Key Poetry Devices Flashcards
(26 cards)
Anastrophe
Inversion of the usual order of words/clauses
Ballad
A type of poem that tells a narrative, is set to music and written in quatrains
Blank Verse
A type of poetry that doesn’t rhyme, usually with 10 syllables per line
Caesura
A pause within a line of poetry
Couplet
A pair of consecutive lines in poetry that create a complete thought or idea
Dramatic Monologue
A poem written as if someone is speaking to an unseen listener about important thoughts
Elegy
A serious or melancholic poem, often written to mourn a death
End rhyme
When the last syllables in 2 or more lines rhyme
End-stopped line
A line of poetry ending with a grammatic break (e.g. full stop)
Enjambment
Continuing of a sentence from one line of a poem into the next
Formal verse
A poem which uses strict metre, rhyme and form
Free verse
A poem that doesn’t use strict metre or a rhyme scheme
Iambic pentameter
A verse line consisting of ten syllables organised into 5 pairs (pentameter) of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables (iambs)
Internal rhyme
rhyme that occurs between words within a verse line
Metre
regular, rhythmic arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables according to a particular pattern
Ode
a poem, often written to praise something
Quatrain
a stanza of 4 lines
Refrain
word, line or phrase repeated in a poem
Rhyme scheme
a poets chosen pattern of rhyming lines
Rhyming couplet
a pair of conscutive, rhyming lines of poetry
Sonnet
14 line poem written in iambic pentameter
Stanza
one of the parts that a poem is divided into
Tercet
a set of 3 lines of verse rhyming or connected by a rhyme with an adjacent triplet
Villanelle
19 line poem form consisting of 5 tercets followed by a quatrain
