Glossary of Selected Literary Terms

Glossary of Selected Poetic Terms

We present here selected literary terms culled from the books listed in the reference section. These terms are expected to guide you in your choice of words for the poem you intend to write.

Abstract

Abstract is the opposite of concrete. A sentence can be described as abstract if it makes a general statement about a class of persons or objects or if its object is an abstraction – that is, a quality considered apart from its object – such as wealth and beauty. “Honesty is the best policy” is an abstract statement, but “Hotchkiss is a thief” is concrete. The latter statement refers to a particular object rather than to a general class of objects.

Accent

The special emphasis given to one syllable over others in pronouncing a word or to one word over others in say a phrase. It is used in poetry to determine the metre.

Aestheticism

This is a term loosely applied to an English literary movement of the second half of the nineteenth century. The roots of the movement lay in the reverence for beauty instilled by Keats and the Pre-Raphaelites.

Allusion

A rhetorical term applied to that figure of speech that makes casual reference to a famous historical or literacy figure or event. “He, like the Prodigal son Returns Home”. Prodigal here is an allusion to the Biblical prodigal son who returns to his father after spending his father’s fortune recklessly.

Ambiguity

This occurs when double or multiple meanings are attached to words or to situations. Figurative language is somewhat ambiguous. While ambiguity is never desirable in normal formal writing, it is useful in poetry. It brings several meanings that can illuminate more fully the complexities of the experience that the writing offers.

Anthology

A collection of poetry or prose, sometimes divided into categories such as lyric verse, satiric verse, etc.

Antithesis

The placing of a word or an idea that is in contrast to it or that its opposite. This figure of speech is characterized by strongly contrasting words, clauses, sentences, or ideas. It is a balancing of one term against another for impressiveness and emphasis. “Unlike we stand, divided we fall”

Anticlimax

This is the opposite of climax. Instead of an action in a play/novel moving from the lowest point to the highest, it moves in a reverse order. If the work of art peters out after a climax, the weak ending is anticlimactic.

Atmosphere

The mood which is established by the totality of a literary work.

Blank verse

Unrhymed verse, particularly that form of unrhymed heroic verse which is commonly employed in English dramatic and epic poetry. Blank verse consists of lines of 10 syllables each, the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and tenth syllables bearing the accents (iambic pentameter).

Couplet

Two lines in immediate succession usually, but not necessarily of the same length, forming a pair, and generally marked as such by rhyming with each other. A pair of lines joined by rhyme is considered a couplet, whether it forms part of a stanza, or constitutes a metrical group by itself. The grave’s a fine and private place but none, I think, do thee embrace. (from “To His Coy Mistress”).

Denotation

The specific, exact meaning of a word, independent of its emotional coloration or associations. Connotation which is the opposite of denotation refers to the references and associations which a word has collected in the course of its use in addition to its denotation.

Dramatic Monologue

A poem which reveals “a soul in action” through the conversation of one character in a dramatic situation. The character is speaking to an identifiable but silent listener in a dramatic moment in the speaker’s life. The circumstances surrounding the conversation, one side of which we “hear” as the dramatic monologue, are made clear by implication in the poem, and a deep meaning into the character of the speaker is given. E.g. Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess”, Alfred, and Lord Tennyson’s “Tithenus”

Elegy

A sustained and formal poem which presents the poet’s meditations upon death or upon a grave theme. The meditation often is occasioned by the death of a particular person, but it may be a generalized observation or the expression of a solemn mood. E.g. Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”.

Emotive language

Language designed to evoke or express emotional reactions towards its subject, as opposed to referential language.

Empathy

Signifies an experience in which we identify ourselves with an object of perception and seem to participate in its physical sensations, especially of posture and motion. The experience is sometimes described metaphorically as “an involuntary projection of ourselves into an object,” animate or inanimate.

Epigram

In Greek literature, a poetical inscription placed upon a tomb or monument. Later it was extended to encompass any very short poem – amorous, elegiac, meditative, complimentary, antidotal, or satiric – which is polished, terse, and pointed. Usually an epigram ends with a surprising or witty turn of thought. It is usually a short emphatic witty saying that involves antithesis or a paradox. It is similar in form to a proverb but it is a creation of the individual writer.

Euphemism

A mild, delicate, or indirect word or expression used in place of a plainer and more accurate one, which by reason of its meaning or association might be offensive, unpleasant or embarrassing.

Figurative Language

Intentional departure from the normal order, construction or meaning of words in order to infuse strength and freshness of expression in the poem to create a pictorial effect. It helps the poet draw an analogy, or to discover and illustrate similarities in otherwise dissimilar things.

Form

A term used to designate the organization of the elements in a work in relation to its total effect. For example, verse form refers to the organization of rhythmic units in a line and stanza form refers to the organization of the verses. Form is the pattern or structure or organization which is employed to give expression to the content of a literary piece.

