The Norton Anthology of Poetry: Flashcards

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nap/glossary_flashcards.htm
accentual meter

Lines of verse organized by number of stresses rather than by feet or number

of syllables. This was the form of poetry written in Old English (which
combined stress with alliteration). For a modern example, see Richard Wilbur,
'Junk' (1961). Accentual meter is the basis of sprung rhythm.

accentual stress
meter

Lines of verse based on the metrical foot. This is the most common form of
English poetry.

alcaics

A four-line stanza of considerable metrical complexity, named after the

ancient Greek poet Alcaeus.

alliteration

The repetition of sounds in nearby words, most often involving the initial
consonants of words (and sometimes the internal consonants in stressed
syllables).

allusion

An indirect reference to a text, myth, event, or person outside the poem itself
(compare echo). Although it is woven into the context of the poem, it carries
its own history of meaning: for example, see the reference to Hamlet in T. S.
Eliot, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' (1917).

ambiguity

The ability to mean more than one thing.

analogy

Resemblance in certain respects between things that are otherwise unlike;

also, the use of such likeness to predict other similarities.

anapest

Two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one, as in 'unabridged' (see

foot).

anaphora

Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines. For

example, see Anne Bradstreet, 'To My Dear and Loving Husband' (1678).

assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds in a line or series of lines. Assonance often

affects pace (by working against short and long vowel patterns) and seems
to underscore the words included in the pattern. For example, see the
beginning of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 'Kubla Khan' (1816).

aubade

A lyric about the dawn (e.g., see John Donne, 'The Sun Rising' [1633]).

ballad

A narrative poem, impersonally related, that is (or originally was) meant to be

sung. Characterized by repetition and often by a repeated refrain (a recurrent
phrase or series of phrases), the earliest ballads were anonymous works
transmitted orally from person to person through generations. For example,
see 'Sir Patrick Spens.' Modern literary ballads imitate these folk creations
(e.g., Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' [1798]).

ballad stanza

A four-line stanza, the second and fourth lines of which are iambic trimeter
and rhyme with each other; the first and third lines, in iambic tetrameter, do
not rhyme. This form, frequently used in hymns, is also known as 'common
meter'; a loose form of it is often used by Emily Dickinson.

blank verse

Unrhymed iambic pentameter; for example, see Alfred, Lord Tennyson,

'Ulysses' (1842).

caesura

A sign, used in scansion, that marks a natural pause in speaking a line of

poetry.

concrete poetry

An attempt to supplement (or replace) verbal meaning with visual devices

from painting and sculpture. A true concrete poem cannot be spoken; it is
viewed, not read (compare pattern poetry).

confessional poem

A relatively new (or recently defined) kind of poetry in which the speaker
focuses on the poet's own psychic biography. This label is often applied to
writings of Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Sexton.

connotation

What is suggested by a word, apart from what it explicitly and directly

describes (compare denotation). For example, the 'cypresses' of Eavan
Bolands 'That the Science of Cartography Is Limited' (1994) connote death,
because of their traditional associations with mourning.

controlling
metaphors

Metaphors that dominate or organize an entire poem. For example,

metaphors of movement structure John Donne's 'A Valediction Forbidding
Mourning' (1633).

conventions

Standard ways of saying things in verse, employed to achieve certain

expected effects. Conventions may pertain to style (e.g., the rhyme scheme
of the sonnet) or content (e.g., the figure of the shepherd in the pastoral).

couplet

A pair of lines, almost always rhyming, that form a unit.

dactyl

A stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones, as in 'screwdriver'. (see

foot).

denotation

The direct and literal meaning of a word or phrase (as distinct from its
implication). Compare connotation.

dramatic poetry

Poetry written in the voice of one or more characters assumed by the poet.
For example, Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are dramatic narratives.

dramatic
monologue

A poem written in the voice of a character, set in a specific situation, and

spoken to someone. This form is most strongly identified with poems of
Robert Browning (e.g., 'My Last Duchess' [1842]); see also Alfred, Lord
Tennyson, 'Ulysses' (1842).

echo

A reference that recalls a word, phrase, or sound in another text. For

example, 'And indeed there will be time' in Eliot's 'Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock' (1917) recalls both Ecclesiastes 3.1 ('To everything there is a
season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven') and Andrew Marvell,
'To His Coy Mistress' (1681; 'Had we but world enough and time'). It is less
specific than an allusion.

elegy

In classical times, any poem on any subject written in 'elegiac' meter (dactylic
couplets comprising a hexameter followed by a pentameter line), but since
the Renaissance usually a formal lament for the death of a particular person.
For example, see W. H. Auden, 'In Memory of W. B. Yeats' (1940).

end stop

A line break that coincides with the end of the sentence (vs. a run-on line;
compare enjambment).

