blind justice. poetry A type of literature that is written in meter. quatrain A stanza or poem of four lines.

refrain A line or group of lines that is repeated throughout a poem, usually after every stanza. rhyme The occurrence of the same or similar sounds at the end of two or more words. When the rhyme occurs in a final stressed syllable, it is said to be masculine: cat/hat, desire/fire, observe/deserve. When the rhyme occurs in a final unstressed syllable, it is said to be feminine: longing/yearning. The pattern of rhyme in a stanza or poem is shown usually by using a different letter for each final sound. In a poem with an aabba rhyme scheme, the first, second, and fifth lines end in one sound, and the third and fourth lines end in another. rhyme royal A type of poetry consisting of stanzas of seven lines in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme ababbcc. Rhyme royal was an innovation introduced by Geoffrey Chaucer. romanticism The principles and ideals of the Romantic movement in literature and the arts during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Romanticism, which was a reaction to the classicism of the early 18th century, favored feeling over reason and placed great emphasis on the subjective, or personal, experience of the individual. Nature was also a major theme. The great English Romantic poets include Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. scansion The analysis of a poem's meter. This is usually done by marking the stressed and unstressed syllables in each line and then, based on the pattern of the stresses, dividing the line into feet. senryu A short Japanese poem that is similar to a haiku in structure but treats human beings rather than nature, often in a humorous or satiric way. simile A figure of speech in which two things are compared using the word “like” or “as.” An example of a simile using like occurs in Langston Hughes's poem “Harlem”: “What happens to a dream deferred?/ Does it dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?” sonnet A lyric poem that is 14 lines long.

Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnets are divided into two quatrains and a six-line “sestet,” with the rhyme scheme abba abba cdecde (or cdcdcd). English (or Shakespearean) sonnets are composed of three quatrains and a final couplet, with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. English sonnets are written generally in iambic pentameter. spondee A metrical foot of two syllables, both of which are long (or stressed). stanza Two or more lines of poetry that together form one of the divisions of a poem. The stanzas of a poem are usually of the same length and follow the same pattern of meter and rhyme. stress The prominence or emphasis given to particular syllables. Stressed syllables usually stand out because they have long, rather than short, vowels, or because they have a different pitch or are louder than other syllables. synecdoche A figure of speech in which a part is used to designate the whole or the whole is used to designate a part. For example, the phrase “all hands on deck” means “all men on deck,” not just their hands.

The reverse situation, in which the whole is used for a part, occurs in the sentence “The U.S. beat Russia in the final game,” where the U.S. and Russia stand for “the U.S. team” and “the Russian team,” respectively. tanka A Japanese poem of five lines, the first and third composed of five syllables and the rest of seven. terza rima A type of poetry consisting of 10- or 11-syllable lines arranged in three-line “tercets” with the rhyme scheme aba bcb cdc, etc. The poet Dante is credited with inventing terza rima, which he used in his Divine Comedy. Terza rima was borrowed into English by Chaucer, and it has been used by many English poets, including Milton, Shelley, and Auden. tetrameter A line of poetry that has four metrical feet. trochee A metrical foot of two syllables, one long (or stressed) and one short (or unstressed).

An easy way to remember the trochee is to memorize the first line of a lighthearted poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which demonstrates the use of various kinds of metrical feet: “Trochee/ trips from/ long to/ short.” (The stressed syllables are in bold.) The trochee is the reverse of the iamb. trope A figure of speech, such as metaphor or metonymy, in which words are not used in their literal (or actual) sense but in a figurative (or imaginative) sense. verse What are Proverbs — Idioms — Sayings — Puns — Aphorisms ... ? An aphorism that has that has gained credit through long use. Example: Where there's smoke, there's fire. Aphorism A tersely, memorable phrased statement of a truth or opinion; an adage. [from Greek aphorismos, from aphorizein, to delimit, define. Apo- (1. Away from; off; Separate. 2. Without 3. Related to) + Horizein (limit, boundary)] Example: He's a fool who cannot conceal his wisdom.

Cliché An overly commonplace, banal or trite saying, expression or idea. Sometimes the terms stereotype or platitude are used as a synonym. Clichés can be defined as preconceived twists, hackneyed and worn out by too frequent use of images, modes of expression, speech and thought patterns. These are often used thoughtlessly and without individual conviction. Example: All Americans are very open. Epigram A concise, clever, often paradoxical statement, thought or observation; sometimes expressed as a short, witty poem. Example: The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. Epithet A descriptive term (= word or phrase) used to characterize a person or thing, that has become popular is commonly understood. Example: The Great Emancipator — as a term for Abraham Lincoln. Folklore The term in the narrower sense means oral lore of a group of people. In the broader sense folklore describes the totality of " demotic " traditions. It often has religious or mythical elements. See also: myth, (urban) legend, tale, oral tradition.

[From Old English - folk = "people" and lore = "tradition" or "knowledge"] Therefore folklore literally means "knowledge of the people" or "tradition of the people". Gnome A pithy saying that expresses a general truth, fundamental principle or an instruction in a compact form (usually taken from ancient literature or poems); an aphorism. [Greek: from gignoskein, to know] Example: Moderation is the best thing (by Cleobulus of Lindos; circa 600 BC) Idiom An expression that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of the words. Quite a few idioms are language specific, and thus diificult to translate. Example: A cold day in Hell Hyperbole A figure of speech (or any rhetorical device) in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect, mostly beyond credibility.

