İDE130

Literary Terms
VERSIFICATION and
STANZA FORMS
Prosody

 A term used to describe the

mechanical elements of poetic
composition such as the pattern,
rhythm, meter, foot, rhyme
 It is the theory of versification which is
the action, art or practice of
composing a poem.
Rhythm

 Rhythm can be created by meter,

rhyme, alliteration and assonance...
 The beat created by the sounds of the
words in a poem.
Meter
 A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
 Meter occurs when the stressed and unstressed syllables
of the words in a poem are arranged in a repeating
pattern.
 When poets write in meter, they count out the number
of stressed (strong) syllables and unstressed (weak)
syllables for each line. They they repeat the pattern
throughout the poem.

 Check:
https://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/word-stress-
rules.htm
Meter
 FOOT - unit of  TYPES OF FEET
meter. The types of feet
 A foot can have two are determined by
or three syllables. the arrangement of
 Usually consists of stressed and
one stressed and unstressed
one or more syllables.
unstressed
syllables.
 Types of Feet
 Iambic - unstressed syllable followed by a stressed
syllable
Trochaic - stressed syllable followed by an unstressed
syllable
Anapestic – two unstressed syllables followed by one
stressed syllable
Dactylic – one stressed syllable followed by two
unstressed syllables
Spondaic- two stressed syllables used as substitute fo
an iamb or trochee.
Check: https://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/meter.html
Meter
Kinds of Metrical Lines
 monometer = one foot on a line
 dimeter = two feet on a line
 trimeter = three feet on a line
 tetrameter = four feet on a line
 pentameter = five feet on a line
 hexameter = six feet on a line
 heptameter = seven feet on a line
 octometer = eight feet on a line
Accent

The emphasis or stress placed upon certain syllables in

a line
Types: Word accent: natural stress pattern of the word.
Rhetorical accent: is the stress put on a word
because of its function or importance in a sentence.
Metrical accent: stress pattern established by
the meter.
 Scansion
 The analysis of metrical patterns of a verse by describing the rhytyms, dividing the
lines into feet and marking the stressed and unstressed syllables.
- / - / - / - / - / - /
 Those drops, | like tears | from heav | en, fall | this drear | y day; ||

- / - / - / - / - / - /
 I see | the pudd | les form | ing, dimp | led with | the rain.
Ryhme

 It is the repetition of the identical or

similar sound or sounds.
Perfect Rhyme (full rhyme,exact
rhyme)

Diffrent consonant sounds are

followed by identical vowel sounds
and identical consonant sounds (if
any)
e.g. chain / brain
/ʧeɪn/ /breɪn/
Half Rhyme (slant rhyme,
near rhyme)
 Only the final consonant sounds of the
rhyming words are identical.

 e.g. bug / bag

Eye Ryhme

 It is not real rhyme. It is the ryhme on

words that look the same but are
pronounced differently.
 e.g. bough / rough
 /baʊ / /rʌf/
Masculine Ryhme

 The final syllables of the ryhming

words are stressed and identical

 e.g. long / song (monosyllable)

Feminine Rhyme (double
rhyme)
 A rhyme consisting of one stressed
syllable followed by an unstressed
syllable. (polysyllabic)

 e.g. mother / brother

– /ˈ
mʌðə/ /ˈ
brʌðə/
 Internal Rhyme

 Rhyming of two words within the same line

in a poem.

 e.g. “Once upon a midnight dreary, while

I pondered, weak and weary…”
Rhyme Scheme

 The pattern or arrangement of rhymes in

a stanza or a poem.
 Use the letters of the alphabet to
represent sounds to be able to visually
“see” the pattern.
Roses are red A
Violets are blue B
You stole my heart C
Then were untrue B
STANZA: a group of lines arranged
together

Types of Stanzas:
Couplet = a two line stanza
Triplet (Tercet) = a three line stanza
Quatrain = a four line stanza
Quintet = a five line stanza
Sestet (Sextet) = a six line stanza
Septet = a seven line stanza
Octave = an eight line stanza
 Canto: A sub-division of an epic or
narrative poem, comparable to a
chapter in a novel.

 Caesura: A break or pause in the

middle of a line of verse in poetry.
e.g. To err is human; // to forgive, divine
Alliteration (head rhyme)

 Repetition of the same consonant sound at the

beginnings, within or at the end of words in a line
of poetry.
 e.g. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled
peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter
Piper pick?

 The clock struck twelve, and he was tickled with

excitement as the ball dropped.
Assonance
 The repetition of vowel sounds at any
place in a series of words
 e.g. Do you like blue?
[du: juː laɪk blu:]
 He seemed so low that I couldn’t say no.
 [hiː siːmd səʊ ləʊ ðæt aɪ kʊdnt
seɪ nəʊ]
Refrain
 A sound, word, phrase or line repeated
regularly in a poem.
 e.g.  “The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
 But I have promises to keep,
 And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.” R. Frost
Onomatopoeia
 The use of a word or phrase that
imitates the sound of what it
describes.

e.g. Hiss, crack, swish, murmur, mew, buzz

 Blank Verse

 It is a type of poetry written in regular meter

but unrhymed lines. Mostly they are in iambic
pentameter form.

e.g.
 Free Verse
 Poetry written in irregular lines and without any regular metre. So,
unlike blank verse, free verse does NOT have any repeating patterns of
stressed and unstressed syllables. (no regular meter) It does NOT have
rhyme. Free verse poetry is very conversational - sounds like someone
talking with you.
 e.g.