English sonnet

Three four-line stanzas and a couplet, rhymed abab cdcd efef gg. For
example, see William Shakespeare, Sonnet 146 (1609; 'Poor soul, the center
of my sinful earth').

enjambment

The use of a line that 'runs on' to the next line, without pause, to complete
its grammatical sense (compare end stop). For example, see Gwendolyn
Brooks, 'We Real Cool' (1960).

envoy

A short concluding stanza found in certain poetic forms (e.g., the sestina)

that often provides a concise summing-up of the poem.

epic

A long poem, in a continuous narrative often divided into 'books,' on a great

or serious subject. Traditionally, it celebrates the achievements of mighty
heroes and heroines, using elevated language and a grand, high style (e.g.,
Homers Iliad), but later epics have been more personal (e.g., William
Wordsworths Prelude [1805 / 1850]) and less formal in structure (e.g., H. D.
is Helen in Egypt [1961]).

epigram

Originally any poem carved in stone (on tombstones, buildings, gates, etc.),
but in modern usage a very short, usually witty verse with a quick turn at the
end (e.g., much of the light verse of Ogden Nash).

extended
metaphors

Detailed and complex metaphors that extend over a long section of a poem
(e.g., the metaphor of grass in Whitmans 'Song of Myself' [1881], section 6
or of the compass in Donnes 'A Valediction Forbidding Mourning').

feminine rhyme

Rhymes comprised of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable

(e.g., see George Gordon, Lord Byron, Don Juan 1.38 [1819]: 'He learn'd the
arts of riding, fencing, gunnery, / And how to scale a fortress- or a nunnery').
Compare masculine rhyme.

figures of speech

Uses of a word or words that go beyond the literal meaning to show or imply
a relationship, evoking a further meaning. Such figures, sometimes called
'tropes' (i.e., rhetorical 'turns'), include anaphora, metaphor, metonymy, and
irony.

foot

The basic unit, consisting of two or three syllables, into which a line is divided
in scansion. Verse is labeled according to its dominant foot (e.g., iambic) and
the number of feet per line (e.g., pentameter). Lines of one, two, three, four,
five, and six feet are respectively called monometer, dimeter, trimeter,
tetrameter, pentameter, and hexameter. See anapest, iamb, dactyl, spondee,
and trochee.

free verse

Poetry that does not follow the rules of regularized meter and strict form.
However, these open forms continue to rely on patterns of rhythm and
repetition to impose order; for example, see Whitman, 'Song of Myself'
(1881).

heroic couplet

A pair of rhymed lines of iambic pentameter. For example, see Geoffrey

Chaucer, 'The Pardoner's Tale.' Perhaps the most polished instances of this

form are provided by Alexander Pope.

iamb

An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, as in 'above' (see foot).

Iambic is the most common meter in English poetry.

image

A mental representation of a particular thing able to be visualized (and often

able to be apprehended by senses other than sight).

irony

A figure in which what is stated is the opposite of what is meant or expected.

For example, see Wilfred Owen is ironic use of Horace, Odes 3.2.13, in 'Dulce
Et Decorum Est' (1920).

Italian sonnet

An octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines); typically rhymed abbaabba
cdecde, it has many variations that still reflect the basic division into two
parts separated by a rhetorical turn of argument (e.g., see Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese [1850]).

limerick

A five-line light poem, usually in anapestic rhythm. The first, second, and fifth
lines are rhymed trimeter; lines three and four are rhymed dimeter. The
rhymes are frequently eccentric, and the subject matter is often nonsensical
or obscene.

lyric

Originally a poem meant to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre. Now, a

lyric is the most common verse form: any fairly short poem in the voice of a
single speaker, usually expressing personal concerns rather than describing a
narrative or dramatic situation.

masculine rhyme

Rhymes that consist of a single stressed syllable. This is the most common
form of end rhyme in English (compare feminine rhyme).

meditation

A contemplation of some physical object as a way of reflecting upon some

larger truth, often (but not necessarily) a spiritual one. For example, see
Wallace Stevens, 'Sunday Morning' (1923).

metaphor

A figure of speech that relies on a likeness or analogy between two things to

equate them and thus suggest a relationship between them. For example, in
'A Far Cry from Africa' (1962) Derek Walcott portrays the continent as an
animal, with a 'tawny pelt' and 'bloodstreams.' Compare metonymy, simile.

