GLOSSARY OF DEVICES

• Allegory


  A story in which characters, settings, and actions stand for something beyond themselves.
• Abstract Poem


  Verse that depends upon auditory values for meaning.
• Metaphor


  A figure of speech comparing to unlike things without using like or as.
• Simile


  A comparison of two unlike things using like or as.
• Anapest


  A metrical unit with unstressed-unstressed-stressed syllables.
• Ballad


  A type of poem that is meant to be sung and is both lyric and narrative in nature.
• Blank Verse


  Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.
• Free Verse


  Poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme.
• Cadence


  Rhythmic flow of a sequence of sounds or words.
• Concrete Poetry


  A poem that visually resembles something found in the physical world.
• Rhymed Verse


  Consists of a verse with end rhyme and regular meter.
• Caesura


  A pause or break within a line of poetry.
• Charm


  Something believed to bring good luck.
• Conceit


  The trait of being vain and conceited.
• Dirge


  A funeral hymn or lament.
• Doggerel


  Loosely styled and irregular in measure especially for burlesque or comic effect.
• End Rhyme


  Rhyme that occurs at the end of two or more lines of poetry.
• Internal Rhyme


  A rhyme between words in the same line.
• Alliteration


  The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words.
• Onomatopoeia


  The use of words that imitate sounds.
• Meter


  A regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
• Foot


  One stressed syllable and one or more unstressed syllables.
• Fable


  A brief story that leads to a moral, often using animals as characters.
• Open Couplet


  A couplet that is not gramatically complete without the next line of verse.
• Haiku


  A Japanese form of poetry, consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables.
• Half Rhyme


  A rhyme in which the final sounds of the words are similar, but not identical.
• Heroic Couplet


  A couplet consisting of two rhymed lines of iambic pentamenter and written in an elevated style.
• Iambic


  One unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable.
• Image


  A single word or phrase that appeals to the senses.
• Inversion


  Reversal of the normal word order of a sentence.
• Kenning


  A fiurative expression used in place of a noun
• Trochee


  A metrical unit with stressed-stressed-unstressed syllables.
• Spondaic


  Two stressed syllables.
• Parallelism


  The use of corresponding grammatical or syntactical forms.
• Poetic License


  License used by a writer or artist to heighten the effect of their work.
• Prose Poem


  Usually a short composition having the intentions of poetry but written in prose rather than verse.
• Refrain


  A regularly repeated line or group of lines in a poem or song.
• Ode


  A poem in praise of an object or person.
• Satire


  Language or writing that exposes follies or abuses by holding them up to ridicule.
• Alliteration


  The repetition of sounds at the beginning of words in the same line or successive lines