Alliteration: • Example: Definition: Definition:
Definition: – “Back into the chamber turning, all • Repeating a word, phrase, line, or • The voice talking to us in a poem.
•The repetition of consonant sounds my soul stanza The
in Within me burning. multiple times within the poem. voice is NOT always the poet.
words that are close together. -Edgar Allen Poe, from “The Raven” • Example: Stanza:
•Example: Limerick: – “Go Down, Moses” chorus Definition:
•Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled Definition: Rhyme scheme: • A group of consecutive lines in a
peppers. How many pickled peppers • A very short humorous or Definition: poem
did nonsensical poem • The pattern of end rhymes in a that form a single unit. It is
Peter Piper pick? with five lines. poem. You can comparable to
Assonance: • Example: identify this by using different letters a paragraph in an essay.
Definition: – “I sat next to the Duchess at tea; of the
•The repetition of vowel sounds in It was just as I feared it would be; alphabet for each rhyme. Allusion
words that Her rumblings were abdominal • Example: passing reference or indirect
Ballad: Were truly phenomenal, – “A gentleman dining at Crewe, (a) mention
Definition: And everyone thought it was me!” Found quite a large mouse in his She was dancing below a noose, an
•A song or songlike poem that tells a -President Woodrow Wilson stew (a) allusion to the hanging of dissidents
story. Line: Said the waiter, “Don’t shout, (b) under her father’s regime.
•Examples: Definition: And wave it about, (b) —New York Times Aug 30, 2014
•“The Dying Cowboy” • A series of words written, printed, Or the rest will be wanting one too!” Apostrophe
• “The Cremation of Sam McGee” or (a) an address to an absent or imaginary
Cinquain: recited as one of the component’s – The Rhyme scheme of this limerick person
Definition: units of is aabba. Her unfortunate position, and the
• A five-line poem in which each line a larger piece of writing, such as a Rhyme: singular apostrophe she had
follows a poem. Definition: addressed to me, pierced me to the
End rhyme: Lyric poetry: • The repetition of accented vowel heart.
Definition: Definition: sounds —Jacques Casanova de SeingaltO
• Rhymes at the ends of lines. • Poetry that expresses the feelings and all sounds following them in stranger of the future!
• Example: or words O inconceivable being!
– “I have to speak-I must-I should thoughts of a speaker rather than that are close together in a poem. whatever the shape of your house,
-I ought… telling a Rhythm: however you scoot from place to
I’d tell you how I love you if I story. These poems are usually short Definition: place,
thought and • A musical quality produced by the no matter how strange and colorless
The world would end tomorrow imply, as opposed to stating, a repetition of the clothes you may wear,
afternoon. strong stressed and unstressed syllables or I bet nobody likes a wet dog either.
But short of that…well, it might be emotion or idea. by the I bet everyone in your pub,
too soon.” Metaphor: repetition of other certain sound even the children, pushes her away.
The end rhymes are ought, thought Definition: patterns. —To a Stranger Born in Some
and • An imaginative comparison • Example: Distant Country Hundreds of Years
afternoon, soon. between two – “The Assyrian came down like the from Now, Billy Collins
Epic: unlike things in which one thing is wolf on the Caesura
Definition: said to fold, a break or pause in the middle of a
• A long narrative poem that is be another thing. And his cohorts were gleaming in verse line
written in – Not a simile: metaphors do not use purple and But the third line, with its caesura
heightened language and tells the words gold; before the last foot, complicates the
stories of the “like” and “as” And the sheen of their spears was grandfather's absence, extends his
deeds of a heroic character who • Example: like stars on the influence, and begins to restore his
embodies – Jonny has a heart of stone. sea, existence.
that values of a society. Narrative poem: When the blue wave rolls nightly on —The Guardian Jul 15, 2013I'm
• Example: Definition: deep Galilee. nobody! Who are you?
– “Casey at the Bat” • A poem that tells a story. -Lord Byron, from “The Destruction Are you nobody, too?