[Greek huperbol, exaggeration, from: huper (= beyond) and ballein (= to throw)] It is encountered in casual speech, as in — “I could sleep for a year” — “This book weighs a ton.” Mantra Originated in the Vedic tradition of India; a mantra is now a religious or mystical sound, syllable or poetic phrase used in prayers and during meditation. Example: Haro Hara [huh'-roh huh'-ruh] — bestows knowledge of intuitive truth. Maxim Compared with its approximate synonyms: saying, adage, saw, motto, epigram, proverb, aphorism, the term maxim stresses the succinct formulation of a fundamental principle, general truth, or rule of conduct. [Latin: maximus, "greatest", via the expression maxima propositio, "greatest premise".] Example: Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Motto A brief statement used to express a principle, a motivation, a goal, or an ideal. Examples: Be Prepared (Girlguiding UK); Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity (FBI). Phrasal verb An English verb and one or more following particles (e.g.

a preposition or adverb); the combination creates a meaning different from the original verb thus acting as a complete syntactic and semantic unit. Example: The new teacher passes for a linguist. Proverb A simple and short saying, widely known, often metaphorical, which expresses a basic truth or practical precept, based on common sense or cultural experience. Example: Honesty is the best policy. Pun This is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of words (or of similar-sounding words) for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. Example: A fool with a tool is still a fool. Quip A clever or witty observation or remark, with a tendency to descend into sarcasm, or otherwise is short of point. [Latin: quippe = "indeed" - meaning: smart remark] Example: Better a witty fool than a foolish wit. Quotation This is a repetition — literally taken over from another text or speech and explicitly attributed by a citation. Quotes, whose original context is lost and can no longer be reconstructed, are named fragments.

Example: "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." (Abraham Lincoln) Saying A short well-known expression — a pithy remark of wisdom and truth or a general advice. Example: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Saw Epigram | Define Epigram at Dictionary.com epigram any witty, ingenious, or pointed saying tersely expressed. 2. Oscar Wilde had a genius for epigram. 3. a short, often satirical poem dealing concisely with a single subject and usually ending with a witty or ingenious turn of thought. Origin of epigram 1400-50; late Middle English < Latin epigramma < Greek epígramma inscription, epigram. See epi- , -gram 1 Can be confused 1. witticism, quip, bon mot. Dictionary.com Unabridged Examples from the Web for epigram Expand A satire, an epigram, or a caricature may suffice to produce such a conviction. Folkways William Graham Sumner "With Italy and with you," said Mr. Goodwood with gloomy plainness and no appearance of trying to make an epigram.

Alarms and Discursions G. K. Chesterton And that reminds me: George has written an epigram that is going the rounds. British Dictionary definitions for epigram Expand a witty, often paradoxical remark, concisely expressed 2. a short, pungent, and often satirical poem, esp one having a witty and ingenious ending Derived Forms epigrammatically, adverb Word Origin C15: from Latin epigramma, from Greek: inscription, from epigraphein to write upon, from graphein to write Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 Word Origin and History for epigram Expand n.

mid-15c., from Middle French épigramme, from Latin epigramma "an inscription," from Greek epigramma "an inscription, epitaph, epigram," from epigraphein "to write on, inscribe" (see epigraph ). Related: Epigrammatist. Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper Expand epigram definition Any pithy, witty saying or short poem. An aphorism can serve as an epigram, if it is brief. Note: Several authors are noted for their epigrams, including Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde . One of Wilde's epigrams is “I can resist everything except temptation.” Note: Two other words are similar: an epigraph is usually an inscription, as on a statue; an epitaph can be such an inscription or it can be a brief literary note commemorating a dead person. The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

epigram - WordReference.com Dictionary of English epigram WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2017 ep•i•gram /ˈɛpɪˌgræm/USA pronunciation n. [ countable ] a short and witty saying or poem:One of his favorite epigrams is "A picture is worth a thousand words.'' WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2017 ep•i•gram (ep′i gram′),USA pronunciation n. any witty, ingenious, or pointed saying tersely expressed. epigrammatic expression:Oscar Wilde had a genius for epigram. Literature, Poetrya short, often satirical poem dealing concisely with a single subject and usually ending with a witty or ingenious turn of thought. Greek epígramma inscription, epigram. See epi-, -gram1 Latin epigramma late Middle English 1400–50 1.See corresponding entry in Unabridged witticism, quip, bon mot.

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers:: epigram /ˈɛpɪˌɡræm/ n a witty, often paradoxical remark, concisely expressed a short, pungent, and often satirical poem, esp one having a witty and ingenious ending Etymology: 15th Century: from Latin epigramma, from Greek: inscription, from epigraphein to write upon, from graphein to write ˌepigramˈmatic adj ˌepigramˈmatically adv 10 Terms You Need to Know to Understand Poetry | The Huffington Post 10 Terms You Need to Know to Understand Poetry 04/15/2014 04:33 pm ET | Updated Jun 15, 2014 350 Edward Hirsch Poet Poetry is meant to inspire readers and listeners, to connect them more deeply to themselves even as it links them more fully to others. But many people feel put off by the terms of poetry, its odd vocabulary, its notorious difficulty.

They may like or even love individual poems--they often seek them for ritual occasions, like weddings and funerals--but they nonetheless feel that poetry itself isn't for them. They've been dispirited by their memories of school. I've always believed, however, that poetry goes well beyond the classroom and speaks to a wide variety of people in all kinds of circumstances. It delivers us to ourselves and helps us to live our lives. The terms of poetry--some simple, some complicated, some ancient, some new--should bring us closer to what we're hearing, enlarging our experience of it, enabling us to describe what we're reading, to feel and think with greater precision. I've spent more than a decade putting together A Poet's Glossary , a book of familiar and unfamiliar terms, a compendium of discoveries that has befriended me. The devices work the magic in poetry, and a glossary gives names to those devices. It unpacks them. It is meant to be useful, enjoyable, enlightening, something to keep at hand. Its ultimate purpose is to deepen the reader's initiation into the mysteries.

Here then are 10 key terms that can enlarge your understanding of poetry: rhythm: The word rhythm comes from the Greek word rhythmos, "measured motion," which in turn derives from a Greek verb meaning "to flow." Rhythm is sound in motion. It is related to the pulse, the heartbeat, the way we breathe. It rises and falls. It takes us into ourselves; it takes us out of ourselves. Rhythm is the combination in English of stressed and unstressed syllables that creates a feeling of fixity and flux, of surprise and inevitability. Rhythm creates a pattern of yearning and expectation, of recurrence and change. It is repetition with a difference. line: A unit of meaning, a measure of attention. The line is a way of framing poetry. All verse is measured by lines. The poetic line immediately announces its difference from everyday speech and prose. An autonomous line makes sense on its own, even if it is a fragment. It is end-stopped and completes a thought.

