What is Poetry?

Difficult to say
Form?
Poetic diction

Poetry vs Prose
Prose is any type of writing that
ISNT poetry.
Newspapers, novels, short stories,
etc.

Metaphor

a comparison between two

different things WITHOUT
using the words "like" or
"as."
You are the goblet and the
wine

Simile

a comparison between two

different things USING the
words "like" or "as.
Dead as a doornail

Personification

Giving human qualities, traits

or characteristics to
something that isn't human
Talking, walking,
cultural/society traits, etc.
Chicago

Imagery

a mental picture painted in

words. Pure description
Tennessee

Alliteration

the repeating of the

beginning sounds of words
in a series
Use your ears, not your eyes
Tongue twisters
Used in marketing products
Names??

Onomatopoeia
words whose sounds imitate
their meaning

Oh, the bells, bells, bells!

What a tale their terror tells
Of despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
"The Bells"
Edger Allan Poe

Hyperbole
Gross overstatement
Over exaggeration
You couldve knocked me over with a
feather
All the perfumes of Arabia
Will not sweeten this little hand
Shakespeares Macbeth

Understatement

Symbolism
When something small (tangible)
stands for or represents something
much larger (intangible.)
When a name, object, color, etc.
represents a concept or idea

Repetition

the purposeful repeating of

words or phrases for extra
emphasis

Rhyme

when words share the same

ending sounds

Imperfect Rhyme
Words that almost rhyme.
Flood, stood
Together, forever
Tree, trees

Internal Rhyme
Rhyme that takes place WITHIN a line of
poetry.
Example
Once upon a mid-night dreary, while I pondered weak
and weary

Stanza

a poetic "paragraph"

Line

a poetic "sentence"
Can be a letter, a word, several
words, or even a blank line

Word Economy

saying as much as possible

in as few words as possible
Getting the most out of the
words that you have

Rhyme Scheme
the way rhyming words fall at
the end of a line of poetry
mapping
Couplet--a two line stanza
Tercet--a three line stanza
Quatrain--a four line stanza
Sextet-- a six line stanza
Octave-- an eight line stanza

Terza Rima
A tercet with an interlocking rhyme
scheme with the stanza following it.
ABA, BCB, CDC, DED, etc.
Most famously used by Dante in the
Divine Comedy.
Inferno, Purgatoria, Paradisio.

Rhythm

a consistent number of
syllables in a line or stanza
of poetry (meter)

Meter
Combination of stressed and unstressed
syllables in a line of poetry
Monometer=1
Dimeter=2
Trimeter=3
Tetrameter=4
Pentameter=5
Hexameter=6

Foot

units of stressed and unstressed

syllables
The basic measuring device of meter.

Iambic=2 syllables, (soft hard) Marie

Trochaic= 2 syllables, (hard soft) Mary
Anapestic=3 syllables, (soft soft hard)
Maryann
Dactylic= 3 syllables, (hard soft soft) Marilyn
Spondaic= 2 syllables, (hard hard) baseball

Iambic Pentameter
10 syllable line
( u=unstressed =stressed)
Iamb- one unstressed (u) syllable and one
stressed (`) syllable
M a /r i e
Iambic pentameter rhythm
u`/ u`/ u`/ u`/ u`
Pentameter=Five sets of a given foot
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks

Blank Verse
Unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter

The Sonnet
14 line poem
iambic pentameter
10 syllables per line
Shakespearian sonnet
3 quatrains and 1 couplet,
theme=love
Patrician sonnet
A sextet and an octave