Poetry: Poetry Overview

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
In poetry and prose, the use, within a line or phrase, of words beginning with the same sound, as in Two tired toads trotting to Tewkesbury. It was a common device in Old English literature, and its use survives in many traditional phrases, such as dead as a doornail and pretty as a picture. MORE

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
The repetition of the same word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or lines. MORE

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
In prosody the technical term for one form of elision, namely omission of a word-initial syllable, esp. a vowel, e.g. ’gainst for against, mid for amid, ’neath for beneath. Often the following consonant then clusters with the succeeding word, e.g. ’tis for it is, ’twere for it were. MORE

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
In prosody the technical term for one form of elision, namely loss of a word-final syllable or vowel, e.g. eve or even for evening. Often the apocopated word then fuses with the one following, e.g. “th’Empyrean” for “the Empyrean,” “th’army,” etc., thereby avoiding hiatus (q.v.). MORE

From Dictionary of Shakespeare
The repetition of vowel sounds within a sequence of words (but not the rhyming sounds repeated at the end of lines of verse). MORE

From The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
he tidiest definition of this trope dates back, it has been argued, to the Stoic grammarians: catachresis is the use of a borrowed word for something that does not have a name of its own. We speak thus of the "legs" of a table or the "foot" of a bed.

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
In addition to its general meaning of harmony (agreement), c. has been used interchangeably in prosody with a wide variety of terms intended to designate certain phonic echoes. MORE

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Non-alignment of (end of) metrical frame and syntactic period at line-end: the overflow into the following poetic line of a syntactic phrase (with its intonational contour) begun in the preceding line without a major juncture or pause. MORE

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
The quality of having pleasant, easily pronounced, or smooth-flowing sounds, free from harshness; the pleasing effect of such sounds; the opposite of cacophony. MORE

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
The transmutation of ideas into images, is the product of the formative power of human cognition and is realized in all the ways in which verbal, mental, perceptual, optical, and graphic images interact. MORE

From Dictionary of Shakespeare
A group of two or more syllables in a metric line of verse, one of which is more strongly emphasized or stressed than the others, that forms the basis of the rhythm.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
In verse, a rhyme in which the consonant sounds are similar but not the vowel sounds. MORE

From The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Refers to the Eng. cover term for a variety of rhymes that occur not at the end of the line but within the line. Internal rhyme, therefore, shifts emphasis away from line endings and often away from the interplay between lines to the interplay between words.

From Encyclopedia of Postmodernism
Metonymy, or literally, “change of name,” is a metaphoric substitution of the name of a thing for some attribute of it; as a rhetorical trope, the change of effect for cause, cause for effect, proper name for one of its qualities, or one of the qualities of a thing for its proper name. MORE

From Encyclopedia of Postmodernism
Generally, mimesis is the art of imitation; in rhetoric and poetics, it usually refers to the modes of discourse which have the imitation of nature, including human nature, as their central aim. MORE

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Figure of speech that copies natural sounds. For example, the word ‘cuckoo’ imitates the sound that the cuckoo makes. MORE

In prosody, a line to be scanned in five feet (see versification). The third line of Thomas Nashe's "Spring" is in pentameter: "Cold doth / not sting, / the pret / ty birds / do sing."

From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
A portmanteau is a type of leather travelling bag for clothes which opens out flat into two parts. A ‘portmanteau word’ is thus a word made up of two others, and expressive of a combination denoted by those parts. MORE

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Study of the elements of language, especially metre, that contribute to rhythmic and acoustic effects in poetry. MORE

Or rime, the most prominent of the literary artifices used in versification.

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
The act of discovery or interp. of the meter (q.v.) of a poem as realized in one of its lines; also the graphic transcription thereof, usually by symbols, numbers, or letters either above the line or alone. S. is a notation system for meter in metrical poetry just as sheet music notates music or writing notates speech.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Figure of speech that uses either the part to represent the whole (‘There were some new faces at the meeting’, rather than new people), or the whole to stand for the part (‘The West Indies beat England at cricket’, using the country to stand for the national teams in question). MORE

A Japanese verse form consisting of five lines, the first and third having five syllables, the others seven. [C19: from Japanese, from tan short + ka verse].

