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EnglishSkillsOnline is an interactive resource for students and teachers of the English language. The site covers the language part of the secondary school English curriculum and is also useful for primary school age students. EnglishSkillsOnline includes many interactive activities to enable students to learn more about the English language and to practise their skills.
The following is a glossary of some key terms used in studying and discussing
poetry:
Alliteration: The repetition of consonant sounds (usually at the beginning of words), in words occurring alongside, or close to each other). It is also
known as "initial rhyme" or "head rhyme". Highlighting and dramatising the words
in this way draws attention to their meaning.
Examples:
Anapaest: A poetic foot which has two unaccented syllables followed by
an accented syllable, as in un-der-STAND or in-ter-VENE.
Apostrophe: The addressing of a poem to a real or imagined person who
is not present.
Assonance: The repetition of the same vowel sound in several words occurring in close proximity. Long vowel sounds often create a soothing effect, short
vowel sounds create a more abrupt effect.
Examples:
Ballad: A narrative poem written in four-line stanzas, characterized
by swift action and narrated in a direct style.
An example is the ballad, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", by Samuel Taylor
Coleridge;
Blank verse: Unrhymed verse, most commonly found in iambic pentameter
(10 syllable lines).
Caesura: A strong pause, following a punctuation mark, within a line
of verse. The caesura provides an alternative to End-stopping the lines (lines
where the punctuation pause is at the end of the line).
Connotation: The associations called up by a word, beyond its strict
dictionary definition (its denotation). Poets tend to use words rich in connotation
to evoke an imaginative response from the reader.
Consonance: The repetition of a pattern of consonants in words. Different vowel sounds may separate these consonants.
Examples:
Couplet: A pair of rhymed lines of verse. The term "heroic couplet" is used to describe two lines of rhymed iambic pentameter, as in Shakespeare's sonnets which end in rhymed couplets.
Dactyl: A poetic foot which has a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables, as in BUT-ter-fly or STRAW-ber-ry.
Denotation: The dictionary meaning of a word. (Compare with Connotation)
Diction: The selection of words in a literary work. Good diction implies that the writer has chosen appropriate words for the language purpose and arranged
them in an order which communicates the thoughts, ideas, feelings successfully.
Elegy: A traditional form of lyric poem; a lamentation for the dead.
End-stopped line: An end-stopping line of verse ends with
a punctuation mark, thus forcing a breath pause there when it is read. The grammatical
and logical sense is completed within the line. In contrast to this is the Run-on
line in which the sense carries on into the next line. (See Enjambment)
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From "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Lines 1, 3, & 4 are run-on lines; lines 2 & 5 are end-stopped.
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Enjambment / Enjambement: The name for the continuation or "running on" of the sense of a line of verse into the next line. (Contrast with End-stopped line - see example above)
Epic: A long, narrative poem (written in an elevated style) that records the adventures of a hero. Examples include Homer's "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey", and Milton's "Paradise Lost".
Eye rhyme: Words that seem to rhyme because they are spelled identically but pronounced differently.
Examples:
Foot / Poetic foot: A unit of poetic metre, composed of stressed and unstressed syllables. For example, an iamb / iambus or iambic foot
is represented by an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one. Other
main poetic feet are the Anapaest, the Dactyl, the Trochée.
The names for numbers of feet are given below:
Free verse: This name is given to poetry without a regular pattern of metre or rhyme. It is also called by its French name, Vers Libre. Modern poets often employ free verse rather than the other traditional poetic forms, such as sonnets, odes etc.
Hyperbole: Deliberate exaggeration for the sake of emphasis.
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| Romeo, speaking to Juliet, from "Romeo and Juliet"
- William Shakespeare |
Iamb / Iambus: A poetic foot which has an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as in to-DAY and re-QUIRE.
Internal rhyme: The rhyming of words within one line of poetry.
e.g. dreary and weary rhyme in this line from "The Raven" by Edgar Allan
Poe:
Lyric poem: The most common of the three main types of verse, the others being narrative and dramatic verse. The characteristics of a lyric are brevity, compression, and the expression of feeling. In its original form, a lyric was always associated with music, and was intended to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre. This sense is retained in the modern use of the word, as in "song lyrics".
Metaphor: A comparison where one thing is described in terms of its likeness to another. It is a direct comparison, without the use of the word "like" or "as".
Examples:
Metre: The measured pattern of rhythmic accents in poems. (See Foot)
Narrative poem: A poem that tells a story. (Includes the Ballad)
Ode: A long, stately poem in stanzas of varied length, metre, and form; a serious poem on an exalted subject, with a high level of emotion and imagination.
Two examples are: "Ode to the West Wind" by Percy Bysshe Shelley; "Ode to Autumn"
by John Keats.
Onomatopoeia: The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe. Words such as "buzz" and "crash" are onomatopoetic.
Parody: A humorous, mocking imitation of another literary work, sometimes sarcastic, but often light-hearted and almost admiring of the original.
Personification: Personification is a special kind of metaphor that attributes human qualities to inanimate objects or abstract concepts.
Examples:
Pyrrhic foot: A poetic foot with two unstressed syllables together (also called an "empty" foot).
Quatrain: A stanza of four lines.
Rhyme: The repetition of identical concluding syllables in different words, most often at the ends of lines.
(See also Eye Rhyme)
Rhyme scheme: The pattern of rhyme, usually indicated by assigning a letter of the alphabet to each rhyme at the end of a line of poetry e.g.: the rhyming pattern of this stanza is a b a a b
Rhythm: The recurrence of accent or stress in lines of verse to produce a musical flow of language. Rhythm (or beat) is controlled by the various arrangements of the stressed and unstressed syllables - i.e. the number and arrangement of the Poetic Feet.
Scansion: The process of marking beats in a poem to establish the prevailing metrical pattern. To scan (the verbal form) = to mark the rhythm in the
poetry.
Sibilance: The repetition of s, sh, ch, or z sounds in neighbouring words.
Examples:
Simile: A figure of speech involving a comparison between unlike things using "like", "as".
An example:
Sonnet: A fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter. The Shakespearean or English sonnet is arranged as three quatrains and a final couplet,
rhyming abab cdcd efef gg.
The Petrarchan / Italian sonnet divides into two parts: an eight-line octave
and a six-line sestet, rhyming abba abba cde cde or abba abba cd cd cd.
Spondee: A poetic foot represented by two even stressed syllables, such
as in:TICK-TOCK or BLACK-CAT
Stanza: A division or unit of a poem that is repeated in the same form - either with similar or identical patterns or rhyme and metre, or with variations from one stanza to another. The most common stanzas are:
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