Essential Vocabulary in Poetry and Literary Devices

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Alliteration

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The repetition of identical consonant sounds, most often the sounds beginning words, in close proximity. Example: pensive poets, nattering nabobs of negativism.

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Allusion

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Unacknowledged reference and quotations that authors assume their readers will recognize.

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Anaphora

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Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of a line throughout a work or the section of a work.

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Apostrophe

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Speaker in a poem addresses a person not present or an animal, inanimate object, or concept as though it is a person. Example: Wordsworth--'Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour / England has need of thee'.

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Assonance

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The repetition of identical vowel sounds in different words in close proximity. Example: deep green sea.

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Ballad

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A narrative poem composed of quatrains (iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter) rhyming x-a-x-a. Examples: 'Jackaroe,' 'The Long Black Veil'.

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Blank verse

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Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Example: Shakespeare's plays.

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Caesura

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A short but definite pause used for effect within a line of poetry.

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Chiasmus (antimetabole)

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Chiasmus is a 'crossing' or reversal of two elements; antimetabole, a form of chiasmus, is the reversal of the same words in a grammatical structure. Example: 'Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.'

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Common meter or hymn measure

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Iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter. Example: 'Amazing Grace' by John Newton.