The first line in Keats's "Endymion" is end-stopped: "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." By contrast, an enjambed line carries the meaning over from one line to the next, as in the next four lines of Keats's poem: "Its loveliness increases; it will never / Pass into nothingness, but still will keep / A bower quiet for us, and a sleep / Full of sweet dreams..." Whether end-stopped or enjambed, however, the line in a poem moves horizontally, but the rhythm and sense also drive it vertically, and the meaning continues to accrue. iambic pentameter: A five-stress, roughly 10 syllable line. This fundamental line, established by Chaucer (1340?-1400) for English poetry, was energized when English attained a condition of relative stability in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.

It might be the traditional formal line closest to the form of our speech and thus has been especially favored by dramatists ever since Christopher Marlowe, whose play Tamburlaine (1587) inaugurated the greatest Elizabethan drama, and William Shakespeare, who used it with astonishing virtuosity and freedom. John Milton showed how supple and dignified the pentameter line could be in Paradise Lost (1667): "Of man's first disobedience, and the fall / Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste / Brought death into the world, and all our woe, / With loss of Eden, till one greater Man / Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, / Sing, Heav'nly Muse..." stanza: The natural unit of the lyric: a group or sequence of lines arranged in a pattern. A stanzaic pattern is traditionally defined by the meter and rhyme scheme, considered repeatable throughout a work. A stanzaic poem uses white space to create temporal and visual pauses. The word stanza means "room" in Italian -- "a station," "a stopping place" -- and each stanza in a poem is like a room in a house, a lyric dwelling place.

Each stanza has an identity, a structural place in the whole. As the line is a single unit of meaning, so the stanza comprises a larger rhythmic and thematic sequence. It is a basic division comparable to the paragraph in prose, but more discontinuous, more insistent as a separate melodic and rhetorical unit. In written poems stanzas are separated by white space, and this division on the printed page gives the poem a particular visual reality. metaphor: A figure of speech in which one thing is described in terms of another -- as when Walt Whitman characterizes the grass as "the beautiful uncut hair of graves." The term metaphor derives from the Greek metaphora, which means "carrying from one place to another," and a metaphor transfers the connotations of one thing (or idea) to another. It says A equals B ("Life is a dream"). It is a transfer of energies, a mode of energetic relation, of interpenetration, a matter of identity and difference, a collision, or collusion, in the identification of unlike things. Metaphor operates by condensation and compression. It works by a process of interaction and draws attention to the categories of language by crossing them.

Readers actively participate in making meaning through metaphor, in thinking through the conjoining -- the relation -- of unlike things. simile: The explicit comparison of one thing to another, using the word as or like -- as when Robert Burns writes: "My love is like a red, red rose / That's newly sprung in June: / My love is like the melodie / That's sweetly play'd in tune." The essence of simile is likeness and unlikeness, urging a comparison of two different things. A good simile depends on a kind of heterogeneity between the elements being compared. Similes are comparable to metaphors, but the difference between them is not merely grammatical. It is a difference in significance. Metaphor asserts an identity, but simile is a form of analogical thinking. The simile asserts a likeness between unlike things, but also draws attention to their differences. When Shakespeare asks, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" (Sonnet 18, 1609), he is drawing attention to the artificial process of figuration. sonnet: The fourteen-line rhyming poem was invented in southern Italy around 1235 or so.

The word sonnet derives from the Italian sonetto, meaning "a little sound" or "a little song," but the stateliness of the form belies the modesty of the word's derivation. Something about the spaciousness and brevity of the form seems to suit the contours of rhetorical argument, especially when the subject is erotic love. The two main types of sonnet form in English are the English, or Shakespearean sonnet (so-called because Shakespeare was its greatest practitioner), which consists of three quatrains and a couplet usually rhyming abab, cdcd, efef, gg, and the Italian, or Petrarchan sonnet (so-called because Petrarch was its greatest practitioner), which consists of an octave (eight lines rhyming abbaabba) and a sestet (six lines rhyming cdecde). The volta, or "turn," refers to the rhetorical division and shift between the opening eight lines and the concluding six. epigram: From the Greek epigramma, "to write upon." An epigram is a short, witty poem or pointed saying.

In Hellenistic Greece (third century B.C.E.), the epigram developed from an inscription carved in a stone monument or onto an object, such as a vase, into a literary genre in its own right. The Greek Anthology is filled with more than fifteen hundred epigrams of all sorts, including pungent lyrics on the pleasures of wine, women, boys, and song. The epigram has no particular form, though it often employs a rhymed couplet or quatrain, which can stand alone or serve as part of a longer work. Here is Alexander Pope's "Epigram from the French" (1732): "Sir, I admit your general rule, / That every poet is a fool: / But you yourself may serve to show it, / That every fool is not a poet." rhyme: The OED defines rhyme as "Agreement in the terminal sounds of two or more words or metrical lines, such that (in English prosody) the last stressed vowel and any sounds following it are the same, while the sound or sounds preceding it are different." Rhyme foregrounds the sounds of words as words. It is mnemonic: "Red sky at night, sailor's delight.

/ Red sky in morning, sailor's warning." Rhyme involves the inner correspondence of end sounds in words or in lines of verse. W. N. Ewer writes in "The Chosen People" (1924): "How odd / Of God / To choose / The Jews." This exemplifies exact rhyme, since the initial sounds are different, but all succeeding sounds are identical. It is called near rhyme when the final consonants are identical but the preceding vowels or consonants differ, as when W. B. Yeats rhymes houses and faces at the opening of "Easter, 1916." poem: A made thing, a verbal construct, an event in language. In ancient Greek, the word poiesis means "making." The medieval and Renaissance poets used the word makers, as in "courtly makers," as a precise equivalent for poets, hence William Dunbar's "Lament for the Makers" (1508). The word poem came into English in the sixteenth century and has been with us ever since to denote a form of fabrication, a verbal composition, a humanly created thing of art.

