LITERARY TERMS & THEMATIC ELEMENTS
EILAND'S ONLINE ENGLISH CLASSES

• ALLITERATION: repeated consonant sounds (Carrie crashed Craig's car)
• APOSTROPHE: speech addressed to absent or non-listening figure
• ASSONANCE: repetition of same vowel sounds (Annie asked Andy for alimony)
• BALLAD: short, lyrical narrative
• COUPLET: two rhyming lines in a verse
• EPIC: long narrative poem, often heroic in nature
• EYE RHYME: using words that have same ending but SOUND different (home/come)
• FREE VERSE: unrhymed poetry with irregular length lines
• LYRIC: short poem, song-like, focusing on emotion
• METAPHOR: direct comparison of one thing to another (e.g. she was the world to me)
• METER: beat of the verse…how many stressed syllables per line:
  Triameter: 3 stressed beats per line
  Tetrameter: 4 stressed beats per line
  Pentameter: 5 stressed beats per line
  Hexameter: 6 stressed beats per line
  Heptameter: 7 stressed beats per line
• OCTET: 8 lines in a verse
• ODE: lyrical poem exalting someone
• OPEN FORM: designed to sound spontaneous, as opposed to a strictly metered or rhymed verse.
• PERSONIFICATION: author portraying a non-homan entity with human characteristics (e.g. the sun smiled)
• POEM: a work in meter or free verse employing figurative language
• PROSODY: principles of verse
• QUATRAIN: four lines in a verse grouped together, not necessarily rhyming
• REFRAIN: repeated lines, esp. in ballad: could be a line or single phrase
• RHYME: accented sounds in corresponding positions between lines
• RHYTHM: pattern of stressed and unstressed sounds in a poem
• SEXTET: 6 lines in a verse
• SIMILE: comparison of one thing to another using "like" or "as" (e.g. her voice was like rain dancing on the grass)
• SONNET: invented by Shakespeare, a lyric poem of 14 lines
• STANZA: group of lines repeated in a poem
• TRIPLET: 3 lines in a verse, rhyming
• VERSE: line of poetry; stanza of poem or song

© T. T. Eiland, January 1998
Last modified: January 2, 2018