Alliteration

When consonant sounds are repeated at the beginning of words, e.g. "creamy and crunchy" 

Allusion

When a poem mentions something or someone from history or literature to bring ideas or images to the reader’s mind. E.g. an allusion to Adam and Eve.

Antithesis

Contrasting words or ideas put together to create a feeling of balance (e.g. Too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell)

Apostrophe

Words spoken in a poem to a person who is not there, or to an idea. E.g. “O World, I cannot hold thee close enough!” 

Assonance

Repeating of vowel sounds in different words: e.g. ‘The echoes roll from soul to soul’  

Ballad

A poem which tells a story in a song-like way.

Blank verse

A type of poetry that has a regular metre (i.e. rhythm) but does not rhyme.

Caesura

 A cut or break in a line, used by a comma, semi-colon, full stop or dash. E.g. "Cynthia was the first; Cynthia will be the last"

Cacophony

 Harsh, unpleasant or ugly sounding (‘cacophonic language’)

Connotation

The emotional or cultural ‘baggage’ that a word carries with it. A ‘red rose’ connotes romance and love, as well as being a prickly bush with a red fragrant flower. 

Consonance

The repetition of consonant sounds (e.g. b, t, k, etc.) anywhere within the words, not just at the beginning. E.g. The sailor sings of rope and things/In ships upon the seas.

Continuous Form

 The lines of a poem follow each other without any obvious structure

Couplet

A pair of lines; often rhyming (a rhyming couplet).

E.g. "Jack's mother said, 'We're stony broke / Go out and find some wealthy bloke..."

Denotation

The literal, dictionary meaning of a word, without emotion or attitude added. E.g. the word ‘rose’ denotes a prickly bush or shrub which has red, pink, white or yellow fragrant flowers. That is its denotation.

Diction

 The writer's choice of words or manner of expression.

Didactic Poetry

Poetry that tries to teach or 'preach' some idea.

Dramatic Poetry

When characters in a poem speak to other characters or to an unidentified listener; these poems usually contain dialogue.

End Rhyme

    Rhyming of words at the ends of two or more lines of poetry. E.g. “She always had to turn a light / Beside her attic bed at night.”

Enjambment

 Also known as a run-on line; where the sense of the line ‘runs on’ into the next line, as with e. e. cummings:

“i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
        my heart) i am never without it (anywhere”

Euphony

Beautiful, pleasant sounding (‘euphonic language’)

Extended Figure

A simile or metaphor which is developed throughout the whole poem

Figurative (language)

Language that goes beyond the literal, with more creative possibilities. Figuratively, “Don’t rock the boat” means do not cause trouble. Similes and metaphors are also examples.

Foot

A small ‘segment’ of a line in a poem, made of two or more syllables, stressed or unstressed. Plural: feet.

Free Verse

Poetry that does not use metre or rhyme

Hyperbole

A statement which is exaggerated to create strong feelings or to add emphasis. E.g. "I nearly died laughing" or "I tried a thousand times".

Iambic pentameter

A type of meter used in poetry that has five ‘feet’ (so ten syllables). Each foot is an ‘iamb’, that is, having one unstressed and one stressed syllable.

E.g. “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?”

Imagery

Language which describes things through the five senses:

Visual imagery: sight

Auditory imagery: sound
    Olfactory imagery: smell   

Gustatory imagery: taste
    Tactile imagery: touch

Organic imagery: human feelings, e.g. hunger
 

Internal Rhyme

Rhyming of words within the same line (e.g. “His bridle reins were golden chains”)

Irony

When the meaning of something is expressed by language that normally means the opposite. A simple example is to say “Nice weather” when the weather is bad. 

Literal (language)

Words taken in their most basic sense; at face value. The literal meaning of “Don’t rock the boat” is do not rock the boat.

Litotes

Rather than making a certain statement directly, a speaker expresses it even more effectively, or achieves emphasis, by denying its opposite. E.g. "This food is not bad!" means "This food is very good". Opposite of hyperbole.

 Lyric Poetry

A form of poetry used for the expression of personal thoughts and feelings 

Metaphor

 The comparison of two unlike things without using like or as. E.g. "The courage that my mother had / Went with her, and is with her still; Rock from New England..." Courage = a rock.

Metre

The number and length of ‘feet’ in a line of poetry. Iambic pentameter is a common metre in English poetry.

Mood

The emotion that a poem contains and communicates.

Narrative Poetry

Tells a story, and, like a story, has a setting, characters and action. (A ballad is a special type of narrative poem.)

Near Rhyme

 A rhyme that is close but not exact (when the words share either the same vowel or consonant sound, but not both – e.g. rose and lose).

Sometimes called a ‘half rhyme’.

Onomatopoeia

When a word sounds like the thing it is describing: e.g. crash, slam, hiss, tinkle. 

Oxymoron

Two words side by side which are contradictory – e.g. almost exactly, definite maybe, crash landing, minor crisis.

Personification

When animals or objects are given human characteristics. E.g. “The forests... shouted" or "The butterflies... danced". 

Quatrain

A four-line stanza (often aabb, abab or abcb)

Refrain

A repeated line, phrase or sentence which appears throughout a poem. 

Scansion

Analysing and marking up the metre of a poem with special signs:

stressed syllable ( / ) 

unstressed syllable ( v )

Simile

The comparison of two unlike things using like or as. E.g. “That courage like a rock, which she..."

Sonnet

A poetic form.

An English sonnet is fourteen lines long, having three quatrains and a couplet. The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g. In English poetry, it is usually written in iambic pentameter.

Stanza

A group of lines in a poem.

Synecdoche

(pron. sinekdokee)

When one part of a thing is used to represent the whole, or the whole used to represent one part, e.g. “His parents bought him a new set of wheels [car]” or “Use your head [brain] to figure it out.”

Symbol / Symbolism

A symbol is a thing that stands for or represents something else. E.g. lion = courage. 

Symbolism is the use of symbols in literature.

Tone

The writer’s attitude to his or her subject. Tone shows itself most often in diction, but also appears in images, rhythms, or other events in the poem.

Verse

Another word for a stanza, a single line of a poem, a group of lines, or even poetry itself.