Poetic Terms

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  • Created by: NicoleQ
  • Created on: 10-05-15 18:35
Acrostic
The first letter of each line spells out a word/phrase when read vertically
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Alexandrine
12 syllabe iambic line adapted from French heroic verse
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Anagram
A word spelled out by rearranging the letters of another word
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Aubade
A love song or poem welcoming or lamenting the arrival of the dawn
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Ballad
A popular narrative song passed down orally, usually follows a form of rhymed (abcd)
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Ballade
Old French verse consisting of 3 eight line stanzas and a four line envoy
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Canto
A long subsection of an epic or a long narrative poem
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Canzone
Literally 'song' in Italian, is a lyric poem originating in medieval Italy and France
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Carol
A hymn or poem often sung by a group
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Concrete Poetry
Verse the emphasises nonlinguistic elements in its meaning , such as a typeface that creates a visual image of the topic
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Couplet
A pair of successive rhyming lines, usually of the same length
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Dirge
A brief hymn or song of lamentation and grief; it was typically composed to be performed at a funeral
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Doggerel
Bad verse typically characterised by cliches,clumsiness, and irregular meter. It is often unintentionally humorous
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Dramatic Monologue
A poem in which a imagined speaker addresses a silent listener, usually not the reader
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Eclogue
A brief, dramatic pastoral poem, set in an idyllic rural place but discussing urban, legal, political or social issues. Pastoral poems, but in a nondramatic form
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Elegy
Often a melancholy poem that laments its subject's death but ends in consolation
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Envoi (or Envoy)
The brief stanza that ends French poetic forms such as the ballade or sestina
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Epic
A long narrative poem in which a heroic protagonist engages in an action of great mythic or historical significance.
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Epigram
A pithy, often witty, poem
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Epistle
A letter in verse, usually addressed to a person close to the writer. Themes may be moral and philosophical, or intimate and sentimental.
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Epitaph
A short poem of Hymen, an inscription on a tombstone and often serving as a brief elegy
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Epithalamion
A lyric poem in praise of Hymen, an epithalamion often blesses a wedding and in modern times is read at weddings
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Fixed and unfixed forms
Poems that have a set number of lines, rhymes, and/or metrical arrangements per line
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Found Poem
A prose text or texts reshaped by a poet into quasi-metrical lines. Fragments of found poetry may appear within an original poem as well
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Fourteener
A metrical line of 14 syllables (usually seven iambic feet). A relatively long line, narrative poem from the Middle Ages.
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Free verse
Non-metrical, non-rhyming 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
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Gnomic Verse
Poems laced with proverbs, aphorisms, or maxims
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Haiku (or hokku)
A Japanese verse form of three unrhyming lines in five, seven, and five syllables. It creates a single, memorable image
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Hymn
A poem praising God or the divine, often sung
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Italian Sonnet
English variation on the traditional Petrarchan version. The octave's rhyme scheme is preserved, but the sestet rhymes CDDCEE
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Lament
Poem expressing grief, usually at the death of a loved one or some other loss
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Landays
or of folk poetry from Afghanistan. Meant to be recited or read out aloud, and frequently anonymous
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Light Verse
Whimsical poems taking forms such as limericks, nonsense poems, and double dactyls
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Limerick
A fixed light-verse form of five generally anapaestic lines rhyming AABBA - Edward Leer popularised the form
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Lyric
Composition meant for musical accompaniment. Refers to short poem in the poet/poets persona express personal feelings
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Madrigal
A song/short lyric poem meant for musical accomplishment
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Mock epic
Poem that plays with the conventions of the epic to comment on a topic satrically
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Occasional Poem
Poem written to describe or comment on a particular event and often written for a public reading
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Octave
Eight line stanza or poem. First eight lines of an Italian or Petrarchan sonnet are also called an octave
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Ode
A formal, often ceremonious lyric poem that addresses and often celebrates a person, place, thing or idea
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Ottava rima
Stanza of eight lines, with a rhyme scheme of ABABABCC -Sir Thomas Wyatt introduced he form
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Palinode
A ode or song that recants what the poet wrote in a previous poem
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Panegyric
A poem of effusive praise - closely related to eulogy and the ode
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Pantoum
A Malaysian verse form adapted by French poets and occasionally imitated in English
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Pastoral
Verse in the tradition of Theocritus who wrote idealised accounts of shoppers and the loves living simple, virtuous live-in Greece
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Prose poem
Demonstrates such as symbols, metaphors and other figures of speech common to poetry
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Quatrain
A four line stanza rhyming
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Refrain
A phrase or line repeated at intervals within a poem, especially at the end of a stanza
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Renga
A Japanese form composed of a series of half-tanks written by different poets
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Rhyme royal (rime royale)
A stanza of seven 10-syllable lines, rhyming ABABBCC, popularised by Geoffrey Chaucer
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Romance
A genre of long narrative poetry about medieval courtly culture and secret love
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Rondeau
A mainly octosyllabic poem consisting of between 10and 15 lines and three stanzas
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Rondel
A poetic form of 11 to 14 lines consisting of two rhymes and the repetition of the first two lines in the middle of the poe and its end
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Sestet
A six-line stanza, or the final six lines of a 14-line Italian or Petrarchan sonnet
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Sestina
A complex French verse form, usually unrhymed, consisting of six stanzas of six lines each had a three-line envoy
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Sijo
A Korean verse form related to haiku and tanka comprised of three lines of 14-16 syllables each
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Slam
A competitive poetry performance in which selected audience members score performers, and winners are determined by total points. Combines elements of poetry, theater, performance, and storytelling
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Sonnet
A 14-line poem with a variable rhyme scheme originating in Italy and brought to England by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard
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Petrarchan sonnet
Perfected by the Italian poet Petrarch, divides the 14 lines into two sections: an eight-line stanza rhyming ABBAABBA, and a six-line stanza (sestet) rhyming CDCDCD or CDEEDE
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The curtal sonnet
A short ended version devised by Gerad Manley Hopkins that maintains the proportions of the Italian form
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The sonnet redouble
Also known as crown of sonnets composed of 15 sonnets that are linked by the repetition of the final line of one sonnet as the initial line of the next
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Sonnet sequence
A group of sonnets sharing the same subject matter and sometimes a dramatic situation and persona
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The Spenserian sonnet
A 14-line poem developed by Emund Spenser - varies the English form by interlocking the three quatrains
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The stretched sonnet
Extended to 16 or more lines
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A submerged
Tucked into a longer poetic work
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Stanza
A grouping of lines separated from others in a poem. In modern free verse, the stanza, like a prose paragraph, can be used to mark a shift in mood, time or thought
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Syllabic verse
Poetry who is meter is determined by the total number of syllables per line, rather than the number of stresses
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Tercet
A poetic unit of three lines rhymed or un-rhymed
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Terza rima
An Italian stanzaic form, used most notably by Dante Aighieri in Commedia consisting of tercets with interwoven rhymes
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Triolet
An eight line stanza having just two rhymes and repeating the first line as the fourth and seventh lines, and the second line as the eigth
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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
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Verse paragraph
A group of verse that make up a single rhetorical unit. In longer poems, the first line is often intended, like a paragraph or prose
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Villanelle
French verse form consisting of five three-line stanzas and a final quatrain, with he first and third lines of the first stanza repeating alternately in the following stanzas
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

12 syllabe iambic line adapted from French heroic verse

Back

Alexandrine

Card 3

Front

A word spelled out by rearranging the letters of another word

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

A love song or poem welcoming or lamenting the arrival of the dawn

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

A popular narrative song passed down orally, usually follows a form of rhymed (abcd)

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
View more cards

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