Poetry Terms

1. Poetry Terms terms that have to do with sound and meaning

2. ALLITERATION commencement of two or more words of a word group with the same letter

3. ALLITERATION from “Acquainted with the Night”by Robert Frost I have stood still and stopped the sound of feetWhen far away an interrupted cryCame over houses from another street

4. ASSONANCE also called “vowel rhyme”— the same vowel sounds are used with different consonants in the stressed syllables of words (“penitent” and “reticence”); a partial agreement or correspondence in sounds

5. ASSONANCE from  “Daffodils” by William Wordsworth “I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”

6. CONSONANCE correspondence of consonants, especially those at the end of a word; use of the repetition of consonants or consonant patterns

7. CONSONANCE from “ ‘T was later when the summer went” by Emily Dickinson ‘T was later when the summer wentThan when the cricket came,And yet we knew that gentle clockMeant nought but going home.

8. TONE quality or character of sound the writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward his subject, his audience, or himself; the emotional coloring, or emotional meaning, of a work.

9. TONE “Jenny Kissed Me” by James Henry Leigh Hunt Jenny kissed me when we met,Jumping from the chair she sat in;Time, you thief, who love to getSweets into your list, put that in!Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,Say that health and wealth have missed me,Say I'm growing old, but add,Jenny kissed me. 

10. WORD CHOICES Go to The Writing Center

11. MEANING purpose or intention

13. DENOTATIVE the explicit meaning of the word

14. DENOTATIVE there are many words that denote approximately the same thing, but their connotations are very different  innocent and genuine both denote an absence of corruption

15. CONNOTATIVE signifying or suggesting an associative or secondary meaning in addition to the primary meaning

16. CONNOTATIVE innocent is often associated with a lack of experience, where genuine is not poets use connotations to further develop or complicate a poem’s meaning.

17. FIGURATIVE metaphorical and not literal

18. FIGURATIVE Go to Frost Friends

19. ALLUSIONS a passing or casual reference; an incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication

20. ALLUSIONS from “Parable of the Hostages” by Louise Glück The Greeks are sitting on the beach wondering what to do when the war ends. No one wants to go home, back to that bony island; everyone wants a little more of what there is in Troy

21. ANALOGIES a similarity or comparability between like features of two different things

22. ANALOGIES from “Night Clouds” by Amy Lowell The white mares of the moon rush along the sky Beating their golden hoofs upon the glass Heavens; The white mares of the moon are all standing on their hind legs Pawing at the green porcelain doors of the remote Heavens. Fly, Mares!