meter

The formal organization of the rhythm of a line into regular patterns; see

foot, scansion.
metonymy

A figure that relies on a close relationship other than similarity (compare

metaphor) in substituting a word or phrase for the thing meant. For example,
the 'scepter' in Tennyson's 'Ulysses' (1842) represents the rule of Ithaca.

mnemonic devices

Forms, such as rhyme, built into poems to help reciters remember the
poems.

motif

A recurrent device, formula, or situation that deliberately connects a poem

with preexisting patterns and conventions. For example, Edmund Spensers
Sonnet 75 (1595; 'One day I wrote her name upon the strand') relies on the
motif of immortality through poetry (cf. William Shakespeare, Sonnet 55
[1609]).

mythologies

Large systems of belief and tradition on which cultures draw to explain and
understand themselves. These are often political or religious, and often
become conventional over time (for example, see the use of 'Venus' son' in
Elizabeth s 'When I Was Fair and Young').

narrative

Poetry that tells a story and is primarily characterized by linear, chronological

description.

occasional poem

A poem written about or for a specific occasion, public or private (e.g., Maya
Angelou s poem for the 1993 presidential inauguration, 'On the Pulse of
Morning'). Such poems can transcend the particular incident that inspired
them; for example, see William Butler Yeats, 'Easter 1916' (1916).

ode

An extended lyric, usually elevated in style and with an elaborate stanzaic

structure (e.g., see Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 'Dejection: An Ode' [1817]).

off-rhyme

Rhyme that does not perfectly match in vowel or consonant sound; for
example, see William Butler Yeats, 'Easter 1916' (1916): faces / houses,
gibe / club, etc.

onomatopoeia

Use of a word or words the sound of which approximates the sound of the
thing denoted (e.g., 'splash').

oxymoron

A figure of speech that combines two apparently contradictory words (e.g,

John Milton's description of the flames of hell as giving 'No light, but rather

darkness visible' in Paradise Lost 1.63 [1667]).

parody

A poem that imitates another poem closely, but changes details for comic or
critical effect. For example, 'The Dover Bitch' by Anthony Hecht (1968)
parodies Matthew Arnold's 'Dover Beach' (1867).

pastoral

A poem (also called an eclogue, a bucolic, or an idyll) that portrays the

simple life of country folk, usually shepherds, as a timeless world of beauty,
peace, and contentment. From its beginnings (the Greek Idyls of Theocritus,
third century B.C.), pastoral has idealized rural life; poets have used the
conventions of this highly artificial form to explore subjects having little to do
with any actual countryside (for example, see Christopher Marlowe, 'The
Passionate Shepherd to His Love' [1599, 1600]). There is also a large
subgenre of pastoral elegy (e.g., see John Milton, 'Lycidas' [1637]).

pattern poetry

A poem with lines in the shape of the subject of the poem. This form was
popular in English poetry in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (e.g.,
George Herbert, 'Easter Wings' [1633]) and again in the twentieth century
(notably by John Hollander and May Swenson). Compare with concrete
poetry.

persona

A voice assumed by the author of a poem. See speaker.

personification

Treating an abstraction as if it were a person, endowing it with humanlike

qualities. For an extended example, see Emily Dickinson, no.712 (1890;
'Because I could not stop for Death').

Petrarchan sonnet

See Italian sonnet.

prosopopoeia

See personification.

protest poem

An attack, sometimes indirect, on institutions or social injustices. For

example, see Anna Letitia Barbauld, 'The Rights of Woman' (1825).

pyrrhic

two successive unstressed or lightly stressed syllables.

quantitative meter

Lines of verse divided into feet, which are scanned by syllable length (actual
duration of the sound) rather than stress (compare accentual meter). This is
the form of classical Greek and Latin verse, and it is very difficult to
reproduce in English, which privileges stress.

quatrain

A four-line stanza, whether rhymed or unrhymed. This is the most common

stanza form in English poetry.

rhyme

The repetition of the same ('perfect rhyme') or similar sounds, most often at
the ends of lines. See off-rhyme, vowel rhyme.

rhyme royal

A seven-line iambic pentameter stanza, rhymed ababbcc. For example, see

Thomas Wyatt, 'They Flee from Me' (1557).

scansion

The analysis of a line of poetry (by 'scanning') to determine its pattern of

stressed and unstressed syllables, which usually are divided into metrical
feet. See foot.

