Advanced Placement Poetry Terms

1. Advanced Placement Poetry Terms AP Lit and Comp

2. Antithesis • A figure of speech characterized by strongly contrasting words, clauses, sentences or ideas • I.e. “Man Proposes, God disposes” • I. e. “The Hungry judges soon the sentence sign • And wretches hang that jury men may dine” (Second line is antithesis)

3. Apostrophe • A figure of speech in which someone (usually, but not always, absent) some abstract quality, or a nonexistent person is directly addressed • I. e. Papa Above! Regard a Mouse. -Emily Dickinson

4. Other examples of apostrophes • "Twinkle, twinkle, little star,How I wonder what you are.Up above the world so high,Like a diamond in the sky."(Jane Taylor, "The Star," 1806) • "Blue Moon, you saw me standing aloneWithout a dream in my heartWithout a love of my own."(Lorenz Hart, "Blue Moon")

5. Ballad Meter • A 4 line stanza rhymed abcd with four feet in lines one and and three and three feet in lines two and four Foot= two beats • "House Of The Rising Sun". • There is a house in New Orleans, • They call the rising sun. • And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy,* • And God, I know I'm one. • “American the Beautiful” • O beautiful for spacious skies • ,For amber waves of grain, • For purple mountain majesties • Above the fruited plain! • America! America!God shed his grace on thee • And crown thy good with brotherhood • From sea to shining sea!

6. Iambic Pentameter • i·am·bicpen·tam·e·ter • five-foot poetic line: the most common rhythm in English poetry, consisting of five iambs in each line. "The quality of mercy is not strained" is an iambic pentameter. • Iambic Pentameter is most well known for its use in Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Plays

7. Blank verse • Unrhymed Iambic Pentameter • The meter of choice for most of Shakespeare’s plays • Example: • Five years have past; five summers, with • the lengthOf five long winters! • And again I hear These waters, • rolling from their mountain-springs • With a soft inland murmur. – • Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs... • (Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey, lines • Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, • This lime-tree bower my prison! • I have lost Beauties and feelings, such as would have been • Most sweet to my remembrance even when agehad dimmed mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile... • (This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, lines 1-5)

8. Cacophony • A harsh, unpleasant combination of sounds or tones • May be an unconscious flaw in the poet’s music, resulting in harshness of sound or difficulty of articulation, or it may be used consciously for effect • Jabberwocky • Lewis Carroll • 'Twasbrillig, and the slithytovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the momerathsoutgrabe. • “Rabbi Ben Ezra” • Browning • Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

9. Caesura • A pause, usually near the middle of a line of verse, usually indicated by the sense of a line, and often greater than the natural pause • Both of these following examples come from Alexander Pope • II Marks the Caesura • “To err is human II, to forgive divine.” • Know then thyself II, presume not God to scan;The proper study of Mankind II is Man.Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,A being darkly wise, and rudely great:

10. Conceit • An ingenious and fanciful notion or idea, usually expressed through an elaborate analogy • May be a brief metaphoror the framework of an entire poem • Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?byWilliam Shakespeare • Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate.Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

11. Couplet • Two line stanza, usually with the same end rhyme • Examples from Shakespeare’s poetry • "Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,/Being had, to triumph; being lacked, to hope." • "So, till the judgement that yourself arise,/You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes." • "Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone,/Save that, to die, I leave my love alone." • "You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen,/Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men." • "How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,/If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!"

12. Diction • Word Choice • Formal • Informal • Colloquial (everyday) • Slang

13. Didactic Poetry • Poetry which is intended primarily to teach a lesson • To distinguish between didactic and non-didactic poetry, you must judge the author’s purpose.

14. Example Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on Criticism” • 'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill Appear in writing or in judging ill; But of the two less dangerous is th'offenceTo tire our patience than mislead our sense: Some few in that, but numbers err in this; Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss; A fool might once himself alone expose; Now one in verse makes many more in prose.

