44 Poetry Terms

The repetition of identical consonant sounds, most often the sounds beginning words, in close proximity. Example: pensive poets, nattering nabobs of negativism.

• Alliteration

• Allusion

• Anaphora

• Apostrophe

A cultural or historical reference or quotation that authors assume their readers will recognize.

• Alliteration

• Allusion

• Anaphora

• Apostrophe

Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of a line throughout a work or the section of a work.

• Alliteration

• Allusion

• Anaphora

• Apostrophe

Speaker in a poem addresses a person not present or an animal, inanimate object, or concept as though it is a person. Example: Wordsworth--"Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour / England has need of thee"

• Alliteration

• Allusion

• Anaphora

• Apostrophe

The repetition of identical vowel sounds in different words in close proximity. Example: deep green sea.

• Assonance

• Ballad

• Blank verse

• Consonance

A narrative poem composed of quatrains (iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter)  rhyming a-b-a-b. Ballads may use refrains.  Examples: "Jackaroe," "The Long Black Veil"

• Assonance

• Ballad

• Blank verse

• Consonance

Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Example: Shakespeare's plays

• Assonance

• Ballad

• Blank verse

• Consonance

Letters like B, C, D, F, G… found in the beginning or middle of words whose main vowels differ. The opposite of assonance; Example: shadow meadow; pressed, passed; sipped, supped. Owen uses this "impure rhyme" to convey the anguish of war and death.

• Assonance

• Ballad

• Blank verse

• Consonance

Two rhyming lines next to one another. Couplets end the pattern of a Shakespearean sonnet.

• Couplet

• Diction

• Dramatic monologue

• End-stopped line:

Word choice and usually used to describe the level of formality that a speaker uses:

• Couplet

• Diction

• Dramatic monologue

• End-stopped line: