Poetry Terms

An educated guess made through observation; “reading between the lines”

A brief reference something of historical, cultural, literary or political significance.

An extreme exaggeration of something

When words at the end of lines rhyme

The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words

A literary device that repeats the same words, sounds or phrases to make an idea clearer

The dictionary meaning of a word

The beat in a line of poetry

Giving human qualities to an object or animal

A four-line stanza in a poem

The implied attitude of a writer toward the subject and characters of a work

An object that stands for something more than its physical meaning

A fourteen-line poem characterized by three rhyming quatrains and final couplet

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry

Language use in which writers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words

A poem which expresses personal emotions, typically in the first person. It’s very “sing-songy”

The associations that a word invokes beyond to its literal or primary meaning

The general atmosphere created by the author's words; how the words affect the reader

A group of lines of verse in a poem, usually set off from other groups by a space

The selection of words in a literary work; a fancy word for “word choice”

A comparison between unlike things without an explicitly comparative word such as like or as

poetry without a regular pattern of meter or rhyme

A pair of rhymed lines that may be part of a bigger stanza, or their own stanza in a poem

A figure of speech involving a comparison between unlike things using like, as, or as though

The way a poem is put together on the page

The pattern of rhymes in a poem, marked by letters to symbolize correspondences (abab)

The author’s message in a poem

The voice or "persona" of a poem; it may or may not be the poet.

A poem that tells a story and has a plot

The ordinary language people use in speaking or writing

An individual fact or feature, or is a small or minor part of something

Matching placement of vowel and consonant sounds in two or more words

When two or more words rhyme within the same line of poetry