Poetry Terms

The regular patterns of stresses found in many poems and songs.

• Alliteration

• Assonance

• Consonance

• meter

• Rhythm

A long speech made by a character in a play while no other characters are on stage; reveals the inner thoughts and feelings of the character.

• soliloquy

• sonnet

• analogy

• refrain

The pattern of end rhymes (of lines) in a poem.

• alliteration

• consonance

• repetition

• rhyme scheme

A way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the inhabitants of a certain geographical area.

• connotation

• dialogue

• dialect

• diction

A play on words that are identical or similar in sound but have sharply diverse meanings.

• euphemism

• personification

• pun

• epithet

The repetition of initial consonant sounds, in two or more neighboring words or syllables.

• sonnet

• epithet

• consonance

• alliteration

Extreme exaggeration

• hyperbole

• allusion

• metaphor

• idiom

A person, place, thing, or event that stands for itself and for something beyond itself as well.

• pun

• euphemism

• symbol

• personification

The suggested or implied meanings associated with a word beyond its dictionary definition.

• denotation

• connotation

• dialogue

• dialect

A highly-structured 14 line poem that explores deeply felt issues such as the fleeting nature of love and the aching questions of mortality.

• sonnet

• refrain

• soliloquy

• analogy