Appendix:Glossary of poetry terms
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Below is the glossary of poetry terminology.
Technical means[edit]
- accent
- accentual verse
- aleatory, aleatory methods
- alliteration
- alliterative verse
- anacrusis
- anadiplosis
- aposiopesis
- apostrophe
- assonance
- caesura, cæsura
- chain rhyme
- consonance
- dissonance
- enjambment
- foot
- half rhyme
- eye rhyme
- kennings
- onomatopoeia
- rhyme
- rhyme scheme
- rhythm
- sprung rhythm
- stichomythia
- syllabic verse
Tropes[edit]
Measures of verse[edit]
Types of metre[edit]
Below, "short/long" definitions of a syllable of classical languages correspond to "unstressed/stressed" of English language.
- amphibrach: short-long-short
- amphimacer or cretic: long-short-long
- anapaest or antidactylus: short-short-long
- antibacchius]: long-long-short
- bacchius: short-long-long
- choreus or choree (same as trochee): long-short
- dactyl: long-short-short
- iamb: short-long
- molossus: long-long-long
- pyrrhic or dibrach: short-short
- spondee: long-long
- tribrach: short-short-short
- trochee: long-short
Tetrasyllables[edit]
- tetrabrach or proceleusmatic: short-short-short-short
- quartus paeon: short-short-short-long
- tertius paeon: short-short-long-short
- minor ionic or double iamb: short-short-long-long
- secundus paeon: short-long-short-short
- diamb: short-long-short-long
- antispast: short-long-long-short
- first epitrite: short-long-long-long
- primus paeon: long-short-short-short
- choriamb: long-short-short-long
- ditrochee: long-short-long-short
- second epitrite: long-short-long-long
- major ionic: long-long-short-short
- third epitrite: long-long-short-long
- fourth epitrite: long-long-long-short
- dispondee: long-long-long-long
Types of line[edit]
- Alexandrine
- monometer
- dimeter
- trimeter
- tetrameter
- pentameter
- hexameter
- heptameter
- octameter
- Poulter's measure
Verse forms[edit]
- aisling
- acrostic
- ballad
- ballade royal
- biolet: "ABbaBA".
- blank verse
- breton lai
- chant royal: Five stanzas of "ababccddedE" followed by either "ddedE" or "ccddedE". (The capital letters indicate a line repeated verbatim.)
- chastushka
- cinquain: "ababb".
- clerihew: "aabb".
- couplet: "aa", but usually occurs as "aa bb cc dd ...".
- double dactyl
- dramatic poetry
- elegy
- enclosed rhyme (or enclosing rhyme): "abba".
- englyn
- envoi
- epic poetry
- epigram
- epyllion
- free verse
- ghazal
- grook
- haiku
- heroic couplets
- kimo
- kyrielle
- light Poetry
- limerick: "aabba".
- lyric
- McWhirtle
- monorhyme: "aaaaa...", an identical rhyme on every line, common in Latin and Arabic
- monostich
- narrative poetry
- nonsense verse
- ode
- onegin stanza
- ottava rima: "abababcc".
- pantoum
- paradelle
- pantun
- quatrain
- quatorzain
- rapping
- renga
- rhyme royal: "ababbcc".
- rondeau
- rondelet: "AbAabbA".
- rubaiyat: "aaba".
- sapphic stanza, sapphics
- senryu
- sestina
- shichigon-zekku
- sijo
- song
- sonnet
- Petrarchan sonnet: "abba abba cde cde" or "abba abba cdc cdc".
- Shakespearean sonnet: "abab cdcd efef gg".
- Simple 4-line: "abcb"
- Spenserian sonnet: "abab bcbc cdcd ee".
- Onegin stanzas: "aBaBccDDeFFeGG" with the lowercase letters representing * Tanaga
- Spenserian stanza: "ababbcbcc".
- Tanka
- tanaga: traditional Tagalog tanaga is aaaa
- telestich
- tercet
- terza rima: "aba bcb cdc ...", ending on "yzy z" or "yzy zz".
- terzanelle
- triolet
- triplet: "aaa", often repeating like the couplet.
- villanelle: A1bA2 abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2, where A1 and A2 are lines repeated exactly which rhyme with the a lines.
- virelai ancien
- virelai nouveau
- waka
Periods, styles and movements[edit]
For movements see List of poetry groups and movements.
- automatic poetry
- Black Mountain
- Chanson de geste
- concrete poetry
- cowboy poetry
- digital poetry
- epitaph
- erasure poetry
- folk poetry
- found poetry
- Imagism
- libel
- limerick poetry
- lyric poetry
- metaphysical poetry
- mediaeval poetry
- minnesinger
- The Movement
- narrative poetry
- objectivism
- Parnassian
- pastoral
- performance poetry
- post-modernism
- Romanticism
- San Francisco Renaissance
- sound poetry
- symbolism
- scryptology
- troubadour
- trouvère