More: Poetry Terms Glossary (Reference) - TeacherVision Poetry Terms Glossary Poetry Terms Glossary This glossary of poetry terms – from Accent to Versification – will help your students better understand study and creation of of poetry. Grades: A-B | C-D | E-I | J-M | N-R | S-V Accent The prominence or emphasis given to a syllable or word. In the word poetry, the accent (or stress) falls on the first syllable. Alexandrine A line of poetry that has 12 syllables. The name probably comes from a medieval romance about Alexander the Great that was written in 12-syllable lines. Alliteration The repetition of the same or similar sounds at the beginning of words. Some famous examples of alliteration are tongue twisters such as She sells seashells by the seashore and Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Anapest A metrical foot of three syllables, two short (or unstressed) followed by one long (or stressed), as in seventeen and to the moon. The anapest is the reverse of the dactyl. Antithesis A figure of speech in which words and phrases with opposite meanings are balanced against each other.

An example of antithesis is "To err is human, to forgive, divine." (Alexander Pope) Apostrophe Words that are spoken to a person who is absent or imaginary, or to an object or abstract idea. The poem God's World by Edna St. Vincent Millay begins with an apostrophe: "O World, I cannot hold thee close enough!/Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!/Thy mists that roll and rise!" Assonance The repetition or a pattern of similar sounds, especially vowel sounds, as in the tongue twister "Moses supposes his toeses are roses." Ballad A poem that tells a story similar to a folk tale or legend and often has a repeated refrain. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is an example of a ballad. Ballade A type of poem, usually with three stanzas of seven, eight, or ten lines and a shorter final stanza (or envoy) of four or five lines. All stanzas end with the same one-line refrain. Blank verse Poetry that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in blank verse.

A-B | C-D | E-I | J-M | N-R | S-V Caesura A natural pause or break in a line of poetry, usually near the middle of the line. There is a caesura right after the question mark in the first line of this sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." Canzone A medieval Italian lyric poem, with five or six stanzas and a shorter concluding stanza (or envoy). The poets Petrarch and Dante Alighieri were masters of the canzone. Carpe diem A Latin expression that means "seize the day." Carpe diem poems urge the reader (or the person to whom they are addressed) to live for today and enjoy the pleasures of the moment. A famous carpe diem poem by Robert Herrick begins "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may . . ." Chanson de geste An epic poem of the 11th to the 14th century, written in Old French, which details the exploits of a historical or legendary figure, especially Charlemagne. Classicism The principles and ideals of beauty that are characteristic of Greek and Roman art, architecture, and literature.

Examples of classicism in poetry can be found in the works of John Dryden and Alexander Pope, which are characterized by their formality, simplicity, and emotional restraint. Conceit A fanciful poetic image or metaphor that likens one thing to something else that is seemingly very different. An example of a conceit can be found in Shakespeare's sonnet "target="_blank">Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" and in Emily Dickinson's poem "There is no frigate like a book." Consonance The repetition of similar consonant sounds, especially at the ends of words, as in lost and past or confess and dismiss. Couplet In a poem, a pair of lines that are the same length and usually rhyme and form a complete thought. Shakespearean sonnets usually end in a couplet. Dactyl A metrical foot of three syllables, one long (or stressed) followed by two short (or unstressed), as in happily. The dactyl is the reverse of the anapest. A-B | C-D | E-I | J-M | N-R | S-V Elegy A poem that laments the death of a person, or one that is simply sad and thoughtful.

An example of this type of poem is Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." Enjambment The continuation of a complete idea (a sentence or clause) from one line or couplet of a poem to the next line or couplet without a pause. An example of enjambment can be found in the first line of Joyce Kilmer's poem Trees: "I think that I shall never see/A poem as lovely as a tree." Enjambment comes from the French word for "to straddle." Envoy The shorter final stanza of a poem, as in a ballade. Epic A long, serious poem that tells the story of a heroic figure. Two of the most famous epic poems are the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, which tell about the Trojan War and the adventures of Odysseus on his voyage home after the war. Epigram A very short, witty poem: "Sir, I admit your general rule,/That every poet is a fool,/But you yourself may serve to show it,/That every fool is not a poet." (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) Epithalamium (or Epithalamion) A poem in honor of a bride and bridegroom.

Feminine rhyme A rhyme that occurs in a final unstressed syllable: pleasure/leisure, longing/yearning. Figure of speech A verbal expression in which words or sounds are arranged in a particular way to achieve a particular effect. Figures of speech are organized into different categories, such as alliteration, antithesis, assonance, hyperbole, litotes, metaphor, metonymy, onomatopoeia, simile, and synecdoche. Foot Two or more syllables that together make up the smallest unit of rhythm in a poem. For example, an iamb is a foot that has two syllables, one unstressed followed by one stressed. An anapest has three syllables, two unstressed followed by one stressed. Free verse (also vers libre) Poetry composed of either rhymed or unrhymed lines that have no set meter. Haiku A Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. Haiku often reflect on some aspect of nature. Heptameter A line of poetry that has seven metrical feet. Heroic couplet A stanza composed of two rhymed lines in iambic pentameter.

Hexameter A line of poetry that has six metrical feet. Hyperbole A figure of speech in which deliberate exaggeration is used for emphasis. Many everyday expressions are examples of hyperbole: tons of money, waiting for ages, a flood of tears, etc. Hyperbole is the opposite of litotes. Iamb A metrical foot of two syllables, one short (or unstressed) and one long (or stressed). There are four iambs in the line "Come live/ with me/ and be/ my love," from a poem by Christopher Marlowe. (The stressed syllables are in bold.) The iamb is the reverse of the trochee. Iambic pentameter A type of meter in poetry, in which there are five iambs to a line. (The prefix penta- means "five," as in pentagon, a geometrical figure with five sides. Meter refers to rhythmic units. In a line of iambic pentameter, there are five rhythmic units that are iambs.) Shakespeare's plays were written mostly in iambic pentameter, which is the most common type of meter in English poetry.