Principles of metrical practice in poetry. In different literatures poetic form is achieved in various ways; usually, however, a definite and predictable pattern is evident in the language.

In speech, emphasis given a particular sound, called prosodic systems in linguistics. There are three basic accentual methods: stress, tone, and length. MORE

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
In the quantitative meters of Classical poetry, a metrical foot of two short syllables followed by one long (˘ ˘ –, e.g. dĕĭtās), or, in verse-systems based on accent, two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed (x x /, e.g. interrupt). MORE

From The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
A term that derives from the Lat. verb caedere, "to cut off," and refers to the place in a line of verse where the metrical flow is temporarily "cut off." When this "cut" occurs at the beginning of a line, it is called an "initial caesura"; when it occurs in the middle of a line, it is called a "medial caesura"; and when it occurs at the end of a line, it is called a "terminal caesura.

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
In Cl. prosody, a metrical foot consisting of one long syllable followed by two short ones. MORE

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
The chief meter in most cl. and mod. prosody. Iambic meter is based on the iamb, a metrical foot consisting of a short or unstressed syllable followed by a long or stressed syllable. In Lat. poetry, the iamb was comprised of this short and long syllable pair; in Gr. it was a metron consisting of this plus a preceding anceps and long syllable

From The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature
From the Greek word meaning `measure'. In poetry, metre is the measure of the rhythm of a line of verse, when the line is rhythmically systematic, ie can be divided into units of `metrical feet'. MORE

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
in prosody, a line to be scanned in five feet (see versification). The third line of Thomas Nashe's "Spring" is in pentameter: "Cold doth / not sting, / the pret / ty birds / do sing." MORE

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
The act of discovery or interp. of the meter (q.v.) of a poem as realized in one of its lines; also the graphic transcription thereof, usually by symbols, numbers, or letters either above the line or alone. S. is a notation system for meter in metrical poetry just as sheet music notates music or writing notates speech. MORE

From The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature
In ancient Greek and Latin poetry, a unit of verse measure composed of two long syllables (´ ´); in English verse, two accented syllables. MORE

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
A term used for both metrical units and whole meters having the rhythm “marked—unmarked” in series. In the modern accentual meters, a trochee is a foot (q.v.) comprising a stressed syllable followed by a unstressed. MORE

From The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Also known as e-poetry, digital poetry, new-media poetry, hypertext poetry, and computer poetry, all but the last of which have been used more or less interchangeably. Whereas once computer poetry might have been assumed to denote combinatory texts automatically generated from the formal rules and logic of a computer program (a practice dating back to the 1950s), the shift to electronic poetry is indicative of the much wider spectrum of creative activity now taking place,

Poetry which conveys meaning through the physical arrangement of the words on the page as well as through the words themselves. MORE

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
A school of poetry which flourished in England and America between 1912 and 1914 and emphasized the virtues of clarity, compression, and precision. MORE

Modernism is based on a concern with form and the exploration of technique as opposed to content and narrative. In literature, writers experimented with alternatives to orthodox sequential storytelling. MORE

From Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century
Narrative poetry, broadly defined, is driven by plot and character and privileges story over subjectivity while maintaining the rhythms and compression associated with poetry rather than prose. MORE

From Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century
As a casually organized revival of metered and rhymed poetry among younger American poets in the 1980s, the New Formalism, or Neo-Formalism, was spearheaded primarily by poets who had come of age during the 1960s and 1970s. MORE

From Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century
Interpreted broadly, the category of performance poetry might include any poem that is read, sung, recited, acted, or otherwise performed before an audience. MORE

A late 18c and early 19c movement in art, literature and music, characterized by an emphasis on feelings and emotions, often using imagery taken from nature, and creating forms which are relatively free from rules and set orders. MORE

Transcendentalism was a series of new ideas that flourished among writers and philosophers in New England during the 19th century. MORE