Poetry Terms

1. Poetry Terms • General Elements • Figurative Language • Sound Devices • Forms of Poetry • Types of Poetry

2. Elements: Stanza • Formal division of lines in a poem • Considered a unit • Separated by spaces • Couplets: two lines • Quatrains: four lines

3. Speaker • Imaginary voice assumed by poet • Often not identified by name • May be person, animal, thing, or abstraction • E.g.: Dickinson as dead person: “Because I could not stop for Death-He kindly stopped for me-”

4. Tone • Writer’s attitude to audience and subject • E.g.: formal or informal serious, playful, pompous bitter, ironic, personal sympathetic, friendly grieving, sarcastic, harsh

5. Allusion • Reference to well-known person, place, event, literary work, or art • Usually to the Bible or to mythology • E.g.: “The Magi . . . were wise men . . . who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger.”

6. Connotation • Ideas or meanings associated with a word (in addition to dictionary definition) • E.g.: “caged bird” = sad, trapped creature “previously owned vehicle” = used car “vacation spot” = lake Compare: fragrance, smell, stench

7. Denotation • Dictionary definition of a word • Independent of other associations (connotations) • E.g.: lake • Denotation: inland body of water • Connotation: vacation or fishing spot

8. Paradox • Statement that seems contradictory but may be true • Surprising, catches reader’s attention • E.g.: “Youth is wasted on the young.” “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

9. Symbol • Object has own meaning but also represents abstract idea • Stands for something else • E.g.: • Flag symbolizes country • Scarlet ibis symbolizes Doodle and other people who struggle

10. Figurative Language • Writing not meant to interpret literally • Compares dissimilar things • Creates vivid impressions • Metaphors, similes, personifications • E.g.: • “My black eyes are coals burningLike a low, full jungle moonThrough the darkness of being”

11. Fig Lang: Metaphor • Figure of speech • A comparison • One thing spoken of as if it is something else • E.g.: “Poetry is a river.” “The sky is a patchwork quilt.”

12. Fig Lang: Simile • Figure of speech, comparison • Uses like or as to compare two unlike ideas • E.g.: • “The morning sun is like a red rubber ball.” • “Does it dry up, like a raisin in the sun?”

13. Fig Lang: Imagery • Descriptive or figurative language • Creates word pictures (images) • Details of sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, or movement • E.g.: “ghostly marching on pavement stones” “wind-tanned skin” “wise black pools”

14. Fig Lang: Personification • Figurative language • Nonhuman subject given human characteristics • E.g.: “The wind danced in the trees.” Daffodils “tossing their heads in sprightly dance” Storm “tosses her hair, throws back her head, and closes her eyes”

15. Fig Lang: Extended Metaphor • Writing about a subject as if it were something else • Comparison several lines long or entire poem • E.g.: “caged bird” becomes person who is not free “broken-winged bird that cannot fly” becomes life without a dream

16. Fig Lang: Sensory Words/Lang • Writing that appeals to the senses - images • Provides details related to senses • E.g.: feeling the sun beating down on one’s head

17. Sound Devices: Onomatopoeia • Words that imitate sounds • E.g.: murmur, thud, sizzle, hiss, buzz, bang, pop, cuckoo • E.g.: Poe’s “Bells” “Of the bells, bells, bells, bells” ringing, chiming, jangling, rangling, clang, clash, roar”

18. Sound Devices: Assonance • Repetition of vowel sounds followed by different consonants in 2 or more stressed syllables • E.g.: “weak and weary” “child of silence” “so rolling…a stone”

19. Sound Devices: Alliteration • Repetition of initial consonant sounds • Emphasizes words, imitates sounds, creates musical effects • E.g.: “I grew like a thin, stubborn weed, watering myself whatever way I could.” “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.” “The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew.”

20. Sound Devices: Rhyme • Repetition of sounds at ends of words • End rhyme vs. internal rhyme • E.g.: “Swans sing before they die—’twere no bad thing Should certain persons die before they sing.” (end) “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary.”(internal) • Exact rhyme vs. slant rhyme (slant rhyme – similar but not identical sounds) • E.g.: ball and hall (exact) hold and bald (slant)

21. Sound Devices: Repetition • Use of any language element – a sound, word, phrase, clause, or sentence – more than once • Used for musical effects and for emphasis • E.g.: • Alliteration, assonance, rhyme, rhythm repeat sounds • Refrain repeats line/s • “You liked winning…You liked writing…You liked all the faces…”

22. Sound Devices: Refrain • Regularly repeated line or group of lines In music: a chorus E.g.: Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.” “Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity.”

23. Sound Devices: Rhythm • Pattern of beats or stresses • Some poems have a specific pattern or meter • E.g.: “There was a young lady named brightWhose speed was far faster than light;” • Prose and free verse use natural rhythms of everyday speech

24. Forms of Poetry: Fixed Form • Stanzas have repeated or predictable patterns • Words in each stanza may rhyme or sound alike • Length and rhythm of stanzas are related • Number of syllables in line may be fixed

25. Forms of Poetry: Free Form or Free Verse • Lacks structure or pattern • Words may not rhyme • Lines do not match in number of syllables, length, or rhythm

26. Types of Poetry: Sonnet • 14-line lyric poem • Formal patterns of rhyme, rhythm and line structure Two types: English, or Shakespearean (3 quatrains + couplet) Italian, or Petrarchan (octave + sestet)

27. Types of Poetry: Haiku • 3-line verse form • 1st and 3rd lines: 5 syllables (?) • 2nd line: 7 syllables (?) • Single vivid emotion • Images from nature • E.g.: Basho: • “furu-ike ya “An old pondkawazu tobi-komu A frog jumps inMizu-no-oto” The sound of water”

28. Types of Poetry: Lyric Poem • Brief poem • Musical verse: uses rhythm, alliteration, and rhyme • Observations and feelings of one speaker • Sung with lyre in ancient times

29. Types of Poetry: Narrative Poem • Tells a story in verse • May be an epic or a ballad • E.g.: • “Casey at the Bat”: humorous narrative poem • Poe’s “Raven”: serious narrative poem

30. Types of Poetry: Ballad • Songlike poem that tells a story • Often adventure and romance • Most written in 4 to 6-line stanzas, regular rhythms and rhyme schemes, often a refrain

31. Types of Poetry: Limerick • Humorous, rhyming, five-line poem • Specific meter and rhyme scheme • E.g.: Edward Lear: “There was an Old Person whose habits,Induced him to feed upon rabbits;When he'd eaten eighteen,He turned perfectly green,Upon which he relinquished those habits.”

32. Types of Poetry: Concrete Poem • Poem with shape that suggests subject . . . t e a r s

33. Types of Poetry: Dramatic Poem • Uses techniques of drama • Writer tells a story • Character’s own thoughts/words • E.g.: Poe’s “Raven” uses dramatic dialogue • Dramatic monologue: 1 person speaks to silent listener