15. 'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own. In Poets as true Genius is but rare, True Taste as seldom is the Critic's share; Both must alike from Heav'n derive their light, These born to judge, as well as those to write. Let such teach others who themselves excel, And censure freely who have written well; Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true, But are not Critics to their judgment too?

16. If by Rudyard Kipling • If you can keep your head when all about you • Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; • If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, • But make allowance for their doubting too; • If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, • Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, • Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, • And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

17. If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; • If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; • If you can meet with triumph and disaster • And treat those two imposters just the same; • If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken • Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, • Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, • And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

18. Dramatic Poetry • A poem which employs a dramatic form or some element or elements of dramatic techniques as a means of achieving poetic ends. • Dramatic monologues (in plays) are a good example of this.

19. Examples • PROMETHEUS AMID HURRICANE AND EARTHQUAKE (from "Prometheus Bound") • by: Aeschylus • EARTH is rocking in space! And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar, And the eddying lightnings flash fire in my face, And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round-- And the blasts of the winds universal leap free And blow each other upon each, with a passion of sound, And æther goes mingling in storm with the sea! Such a curse on my head, in a manifest dread, From the hand of your Zeus has been hurtled along! O my mother's fair glory! O Æther, enringing All eyes with the sweet common light of thy bringing, Dost see how I suffer this wrong?

20. Romeo and Juliet JULIET: Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face; Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night. Fain would I dwell on form -- fain, fain deny What I have spoke; but farewell compliment! Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay'; And I will take thy word. Yet, if thou swear'st, Thou mayst prove false.

21. At lovers' perjuries, They say Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo, If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully. Or if thou thinkest I am too quickly won, I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay, So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world. In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond, And therefore thou mayst think my havior light; But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true Than those that have more cunning to be strange. I should have been more strange, I must confess, But that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware, My true-love passion. Therefore pardon me, And not impute this yielding to light love, Which the dark night hath so discovered.

22. Elegy • A sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet’s meditations upon death or another solemn theme. • Examples: “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allen Poe • The angels, not half so happy in heaven,Went envying her and me-Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,In this kingdom by the sea)That the wind came out of the cloud by night,Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

23. But our love it was stronger by far than the loveOf those who were older than we-Of many far wiser than we-And neither the angels in heaven above,Nor the demons down under the sea,Can ever dissever my soul from the soulOf the beautiful Annabel Lee.

24. For the moon never beams without bringing me dreamsOf the beautiful Annabel Lee;And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyesOf the beautiful Annabel Lee;And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the sideOf my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,In the sepulchre there by the sea,In her tomb by the sounding sea.

26. “O Captain, My Captain” • Walt Whitman • O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up- for you the flag is flung- for you the bugle trills,

27. End-Stopped • A line with a pause at the end • Lines will have a period, comma, colon, semi-colon, exclamation point, or question mark. • 10 Years • A friendship won, A friendship lost, A friendship full of love and trust, A friendship gone, A friendship there, A friendship that, We will always share • Allie Whitehead

28. Enjambment • The continuation of the sense and grammatical construction (often a complete thought) from one line to the next

29. Examples • TreesbyJoyce Kilmer • I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prestAgainst the sweet earth's flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

30. “Sonnet 116:” "Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove:"

31. Types of rhyme • Eye rhyme- rhyme that appears correct from spelling, but not from sound • Ie. “watch” and “match” • “love” and “move”

32. Feminine rhyme • A rhyme of two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed, such as “waken” and “forsaken” and “audition” and “rendition”

33. Internal rhyme- rhyme that occurs within the sentence rather than at the end

34. Masculine rhyme- a rhyme that only matches one syllable, usually at the end of a line

35. Example • Fire and Ice • The rhyming of “twice” and “ice” • … But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo say that for destruction iceIs also greatAnd would suffice. • Robert Frost

36. Free verse • Poetry not written in a specific traditional meter (ballad meter, sonnet form, etc.) and not necessarily rhymed, but is still rhythmical

37. Examples • After the Sea-Ship—after the whistling winds; • After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes, • Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks, • Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship: • Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying…