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Poetry Terms
Poetry Terms WGU
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Stanza | A recurring pattern of 2 or more lines of verse, poetry's equal to a paragraph |
| Couplet | A 2 line stanza in poetry, usually rhymed which tends to have lines of equal length. |
| Tercet | A group of 3 lines of verse, usually all ending in the same rhyme. |
| Quatrain | A stanza consisting of 4 lines. The most common stanza used in English language poetry. |
| Sestet | A poem or stanza of 6 lines. Usually used when speaking of the last 6 lines in an Italian sonnet. |
| Octave | A stanza of eight lines. First eight lines of an Italian sonnet. |
| Verse | Refers to any single line of poetry, or to any composition in lines of more/less regular rhythm. |
| Stress | An emphasis or accent placed on a syllable in speech. |
| Symbol | A person, place, or thing in a narrative that has multiple meanings beyond it's literal sense. |
| Free Verse | A type of poetry written NOT using strict meter or rhyme. |
| Prose Poetry | Poetry written in a block paragraph form. |
| Visual Poetry | Arranging the words of a poem to make the outline of the words represent a meaning of the poem. |
| Found Poetry | Arranging poetry from unlikely places (road signs, etc), where you may delete and repeat, but not add anything. |
| Accentual-syllabic | A meter that uses a consistent # of stresses per line. Unstressed syllables may vary, but stressed syllables do not. |
| Ballad | A poem meant to be sung, with a compressed,dramatic, narrative style made up of quatrains. |
| Conceit | A poetic device using dramatic comparisons. Ex: equating a loved one with the beauty of the world. |
| Diction | Word choice or vocabulary. May be specific (concrete) or abstract. |
| Epic | A long narrative poem depicting the adventures of a legendary or mythic hero. |
| Enjambment | Run on lines. Moving from one sentence to the next without punctuation. |
| Figurative Language | Intentional departure from the normal meaning of words. Describing something by comparison. |
| Foot | The unit of measure in poetry made up by the pattern and order of stressed & unstressed syllables. |
| Monometer | A verse meter made up of one primary stress per line. |
| Dimeter | A verse meter made up of two metric feet or two primary stresses per line |
| Trimeter | A verse meter made up of three metric feet or three primary stresses per line. |
| Tetrameter | A verse meter made up of four metric feet or four primary stresses per line. |
| Pentameter | A verse meter made up of five metric feet or five primary stresses per line. |
| Hexameter | A verse meter made up of six metric feet or six primary stresses per line. |
| Heptameter | A verse meter made up of seven metric feet or seven primary stresses per line. |
| Octameter | A verse meter made up of eight metric feet or eight primary stresses per line. |
| Nonameter | A verse meter made up of nine metric feet or nine primary stresses per line. |
| Decameter | A verse meter made up of ten metric feet or ten primary stresses per line. |
| Form | The way in which an author expresses the meaning & content of their work. |
| Blank Verse | Unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter. |
| Haiku | A Japanese verse form with 3 unrhymed lines of 5,7,5 syllables. Usually set in nature. |
| Limerick | A short,comic verse of 5 lines usually rhyming aabba, with stresses per line 3,3,2,2,3. |
| Epigram | A very short, comic poem usually ending with a sharp turn of wit or meaning. |
| Triolet | A short lyric poem of 8 rhymed lines. The 2 opening lines are repeated according to a set pattern. |
| Villanelle | 6 rhymed stanzas in which 2 lines are repeated in a prescribed pattern. |
| Sestina | A complex verse, where 6 END words are repeated in a prescribed order through 6 stanzas and ends with 3 lines in which all 6 words appear. 39 lines total. |
| Imagery | The collective set of images in a poem. |
| Internal Rhyme | Rhyme that occurs within a line of poetry, as opposed to end rhyme. |
| Lyric | A short poem, written in first person, portraying their thoughts and feelings with a songlike immediacy and emotional force. |
| Meter | A recurrent, regular,rhythmic pattern in verse when stresses recur at fixed intervals. |
| Iambic | (u /) A metrical foot in which an unaccented syllable is followed by an accented syllable. |
| Trochaic | (/ u) A metrical foot in which an accented syllable is followed by and unaccented syllable. |
| Anapestic | (uu/)A metrical foot in which 2 unaccented syllables are followed by 1 accented syllable. |
| Dactylic | (/uu)A metrical foot in which 1 accented syllables are followed by 2 unaccented syllable. |
| Monologue | An extended speech by a single character where the speech has listeners. |
| Narrative Poetry | A poem that tells a story. |
| Ode | A poem directed to a single purpose with a single theme. Accompanied by music. |
| Rhyme Scheme | Any recurrent pattern of rhyme within a poem. Represented by small letters for end rhyme. |
| Exact Rhyme | A full rhyme in which the sounds following the initial letters are identical. |
| Slant Rhyme | A rhyme in which the final consonant sounds are the same but the vowel sounds are different. Ex. litter & letter |
| End Rhyme | Rhyme that occurs at the ends of lines, rather than within them. |
| Scansion | Used to describe rhythmic patterns by diagnosing metrical feet, syllables, accents, and pauses. |
| Syllabic Verse | A pattern of a certain number of syllables to a line. |
| Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet | Love poetry 14 lines, broken into an Octave (abba, abba) and a Sestet with any rhyme scheme as long as it does not end in a couplet. Turns focus after the octave. |
| English or Shakespearean Sonnet | Love poetry 14 lines, broken into 3 Quatrains and a Couplet. abab cdcd efef gg . Turns after the quatrains. |
| Spenserian Sonnet | Love poetry 14 lines,3 Quatrains and a Couplet.abab bcbc cdcd ee. Turns after the quatrains. |
| Transferred Epithet | A figure of speech where the poet attributes some characteristic of a thing to another thing closly related to it. A kind of metonymy. Places an adj next to a noun where it does not seem logical, but has expressive power. Ex: "blind mouths" |