An example of an iambic pentameter line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is "But soft!/ What light/ through yon/der win/dow breaks?" Another, from Richard III, is "A horse!/ A horse!/ My king/dom for/ a horse!" (The stressed syllables are in bold.) Idyll, or Idyl Either a short poem depicting a peaceful, idealized country scene, or a long poem that tells a story about heroic deeds or extraordinary events set in the distant past. Idylls of the King, by Alfred Lord Tennyson, is about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. A-B | C-D | E-H | J-M | N-R | S-V Lay A long narrative poem, especially one that was sung by medieval minstrels called trouveres. The Lais of Marie de France are lays. Limerick A light, humorous poem of five usually anapestic lines with the rhyme scheme of aabba. Litotes A figure of speech in which a positive is stated by negating its opposite. Some examples of litotes: no small victory, not a bad idea, not unhappy. Litotes, which is a form of understatement, is the opposite of hyperbole.

Lyric A poem, such as a sonnet or an ode, that expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet. A lyric poem may resemble a song in form or style. Masculine rhyme A rhyme that occurs in a final stressed syllable: cat/hat, desire/fire, observe/deserve. Metaphor A figure of speech in which two things are compared, usually by saying one thing is another, or by substituting a more descriptive word for the more common or usual word that would be expected. Some examples of metaphors: the world's a stage, he was a lion in battle, drowning in debt, and a sea of troubles. Meter The arrangement of a line of poetry by the number of syllables and the rhythm of accented (or stressed) syllables. Metonymy A figure of speech in which one word is substituted for another with which it is closely associated. For example, in the expression The pen is mightier than the sword, the word pen is used for "the written word," and sword is used for "military power." Telling a story. Ballads, epics, and lays are different kinds of narrative poems.

Ode A lyric poem that is serious and thoughtful in tone and has a very precise, formal structure. John Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a famous example of this type of poem. Onomatopoeia A figure of speech in which words are used to imitate sounds. Examples of onomatopoeic words are buzz, hiss, zing, clippety-clop, cock-a-doodle-do, pop, splat, thump, and tick-tock. Another example of onomatopoeia is found in this line from Tennyson's Come Down, O Maid: "The moan of doves in immemorial elms,/And murmuring of innumerable bees." The repeated "m/n" sounds reinforce the idea of "murmuring" by imitating the hum of insects on a warm summer day. Ottava rima A type of poetry consisting of 10- or 11-syllable lines arranged in 8-line "octaves" with the rhyme scheme abababcc. Pastoral A poem that depicts rural life in a peaceful, idealized way. Pentameter A line of poetry that has five metrical feet.

Personification A figure of speech in which nonhuman things or abstract ideas are given human attributes: the sky is crying, dead leaves danced in the wind, blind justice. Poetry A type of literature that is written in meter. Quatrain A stanza or poem of four lines. Refrain A phrase, line, or group of lines that is repeated throughout a poem, usually after every stanza. Rhyme The occurrence of the same or similar sounds at the end of two or more words. When the rhyme occurs in a final stressed syllable, it is said to be masculine: cat/hat, desire/fire, observe/deserve. When the rhyme occurs in a final unstressed syllable, it is said to be feminine: pleasure/leisure, longing/yearning. The pattern of rhyme in a stanza or poem is shown usually by using a different letter for each final sound. In a poem with an aabba rhyme scheme, the first, second, and fifth lines end in one sound, and the third and fourth lines end in another. Rhyme royal A type of poetry consisting of stanzas of seven lines in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme ababbcc.

Rhyme royal was an innovation introduced by Geoffrey Chaucer. Romanticism The principles and ideals of the Romantic movement in literature and the arts during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Romanticism, which was a reaction to the classicism of the early 18th century, favored feeling over reason and placed great emphasis on the subjective, or personal, experience of the individual. Nature was also a major theme. The great English Romantic poets include Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. A-B | C-D | E-H | J-M | N-R | S-V Scansion The analysis of a poem's meter. This is usually done by marking the stressed and unstressed syllables in each line and then, based on the pattern of the stresses, dividing the line into feet. Senryu A short Japanese poem that is similar to a haiku in structure but treats human beings rather than nature, often in a humorous or satiric way.

Simile A figure of speech in which two things are compared using the word "like" or "as." An example of a simile using like occurs in Langston Hughes's poem Harlem: "What happens to a dream deferred?/ Does it dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?" Sonnet A lyric poem that is 14 lines long. Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnets are divided into two quatrains and a six-line "sestet," with the rhyme scheme abba abba cdecde (or cdcdcd). English (or Shakespearean) sonnets are composed of three quatrains and a final couplet, with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. English sonnets are written generally in iambic pentameter. Spondee A metrical foot of two syllables, both of which are long (or stressed). Stanza Two or more lines of poetry that together form one of the divisions of a poem. The stanzas of a poem are usually of the same length and follow the same pattern of meter and rhyme. Stress The prominence or emphasis given to particular syllables.

Stressed syllables usually stand out because they have long, rather than short, vowels, or because they have a different pitch or are louder than other syllables. Synecdoche A figure of speech in which a part is used to designate the whole or the whole is used to designate a part. For example, the phrase "all hands on deck" means "all men on deck," not just their hands. The reverse situation, in which the whole is used for a part, occurs in the sentence "The U.S. beat Russia in the final game," where the U.S. and Russia stand for "the U.S. team" and "the Russian team," respectively. Tanka A Japanese poem of five lines, the first and third composed of five syllables and the rest of seven. Terza rima A type of poetry consisting of 10- or 11-syllable lines arranged in three-line "tercets" with the rhyme scheme aba bcb cdc, etc. The poet Dante is credited with inventing terza rima, which he used in his Divine Comedy.

Terza rima was borrowed into English by Chaucer, and it has been used by many English poets, including Milton, Shelley, and Auden. Tetrameter A line of poetry that has four metrical feet. Trochee A metrical foot of two syllables, one long (or stressed) and one short (or unstressed). An easy way to remember the trochee is to memorize the first line of a lighthearted poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which demonstrates the use of various kinds of metrical feet: "Trochee/ trips from/ long to/ short." (The stressed syllables are in bold.) The trochee is the reverse of the iamb. Trope A figure of speech, such as metaphor or metonymy, in which words are not used in their literal (or actual) sense but in a figurative (or imaginative) sense. Verse A single metrical line of poetry, or poetry in general (as opposed to prose). Versification Literature | Glossary of Poetic Terms Glossary of Poetic Terms Allegory A symbolic narrative in which the surface details imply a secondary meaning.

