Poetry+Terms+and+Definitions



=__Poetry Terms and Definitions__=

The purpose of poetry is to communicate experience.
//prose:// written or spoken language in its ordinary form (organized by **sentences and paragraphs**)

//verse:// written language that is organized in **lines** of more or less regular rhythm (in contrast to prose)

//speaker:// the voice of a poem--may be the poet, may be a fictitious character or //persona//

//persona:// Latin for "mask"; a fictitious character created by an author to be the speaker of a poem, story, or novel. A persona is always the narrator of the work and not merely a character in it.

//tone:// the speaker's attitude toward the subject, the audience, or herself or himself

//mood:// the desired attitude of the audience or reader toward the subject; how the author wants a reader to feel about a poem. Sometimes tone and mood are very similar, and sometimes they are quite different.

//rhyme scheme:// the pattern of rhyme in the poem; each sound at the end of a line of verse gets a letter designation (the first line would be "a," and all subsequent lines with the same end sound would get an "a" as well)

//couplet:// a pair of lines that rhyme with each other; a two-line stanza

//irony:// a literary term that implies a discrepancy (a sharp difference) of some sort
 * **verbal irony:** implies a discrepancy between what is said and what is meant (includes //sarcasm,// a form of verbal irony intended to be hurtful)
 * **dramatic irony:** implies a discrepancy between what the audience/reader knows and what a character in a film/literary work knows; when we know something a character in a film or book does not know
 * **irony of situation:** implies a discrepancy between what we expect to happen and what does happen

//denotation:// the dictionary definition of a word (ex: **home** refers to where one lives or resides)

//connotation:// a range of further meanings and associations, in addition to its denotation, that a word collects over time and/or depending on the context (ex: common connotations for **home** would include safety, family, meals, children, rest, warmth, kitchen, etc.)

//subject:// what a poem is literally about (ex: the subject of "To Lucasta" is war, or more specifically, the subject is a man trying to explain to his beloved why he is going to war)

//theme:// a general statement that a literary work makes about the human condition, expressible in a single sentence; a significant abstract idea that emerges from a literary work's treatment of its subject matter (ex: while the subject of "To Lucasta" may be war, its theme would be whatever statement the poem seems to **make** about war; in this case, a theme of "To Lucasta" might be "war is honorable," or "honor (from war, duty, etc.) takes priority over duty to a loved one")

//imagery:// the representation through language of sense experience (visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, tactile)

//figurative language:// language that uses comparisons or expressions (“figures of speech”) that are not literally true but rely on connotations and suggestions. For example, “Your eyes are like stars” is not literally true; it is a figure of speech.

//metaphor:// a comparison between two unlike things in which one thing is stated to be something else, which, in a literal sense, it is not. Metaphors have two parts, a **tenor** and a **vehicle**.
 * **tenor**—the actual thing being described (in the example "Mary is an angel," the tenor would be "Mary")
 * **vehicle**—the “imaginary” part of the metaphor; describes the tenor (in the above example, the vehicle would be "angel")

//simile:// a comparison of two unlike things, using some connective word (like, as, etc.) or a verb such as resembles. A simile usually compares two things that initially seem unlike but are shown to have a significant resemblance. “Cool as a cucumber” and “My love is like a red, red rose” are examples of similes.

//implied metaphor//: metaphor in which either the tenor or the vehicle is not stated (in rare cases, neither the tenor nor the vehicle is stated)

//personification:// a figure of speech in which a thing, an animal, or an abstract term (nature, truth) is made human. It is actually a subtype of metaphor, an implied comparison in which the vehicle is always a human being.

//hyperbole:// a statement of exaggeration that is literally not true but is used to emphasize a truth. “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse!” may not literally be true, but it does emphasize a truth: the speaker is very hungry.

//symbol:// an object that represents both what it literally is and something else; an object that has multiple meanings at the same time--