sestina

Six six-line stanzas and a final three-line stanza in a complex form that
repeats words, not lines (as in the villanelle) or rhymes. The final word in
each line of the first stanza becomes the final word in other stanzas (in a set
pattern: ABCDEF, FAEBDC, CFDABE, ECBFAD, DEACFB, BDFECA); the lines in
the concluding stanza, or envoy, usually end ECA and each line contains one
of the remaining three end words. Invented in the twelfth century by the
troubadours, the form has again come into use in the twentieth century (e.g.,
by Marilyn Hacker); the repetitions often convey a sense of circling around a
subject.

setting

The time and place of the action in a poem.Shakespearean sonnet: See

English sonnet.

simile

A direct, explicit comparison of one thing to another that usually draws the
connection with the words 'like' or 'as.' Compare metaphor.

situation

The context of the action in a poem; that is, what is happening when the
poem begins.

sonnet

A form, usually only a single stanza, that offers several related possibilities for
its rhyme scheme; however, it is always fourteen lines long and usually
written in iambic pentameter. See English sonnet, Italian sonnet, and
Spenserian sonnet.

speaker

The person, not necessarily the author, who is the voice of a poem. See
persona.

Spenserian sonnet

Three four-line stanzas (interwoven by overlapping rhyme) and a couplet;

this sonnet is rhymed abab bcbc cdcd ee. For example, see Edmund Spenser,
'Sonnet 71' (1595; 'One day I wrote her name upon the strand').

Spenserian stanza

Eight lines of iambic pentameter and a ninth line of iambic hexameter, called
an alexandrine, rhymed ababbcbbc. The name of the stanza comes from
Edmund Spenser's use of it in 'The Faerie Queene' (1596); see also John
Keats, 'The Eve of St. Agnes' (1820).

spondee

A stressed syllable followed by another syllable of approximately equal stress,

as in 'hot dog' (see foot).

sprung rhythm

Gerard Manley Hopkins' blending of accentual meter with the more familiar
feet of accentual-syllable meter. In his system, each foot begins with a stress;
the line is measured by the number of stresses, which fall with normal word
stress (and need not be separated by unstressed syllables).

stanzas

Groups of lines, usually in some predetermined pattern of meter and rhyme,

that are set off from one another by a space.

subject

The general or specific area of concern of a poem; also called its topic.

syllabic verse

A form in which the poet establishes a precise number of syllables to a line,

without regard to their stress, and repeats them in subsequent stanzas. For
example, see Marianne Moore, 'Poetry' (1921).

symbol

A word or image that stands for something else in a vivid but indeterminate
way: it suggests more than what it actually says. For example, see Li-Young
Lee, 'Persimmons' (1986).

symbolic poem

A poem in which the use of symbols is so pervasive and internally consistent

that the larger referential world is distanced, if not forgotten. For example,
see Adrienne Rich, 'Diving into the Wreck' (1973).

synesthesia

Figurative expression of the perception of one sense in terms of another. For

example, see William Blake, 'London' (1794): 'And the hapless Soldier's sigh /
Runs in blood down Palace walls.'

syntax

The formal arrangement of words in a sentence.

terza rima

A series of three-line stanzas with interlocking rhymes, invented by Dante for

The Divine Comedy (aba, bcb, cdc, ded, etc.) in the early fourteenth century.
For an English example, see Percy Bysshe Shelley, 'Ode to the West Wind'
(1820).

theme

The statement a poem makes about its subject. Although, generally

speaking, the theme is what a poem is 'about,' the meaning of a poem can
never be reduced to one or more of the themes within the poem.

tone

The attitude taken in or by a poem toward the subject and theme.

topic

See subject.

tradition

A customary practice or a widely accepted way of viewing or representing

things; it usually includes many conventions.

trochee

A stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one, as in 'liar' (see foot).

villanelle

A poem that contains five three-line stanzas and a final four-line stanza. Only
two rhyme sounds are permitted in the entire poem, and the first and third
lines of the first stanza are repeated, alternately, as the third line of
subsequent three-line stanzas; the last stanza ends with these two lines. Like
the sestina, the villanelle is a circular form; its movement recalls a dance, and
indeed it was originally derived from an Italian folk song. For a loose
example, see Rita Dove, 'Parsley: 1. The Cane Fields' (1983); for a stricter
example, see Dylan Thomas, 'Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night'
[1952]).

vowel rhyme

Rhyme words that have only their vowel sounds in common. For example,
see Dylan Thomas, 'Fern Hill' (1946): boughs / towns, green / leaves, etc.

zeugma

The use of one word (usually a verb) to 'yoke' two or more words to which it
applies in different senses (e.g., see Alexander Pope's Belinda, who may
'stain her Honour, or her new Brocade'; The Rape of the Lock 2.107 [1714]).

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