Allegory often takes the form of a story in which the characters represent moral qualities. The most famous example in English is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, in which the name of the central character, Pilgrim, epitomizes the book's allegorical nature. Kay Boyle's story "Astronomer's Wife" and Christina Rossetti's poem "Up-Hill" both contain allegorical elements. Alliteration The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words. Example: "Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood." Hopkins, "In the Valley of the Elwy." Anapest Two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one, as in com-pre-HEND or in-ter-VENE. An anapestic meter rises to the accented beat as in Byron's lines from "The Destruction of Sennacherib": "And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, / When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee." Antagonist A character or force against which another character struggles.

Creon is Antigone's antagonist in Sophocles' play Antigone; Teiresias is the antagonist of Oedipus in Sophocles' Oedipus the King. Assonance The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry or prose, as in "I rose and told him of my woe." Whitman's "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" contains assonantal "I's" in the following lines: "How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, / Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself." Aubade A love lyric in which the speaker complains about the arrival of the dawn, when he must part from his lover. John Donne's "The Sun Rising" exemplifies this poetic genre. Ballad A narrative poem written in four-line stanzas , characterized by swift action and narrated in a direct style. The Anonymous medieval ballad, "Barbara Allan," exemplifies the genre. Blank verse A line of poetry or prose in unrhymed iambic pentameter .

Shakespeare's sonnets, Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, and Robert Frost's meditative poems such as "Birches" include many lines of blank verse. Here are the opening blank verse lines of "Birches": When I see birches bend to left and right / Across the lines of straighter darker trees, / I like to think some boy's been swinging them. Caesura A strong pause within a line of verse. The following stanza from Hardy's "The Man He Killed" contains caesuras in the middle two lines: He thought he'd 'list, perhaps, Off-hand-like--just as I-- Was out of work-had sold his traps-- No other reason why. Character An imaginary person that inhabits a literary work. Literary characters may be major or minor, static (unchanging) or dynamic (capable of change). In Shakespeare's Othello, Desdemona is a major character, but one who is static, like the minor character Bianca. Othello is a major character who is dynamic, exhibiting an ability to change. Characterization The means by which writers present and reveal character.

Although techniques of characterization are complex, writers typically reveal characters through their speech, dress, manner, and actions. Readers come to understand the character Miss Emily in Faulkner's story "A Rose for Emily" through what she says, how she lives, and what she does. Climax The turning point of the action in the plot of a play or story. The climax represents the point of greatest tension in the work. The climax of John Updike's "A&P," for example, occurs when Sammy quits his job as a cashier. Closed form A type of form or structure in poetry characterized by regularity and consistency in such elements as rhyme, line length, and metrical pattern . Frost's "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" provides one of many examples. A single stanza illustrates some of the features of closed form: Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though. He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. Complication An intensification of the conflict in a story or play. Complication builds up, accumulates, and develops the primary or central conflict in a literary work.

Frank O'Connor's story "Guests of the Nation" provides a striking example, as does Ralph Ellison's "Battle Royal." Conflict A struggle between opposing forces in a story or play, usually resolved by the end of the work. The conflict may occur within a character as well as between characters. Lady Gregory's one-act play The Rising of the Moon exemplifies both types of conflict as the Policeman wrestles with his conscience in an inner conflict and confronts an antagonist in the person of the ballad singer. Connotation The associations called up by a word that goes beyond its dictionary meaning. Poets, especially, tend to use words rich in connotation. Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" includes intensely connotative language, as in these lines: "Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright / Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, / Rage, rage against the dying of the light." Convention A customary feature of a literary work, such as the use of a chorus in Greek tragedy, the inclusion of an explicit moral in a fable , or the use of a particular rhyme scheme in a villanelle .

Literary conventions are defining features of particular literary genres, such as novel, short story, ballad, sonnet, and play. Couplet A pair of rhymed lines that may or may not constitute a separate stanza in a poem. Shakespeare's sonnets end in rhymed couplets, as in "For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings / That then I scorn to change my state with kings." Dactyl A stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones, as in FLUT-ter-ing or BLUE-ber-ry. The following playful lines illustrate double dactyls, two dactyls per line: Higgledy, piggledy, Gibbering, jabbering. Denotation The dictionary meaning of a word. Writers typically play off a word's denotative meaning against its connotations, or suggested and implied associational implications.

In the following lines from Peter Meinke's "Advice to My Son" the references to flowers and fruit, bread and wine denote specific things, but also suggest something beyond the literal, dictionary meanings of the words: To be specific, between the peony and rose Plant squash and spinach, turnips and tomatoes; Beauty is nectar and nectar, in a desert, saves-- ... always serve wine. Denouement The resolution of the plot of a literary work. The denouement of Hamlet takes place after the catastrophe , with the stage littered with corpses. During the denouement Fortinbras makes an entrance and a speech, and Horatio speaks his sweet lines in praise of Hamlet. Dialogue The conversation of characters in a literary work. In fiction, dialogue is typically enclosed within quotation marks. In plays, characters' speech is preceded by their names. Diction The selection of words in a literary work. A work's diction forms one of its centrally important literary elements, as writers use words to convey action, reveal character, imply attitudes, identify themes, and suggest values. We can speak of the diction particular to a character, as in Iago's and Desdemona's very different ways of speaking in Othello.

We can also refer to a poet's diction as represented over the body of his or her work, as in Donne's or Hughes's diction. Elegy A lyric poem that laments the dead. Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays" is elegiac in tone. A more explicitly identified elegy is W.H. Auden's "In Memory of William Butler Yeats" and his "Funeral Blues." Elision The omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a line of poetry. Alexander uses elision in "Sound and Sense": "Flies o'er th' unbending corn...." Enjambment A run-on line of poetry in which logical and grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next. An enjambed line differs from an end-stopped line in which the grammatical and logical sense is completed within the line. In the opening lines of Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," for example, the first line is end-stopped and the second enjambed: That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now.... Epic A long narrative poem that records the adventures of a hero.

