Poetic and Literary Terms

Structure

100

These two rhyming lines always fall at the end of a Shakespearean sonnet. In other types of poems, these two rhyming lines can be anywhere within the poem as long as they're together. 

COUPLET

200

A unified group of lines in poetry. This is often marked by spacing between sections of the poem. 

STANZA

300

A 14-line poem with ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme

SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET

400

A story/narrative in poetic form

BALLAD

500

This type of poem has no rhyme and no meter. 

FREE VERSE

Poetic Elements

100

Pow! Boom! Bang! Squeal!

ONOMATOPOEIA

200

The repetition of vowel sounds in a chunk of text. 

Ex: "Ivan will try to light the fire." 

ASSONANCE

300

The occurrence of the same consonant sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words. 

EX: "From forth the fatal loins of these two foes"

ALLITERATION

400

This occurs when one line ends without a pause or any punctuation and continues onto the next line. 

ENJAMBMENT

500

A reference to a well-known real or fictional person, event, place, or work of art.

ALLUSION

Meter and Rhyme

100

The measured arrangement of beats in a poem, including the poet's placement of emphasis and the number of syllables per line. 

METER

200

The two-word term for five sets of unaccented followed by accented syllables. 

EX: "Two households both alike in dignity"

IAMBIC PENTAMETER

300

Name the meter in the following stanza:

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

IAMBIC TETRAMETER

400

Blank Verse, which Shakespeare used in 90 percent of each of his plays, is unrhymed _____________.

IAMBIC PENTAMETER

500

This type of rhyme occurs when the poet has set up an exact rhyme scheme, but then deviates just slightly. 

SLANT RHYME

POE-pourri

100

This poem's famous refrain is "Nevermore." 

"THE RAVEN"

200

This title character lived and died in "a kingdom by the sea."

ANNABEL LEE

300

Poe was expelled from this university for gambling and excessive intoxication.

The University of Virginia

400

Poe's wife's first name

Virginia

500

The city in which Poe was found dying in a gutter

Baltimore, Maryland

Famous Poets

100

Many literary historians think that this poet, who traveled through ancient Greece reciting The Illiad and The Odyssey, was blind. 

HOMER

200

The poet who penned, "O Captain! My Captain!"

WALT WHITMAN

300

This poet, sometimes referred to as "the recluse of Amherst," penned the following famous lines: 

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me. 

EMILY DICKINSON

400

This poet wrote, "Take thy beak from out my heart"

EDGAR ALLAN POE

500

This poet from New England penned this stanza, which is among the most famous in American literature:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,  
But I have promises to keep,  
And miles to go before I sleep,  
And miles to go before I sleep.

ROBERT FROST