Glossary A - H
The following is an A to Z of poetic and related terms. I hope you will also find this beneficial when choosing the style of poem or letter you want written.
A
Accent - The importance given to a syllable or word. It can also refer to an emphasised syllable in relation to pitch, loudness or the regular recurrences of normal speech. Latin - ’song added to speech’.
Alexandrine - The name is derived from 12th Century medieval romantic literature about Alexander the Great. It consists of twelve syllables with a caesura after the sixth syllable. Very common in French poetry, its English equivalent is the iambic hexameter.
B
Ballad - from the Portuguese word balada meaning ‘dancing-song’. A narrative poem written in four-line stanzas characterized by rapid movement. It was often recited aloud and passed down orally from generation to generation.
Blank Verse - Poetry that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It is used extensively in narrative and dramatic poetry. Not to be confused with free verse because it does employ a meter. William Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in blank verse.
C
Couplet - A pair of rhymed lines of the same length which usually form a complete mentation.
D
Dactyl - A metrical foot consisting of just three syllables. The first is long or stressed whilst the second two are short or unstressed.
E
Elegy - a melancholy poem that employs a sorrowful tone whilst lamenting its subject’s death but one that usually ends in some form of consolation.
F
Free Verse - Poetry without formal meter or rhyme patterns. It instead depends upon the natural rhythms and inflections of everyday speech.
G
Gnomic Verse - containing gnomes, proverbs, maxims and aphorisms. A gnome is a short sententious saying expressing a general truth. Particularly popular amongst sixth and seventh century BC Greek poets.
H
Haiku - Extremely small Japanese poem consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. The Haiku is usually about the characteristics of the natural world and universal phenomenon.
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