– “Beowulf” – Not an epic: Epics have of Then there's a pair of us — don't
Figurative language: superhuman or Sennacherib” tell!
Definition: extraordinary happenings, narratives Simile: —I'm Nobody ! Who are you?, Emily
• An expressive use of language. do not. Definition: Dickinson
• Example: • Example: • A comparison between two unlike Consonance
– Simile – “Paul Revere’s Ride” things, the repetition of sounds especially at
– Metaphor Ode: using a word such as like, as, than, or the ends of words
Form: Definition: resembles. Occasionally the author breaks into
Definition: • A lyric poem, rhymed or • Example: verse, or stretches of consonance or
• The structure and organization of a unrhymed, on a – Her face was as round as a Couplet
poem. serious subject. These are typically pumpkin. a stanza consisting of two successive
Free verse: addressed to one person/thing. – The wind is roaring like a banshee. lines of verse
Definition: • Example: Sonnet: In "Keeping Hope Alive," he triggers
• Poetry without a regular meter or – “Ode to Thanks” Definition: a world of emotions in a brief
rhyme Onomatopoeia: • A fourteen-line poem, usually couplet: "Pride and pain/Cloud my
scheme. These poems may use Definition: written in brain."
internal • Using words whose sounds suggest iambic pentameter. —Los Angeles Times May 28,
rhyme, repetition, their • 2 kinds: 2014For sweetest things turn
Haiku: meaning. – Shakespearean: 3 four-line units sourest by their deeds;
Definition: • Example: and ends Lilies that fester smell far worse than
• Originating in Japan, a Haiku is a – Buzz with a couplet. weeds.
threeline – Rustle – Italian: poses a question or makes - Sonnet 94, William Shakespeare
poem which contains seventeen – Tinkle a point in enjambment
syllables. – Thud first eight lines and responds to that continuation from one line of verse
– 5 syllables in the first line Quatrain: in the last into the next line
– 7 syllables in the second line Definition: six lines. But poetry critics have a more
– 5 syllables in the last line • A poem or stanza of four lines. Sound devices: precise term for the kind of
Imagery: • Example: Definition: enjambment Obama employs: “bad
Definition: – Fly away, fly away over the sea, • Words that explain different line breaks.”
• Language that appeals to the Sun-loving swallow; for summer is sounds and —Salon Jul 17, 2012A thing of
seven done; functions within writing. beauty is a joy forever:
senses. Come again, come again, come back • Example Its loveliness increases; it will never
• Example: to me, – Alliteration Pass into nothingness but still will
– “Mrs. Flowers” Bringing the summer and bringing – Assonance keep
Internal rhyme: the sun. – Rhyme A bower quiet for us, and asleep
Definition: -Emily Dickinson – Rhythm Full of sweet dreams, and health,
• Rhymes within lines. Repetition: Speaker: and quiet breathing.
—Endymion, John Keats so movingly capture our inmost a group of six lines of verse
Hyperbole longing to forget. In the sestet usually the first line
extravagant exaggeration —Seattle Times Aug 27, 2014I can rhymes with the fourth, the second
That’s not hyperbole; statistics prove resist anything but temptation. with the fifth and the third with the
this to be true. — Oscar Wilde sixth.
—Time Aug 17, 2014I’ll love you, personification —Charles Herbert SylvesterO
dear, I’ll love you attributing human characteristics to mistress mine, where are you
Till China and Africa meet, Abstract Ideas roaming?
And the river jumps over the Gordon-Levitt may also direct and O stay and hear! your true-love's
mountain star in the film, which is to tell the coming
And the salmon sing in the street, story of the brooding hero That can sing both high and low;
I’ll love you till the ocean Morpheus, the immortal Trip no further, pretty sweeting,
Is folded and hung up to dry personification of dreams. Journey's end in lovers' meeting—
— As I Walked One Evening, W.H. —Los Angeles Times Aug 22, Every wise man's son doth know.
