Terminology
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Terminology
Terminology
| Allegory | An extended metaphor in which the characters, places, and objects in a narrative carry figurative meaning. |
| Alliteration | The repetition of initial stressed, consonant sounds in a series of words within a phrase or verse line. |
| Ballad | A poem that is typically arranged in quatrains with the rhyme scheme ABAB. Ballads are usually narrative, which means they tell a story. |
| Epic | A long narrative poem in which a heroic protagonist engages in an action of great mythic or historical significance. |
| Free verse | Nonmetrical, nonrhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech. A regular pattern of sound or rhythm may emerge in free-verse lines, but the poet does not adhere to a metrical plan in their composition. |
| Haiku (or hokku) | A Japanese verse form of three unrhyming lines in five, seven, and five syllables. It creates a single, memorable image |
| Hyperbole | A figure of speech composed of a striking exaggeration |
| Irony | . As a literary device, irony implies a distance between what is said and what is meant. Based on the context, the reader is able to see the implied meaning in spite of the contradiction. |
| Lament | Any poem expressing deep grief, usually at the death of a loved one, or some other loss. |
| Limerick | A fixed light-verse form of five generally anapestic lines rhyming AABBA. Edward Lear, who popularized the form, fused the third and fourth lines into a single line with internal rhyme. |
| Lyric | Originally a composition meant for musical accompaniment. The term refers to a short poem in which the poet, the poet’s persona, or another speaker expresses personal feelings. |
| Metaphor | A comparison that is made directly (for example, John Keats’s “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” from “Ode on a Grecian Urn”) or less directly (for example, Shakespeare’s “marriage of two minds”), but in any case without pointing out a similarity by using words such as “like,” “as,” or “than.” |
| Meter ode | The rhythmical pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse. |
| Onomatopoeia | A formal, often ceremonious lyric poem that addresses and often celebrates a person, place, thing, or idea. Its stanza forms vary. |
| Paradox | A figure of speech in which the sound of a word imitates its sense |
| Prose poem | As a figure of speech, it is a seemingly self-contradictory phrase or concept that illuminates a truth. |
| Pun | A prose composition that, while not broken into verse lines, demonstrates other traits such as symbols, metaphors, and other figures of speech common to poetry. |
| Refrain | Wordplay that uses homonyms (two different words that are spelled identically) to deliver two or more meanings at the same time. |
| Rhyme | A phrase or line repeated at intervals within a poem, especially at the end of a stanza. The repetition of syllables, typically at the end of a verse line. Rhymed words conventionally share all sounds following the word’s last stressed syllable. |
| Rhythm | An audible pattern in verse established by the intervals between stressed syllables. |
| Simile | A comparison (see Metaphor) made with “as,” “like,” or “than.” |
| Stanza | A grouping of lines separated from others in a poem. |
| Syllable | A single unit of speech sound as written or spoken; specifically, a vowel preceded by zero to three consonants (“awl,” “bring,” “strand”), and followed by zero to four consonants (“too,” “brag,” “gloss,” “stings,” “sixths”). |
| Symbol | Something in the world of the senses, including an action, that reveals or is a sign for something else, often abstract or otherworldly. |
| Verse | As a mass noun, poetry in general; as a regular noun, a line of poetry. Typically used to refer to poetry that possesses more formal qualities. |