Epics typically chronicle the origins of a civilization and embody its central values. Examples from western literature include Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, and Milton's Paradise Lost. Epigram A brief witty poem, often satirical. Alexander Pope's "Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog" exemplifies the genre: I am his Highness' dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you? Exposition The first stage of a fictional or dramatic plot, in which necessary background information is provided. Ibsen's A Doll's House, for instance, begins with a conversation between the two central characters, a dialogue that fills the audience in on events that occurred before the action of the play begins, but which are important in the development of its plot. Falling action In the plot of a story or play, the action following the climax of the work that moves it towards its denouement or resolution. The falling action of Othello begins after Othello realizes that Iago is responsible for plotting against him by spurring him on to murder his wife, Desdemona.

Falling meter Poetic meters such as trochaic and dactylic that move or fall from a stressed to an unstressed syllable. The nonsense line, "Higgledy, piggledy," is dactylic, with the accent on the first syllable and the two syllables following falling off from that accent in each word. Trochaic meter is represented by this line: "Hip-hop, be-bop, treetop--freedom." Fiction An imagined story, whether in prose, poetry, or drama. Ibsen's Nora is fictional, a "make-believe" character in a play, as are Hamlet and Othello. Characters like Robert Browning's Duke and Duchess from his poem "My Last Duchess" are fictional as well, though they may be based on actual historical individuals. And, of course, characters in stories and novels are fictional, though they, too, may be based, in some way, on real people. The important thing to remember is that writers embellish and embroider and alter actual life when they use real life as the basis for their work.

They fictionalize facts, and deviate from real-life situations as they "make things up." Figurative language A form of language use in which writers and speakers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words. Examples include hyperbole or exaggeration, litotes or understatement, simile and metaphor, which employ comparison, and synecdoche and metonymy, in which a part of a thing stands for the whole. Flashback An interruption of a work's chronology to describe or present an incident that occurred prior to the main time frame of a work's action. Writers use flashbacks to complicate the sense of chronology in the plot of their works and to convey the richness of the experience of human time. Faulkner's story "A Rose for Emily" includes flashbacks. Foil A character who contrasts and parallels the main character in a play or story. Laertes, in Hamlet, is a foil for the main character; in Othello, Emilia and Bianca are foils for Desdemona. Foot A metrical unit composed of stressed and unstressed syllables.

For example, an iamb or iambic foot is represented by ˘', that is, an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one. Frost's line "Whose woods these are I think I know" contains four iambs, and is thus an iambic foot. Foreshadowing Hints of what is to come in the action of a play or a story. Ibsen's A Doll's House includes foreshadowing as does Synge's Riders to the Sea. So, too, do Poe's "Cask of Amontillado" and Chopin's "Story of an Hour." Free verse Poetry without a regular pattern of meter or rhyme. The verse is "free" in not being bound by earlier poetic conventions requiring poems to adhere to an explicit and identifiable meter and rhyme scheme in a form such as the sonnet or ballad. Modern and contemporary poets of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries often employ free verse. Williams's "This Is Just to Say" is one of many examples. Hyperbole A figure of speech involving exaggeration.

John Donne uses hyperbole in his poem: "Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star." Iamb An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, as in to-DAY. See Foot . Image A concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea. Imagery refers to the pattern of related details in a work. In some works one image predominates either by recurring throughout the work or by appearing at a critical point in the plot. Often writers use multiple images throughout a work to suggest states of feeling and to convey implications of thought and action. Some modern poets, such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, write poems that lack discursive explanation entirely and include only images. Among the most famous examples is Pound's poem "In a Station of the Metro": The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. Imagery The pattern of related comparative aspects of language, particularly of images, in a literary work. Imagery of light and darkness pervade James Joyce's stories "Araby," "The Boarding House," and "The Dead." So, too, does religious imagery.

Irony A contrast or discrepancy between what is said and what is meant or between what happens and what is expected to happen in life and in literature. In verbal irony, characters say the opposite of what they mean. In irony of circumstance or situation, the opposite of what is expected occurs. In dramatic irony, a character speaks in ignorance of a situation or event known to the audience or to the other characters. Flannery O'Connor's short stories employ all these forms of irony, as does Poe's "Cask of Amontillado." Literal language A form of language in which writers and speakers mean exactly what their words denote. See Figurative language , Denotation , and Connotation . Lyric poem A type of poem characterized by brevity, compression, and the expression of feeling. Most of the poems in this book are lyrics. The anonymous "Western Wind" epitomizes the genre: Western wind, when will thou blow, The small rain down can rain? Christ, if my love were in my arms And I in my bed again! Metaphor A comparison between essentially unlike things without an explicitly comparative word such as like or as.

An example is "My love is a red, red rose," From Burns's "A Red, Red Rose." Langston Hughes's "Dream Deferred" is built entirely of metaphors. Metaphor is one of the most important of literary uses of language. Shakespeare employs a wide range of metaphor in his sonnets and his plays, often in such density and profusion that readers are kept busy analyzing and interpreting and unraveling them. Compare Simile . Meter The measured pattern of rhythmic accents in poems. See Foot and Iamb . Metonymy A figure of speech in which a closely related term is substituted for an object or idea. An example: "We have always remained loyal to the crown." See Synecdoche . Narrative poem A poem that tells a story. See Ballad . Narrator The voice and implied speaker of a fictional work, to be distinguished from the actual living author. For example, the narrator of Joyce's "Araby" is not James Joyce himself, but a literary fictional character created expressly to tell the story. Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" contains a communal narrator, identified only as "we." See Point of view .

Octave An eight-line unit, which may constitute a stanza ; or a section of a poem, as in the octave of a sonnet . Ode A long, stately poem in stanzas of varied length, meter , and form. Usually a serious poem on an exalted subject, such as Horace's "Eheu fugaces," but sometimes a more lighthearted work, such as Neruda's "Ode to My Socks." Onomatopoeia The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe. Words such as buzz and crack are onomatopoetic. The following line from Pope's "Sound and Sense" onomatopoetically imitates in sound what it describes: When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labors, and the words move slow. Most often, however, onomatopoeia refers to words and groups of words, such as Tennyson's description of the "murmur of innumerable bees," which attempts to capture the sound of a swarm of bees buzzing.

Open form A type of structure or form in poetry characterized by freedom from regularity and consistency in such elements as rhyme, line length, metrical pattern , and overall poetic structure. E.E. Cummings's "[Buffalo Bill's]" is one example. See also Free verse . Parody A humorous, mocking imitation of a literary work, sometimes sarcastic, but often playful and even respectful in its playful imitation. Examples include Bob McKenty's parody of Frost's "Dust of Snow" and Kenneth Koch's parody of Williams's "This is Just to Say." Personification The endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities. An example: "The yellow leaves flaunted their color gaily in the breeze." Wordsworth's "I wandered lonely as a cloud" includes personification. Plot The unified structure of incidents in a literary work. See Conflict , Climax , Denouement , and Flashback . Point of view The angle of vision from which a story is narrated. See Narrator .

A work's point of view can be: first person, in which the narrator is a character or an observer, respectively; objective, in which the narrator knows or appears to know no more than the reader; omniscient, in which the narrator knows everything about the characters; and limited omniscient, which allows the narrator to know some things about the characters but not everything. Protagonist The main character of a literary work--Hamlet and Othello in the plays named after them, Gregor Samsa in Kafka's Metamorphosis, Paul in Lawrence's "Rocking-Horse Winner." Pyrrhic A metrical foot with two unstressed syllables ("of the"). Quatrain A four-line stanza in a poem, the first four lines and the second four lines in a Petrachan sonnet. A Shakespearean sonnet contains three quatrains followed by a couplet. Recognition The point at which a character understands his or her situation as it really is. Sophocles' Oedipus comes to this point near the end of Oedipus the King; Othello comes to a similar understanding of his situation in Act V of Othello.

Resolution The sorting out or unraveling of a plot at the end of a play, novel, or story. See Plot . Reversal The point at which the action of the plot turns in an unexpected direction for the protagonist . Oedipus's and Othello's recognitions are also reversals. They learn what they did not expect to learn. See Recognition and also Irony . Rhyme The matching of final vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words. The following stanza of "Richard Cory" employs alternate rhyme, with the third line rhyming with the first and the fourth with the second: Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him; He was a gentleman from sole to crown Clean favored and imperially slim. Rhythm The recurrence of accent or stress in lines of verse. In the following lines from "Same in Blues" by Langston Hughes, the accented words and syllables are underlined: I said to my baby, Baby take it slow.... I want a diamond ring Rising action A set of conflicts and crises that constitute the part of a play's or story's plot leading up to the climax . See Climax , Denouement , and Plot .

Rising meter Poetic meters such as iambic and anapestic that move or ascend from an unstressed to a stressed syllable. See Anapest , Iamb , and Falling meter . Satire A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies. Swift's Gulliver's Travels is a famous example. Chekhov's Marriage Proposal and O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge," have strong satirical elements. Sestet A six-line unit of verse constituting a stanza or section of a poem; the last six lines of an Italian sonnet . Examples: Petrarch's "If it is not love, then what is it that I feel," and Frost's "Design." Sestina A poem of thirty-nine lines and written in iambic pentameter. Its six-line stanza repeat in an intricate and prescribed order the final word in each of the first six lines. After the sixth stanza , there is a three-line envoi, which uses the six repeating words, two per line. Setting The time and place of a literary work that establish its context.

The stories of Sandra Cisneros are set in the American southwest in the mid to late 20th century, those of James Joyce in Dublin, Ireland in the early 20th century. Simile A figure of speech involving a comparison between unlike things using like, as, or as though. An example: "My love is like a red, red rose." Sonnet A fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter . The Shakespearean or English sonnet is arranged as three quatrains and a final couplet , rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet divides into two parts: an eight-line octave and a six-line sestet, rhyming abba abba cde cde or abba abba cd cd cd. Spondee A metrical foot represented by two stressed syllables, such as KNICK-KNACK. Stanza A division or unit of a poem that is repeated in the same form--either with similar or identical patterns or rhyme and meter , or with variations from one stanza to another.

The stanzas of Gertrude Schnackenberg's "Signs" are regular; those of Rita Dove's "Canary" are irregular. Style The way an author chooses words, arranges them in sentences or in lines of dialogue or verse, and develops ideas and actions with description, imagery, and other literary techniques. See Connotation , Denotation , Diction , Figurative language , Image , Imagery , Irony , Metaphor , Narrator , Point of view , Syntax , and Tone . Subject What a story or play is about; to be distinguished from plot and theme . Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is about the decline of a particular way of life endemic to the American south before the civil war. Its plot concerns how Faulkner describes and organizes the actions of the story's characters. Its theme is the overall meaning Faulkner conveys. Subplot A subsidiary or subordinate or parallel plot in a play or story that coexists with the main plot. The story of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern forms a subplot with the overall plot of Hamlet. Symbol An object or action in a literary work that means more than itself, that stands for something beyond itself.

The glass unicorn in The Glass Menagerie, the rocking horse in "The Rocking-Horse Winner," the road in Frost's "The Road Not Taken"--all are symbols in this sense. Synecdoche A figure of speech in which a part is substituted for the whole. An example: "Lend me a hand." See Metonymy . Syntax The grammatical order of words in a sentence or line of verse or dialogue. The organization of words and phrases and clauses in sentences of prose, verse, and dialogue. In the following example, normal syntax (subject, verb, object order) is inverted: "Whose woods these are I think I know." Tercet A three-line stanza , as the stanzas in Frost's "Acquainted With the Night" and Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind." The three-line stanzas or sections that together constitute the sestet of a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet. Theme The idea of a literary work abstracted from its details of language, character, and action, and cast in the form of a generalization.

See discussion of Dickinson's "Crumbling is not an instant's Act." Tone The implied attitude of a writer toward the subject and characters of a work, as, for example, Flannery O'Connor's ironic tone in her "Good Country People." See Irony . Trochee

Question: What term for a short, usually witty, poem or saying derives from the Greek words 'write' and 'on'?
Answer: Epigram