Auden 2014Pearl Button swung on the little —Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene 3,
internal rhyme gate in front of the House of Boxes. William Shakespeare
a rhyme between words in the same It was the early afternoon of a Synaesthesia
line sunshiny day with little winds playing a sensation that normally occurs in
That songlike quality would fit well hide-and-seek in it. one sense modality occurs when
in a poem, especially the internal —How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped, another modality is stimulated
rhyme and near-rhyme of “night and Katherine Mansfield Synaesthesia is where the senses are
light” with “alike.” Anapest mixed together - for example seeing
—Washington Post July 17, a metrical unit with unstressed- colour when listening to music - or
2014Double, double toil and trouble, unstressed-stressed syllables tasting food and hearing chords.
Fire burn and cauldron bubble An Anapest is a three-syllable foot —BBC Apr 19, 2014Tasting of Flora
—Macbeth, William Shakespeare accented on the last syllable. and the country green,
Litotes —William Franklin Webster‘Twas Dance, and Provencal song, and sun
understatement for rhetorical effect the night before Christmas, when all burnt mirth!
Litotes describes the object to which through the house —Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats
it refers not directly, but through the Not a creature was stirring, not even 35 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30
negation of the opposite. a mouse;
—J.R. Bergmann, Veiled MoralityWe —'Twas the Night Before Christmas,
were going through the three first Clement Clarke Moore
acts, and not unsuccessfully upon
the whole. An anapest here is "Twas the night".
--Mansfield Park, Jane Austen Dactyl
a metrical unit with stressed-
The litotes here is "not unstressed-unstressed syllables
unsuccessfully." There's a lovely contrast between
Metaphor the skippety dactyl of "Merry mites"
a figure of speech that suggests a and the surprising, ceremonious
non-literal similarity spondee, "Welcome".
Her extreme cosmetic aesthetic has —The Guardian Mar 29, 2010Half a
been an apt metaphor for the League, Half a League, Half a League,
excesses and vanities of Hollywood. onward
—Salon Sep 4, 2014She really was a —The Charge of the Light Brigade,
most charming girl, and might have Alfred Lord Tennyson
passed for a captive fairy, whom that Spondee
truculent ogre, Old Barley, had a metrical unit with stressed-
pressed into his service. stressed syllables
-Great Expectations, Charles Dickens "Hot sun" and "cool fire" are both
Octave spondees.
a rhythmic group of eight lines of —The Guardian Oct 11, 2010'By the
verse shore of Gitche Gumee,
One of these [two interpretations] By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
must be in the octave and the other —The Song of Hiawatha, Henry
in the sestet. Wadsworth Longfellow
—Joyce KilmerFor the moon never
beams without bringing me dreams A spondee here is "By the".
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; Trochee
And the stars never rise but I feel the a metrical unit with stressed-
bright eyes unstressed syllables
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; "Beauty" by this usage, is a trochee,
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down "beautiful" a dactyl, "relate" an
by the side iamb, "intercede" an anapest.
Of my darling, my darling, my life —Paull Franklin BaumTyger! Tyger!
and my bride, Burning bright
In the sepulchre there by the sea, —The Tyger, William Blake
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
—Annabel Lee, Edgar Allan Poe The trochee here is "Burning bright".
Onomatopoeia Iamb
using words that imitate the sound a metrical unit with unstressed-
they denote stressed syllables
What a succession of groans, “ ‘Feminine’ brand names, like
hurrahs, cheers, and all the Chanel, are often iambs; ‘masculine’
onomatopoeia of which the ones, like Black & Decker, tend to be
American language is so full. trochees,” he writes.
—Jules VerneIt went zip when it —New York Times Jul 26, 2011I have
moved and bop when it stopped, been one acquainted with the night.
And whirr when it stood still. I have walked out in rain -- and back
I never knew just what it was and I in rain.
guess I never will. I have outwalked the furthest city
—The Marvelous Toy, Tom Paxton light.
Paradox I have looked down the saddest city
a statement that contradicts itself lane.
The brilliant paradox of Flanagan’s —Acquainted with the Night, Robert
introspective novel is that a work of Frost
such powerful remembrance should Sestet