Hyperbole

A figure of speech in which emphasis is achieved by deliberate exaggeration. Like many such figures, it appears in ordinary speech as well as in verse. Such common expression as “They were packed in the subway like sardines”, is an example of hyperbole.

Image

An image is a literal and concrete representation of a sensory experience or of an object that can be known by one or more of the senses. The image is one of the distinctive elements of the “language of art”, the means by which experience in its richness and emotional complexity is communicated. The image is, therefore, a portion of the essence of the meaning of the literacy work, not ever properly a mere decoration.

Imagery

Descriptive representation; sensory content of a literacy work; figurative language intended to evoke a picture or an idea in the mind of the reader.

Imagination

The power or process of using all the faculties so as to realize with intensity what is not perceived, and to do this in a way that integrates and orders everything thus present to the mind so that reality is enhanced thereby.

Innuendo

An oblique hint; an indirect intimation about a person or thing; an inferential suggestion, commonly used in a bad sense, but sometimes in an innocent one.

Internal Rhyme

Occurs within a single verse. It may serve several functions; giving pleasure in itself, pointing up the rhythmical structure, or, breaking a long line into shorter units.

Invective

Harsh, abusive language directed against a person or cause; vituperative writing.

Irony

A device by which a writer expresses a meaning contradictory to the stated or ostensible one. There are many techniques for achieving irony. The writer may, for example, make it clear that the meaning he intends is the opposite of his literal one or he may construct a discrepancy between an expectation and its fulfillment or between the appearance of a situation and the reality that underlies it. Whatever his technique, the writer demands that the reader perceive the concealed meaning that lies beneath his surface statement.

Lament

A poem expressing some great grief, usually more intense and more personal than that expressed in a complaint.

Lampoon

Writing which ridicules and satirizes the character or personal appearance of a person in a bitter, scurrilous manner.

Malapropism

A blunder in speech or writing caused by the substitution of a word for another similar in sound but different in meaning.

Metaphor

A figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable, in order to suggest a resemblance. “He is a lion”

Metonymy

A common figure of speech which is characterized by the substitution of a term naming an object closely associated with the word in mind for the word itself. In this way we commonly speak of the king as “the crown: an object closely associated with kingship thus being made to stand for “king”

Mock Epic or Mock Heroic

Terms frequently used interchangeably to designate a literacy form which burlesques epic poetry by treating a trivial subject in the “grand style”, or which uses the epic formulas to make ridiculous a trivial subject by ludicrously overstating it. When the mock poem is much shorter than a true epic some prefer to call it mock heroic, a term also applied to poems which mock romances than epics. Ordinary usage, however, employs the terms interchangeably. E.g. Alexander Pope, “Rape of the Lock” John Dryden, “The Dunciad”.

Objectivity

A quality in a literary work of impersonality, of freedom from the expression of personal sentiments, attitudes, or emotions by the author.

Onomatopoeia

The naming of anything by a more or less exact reproduction of the sound which it makes, or something audible connected with it. E.g. “The bee is buzzing” .

Oxymoron

A figure employed in an expression or statement which is apparently self-contradictory but in which a point is involved as in “cruel kindness” or “to make haste slowly” .

Paradox

A statement or opinion seemingly self-contradictory or absurd, that may actually be well-founded or true. E.g. “The Nile and the Nyanza lay like two twins” (From “Stanley Meets Mutesa” Rubadiri)

Personification

A figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstract ideas are endowed with human qualities or actions. E.g. “The grass is singing” .

Plagiarism

Literary theft. A writer who steals the plot of some obscure, forgotten story and uses it as new in a story of his own is a plagiarist.

Poetic License

A privilege or liberty taken by a poet of departing from normal order, diction, rhyme, or pronunciation to produce a desired effect.

Pun

A play on words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but differ in meaning and which results in an odd or ludicrous idea. E.g.

History’s art not fact

History…Herstory History

Sees sees seas

Politics politricks politricks

(From Riot in Heaven: Tess Onwueme)

Rhyme

The repetition of the same or similar sounds, whether vowels, consonants or a combination of these in one or more syllables, usually stressed and occurring at determined and recognizable intervals. Masculine or male rhymes are those in which the final syllable is accented, while feminine or double rhymes are those in which the final syllables are unaccented. Internal rhyme refers to rhyme which occurs within the line, as n “the splendour falls on castle walls” .

Rhythm

In language, the sense of movement attributable to the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of prose or poetry or to the lengths of sounds in quantitative verse. In verse, the rhythm is determined by the metrical pattern, whereas in prose or free verse, it is the effect of an arrangement of words more nearly approximating natural speech.

Romantic

A term used of literature that is centred upon the inner rather than upon the outer world and that tries to convey the writer’s feelings in a manner uniquely expressive of his experience and his personality though not in traditional formal patterns. These features distinguish it from classical writing. The Romantic Movement that started at the close of the eighteenth century was a reaction against the formalism of a period dominated by a mechanistic view of life. Romanticism, another name for this reaction, applies also to any trend that exalts nature above artifice, sensibility above intellect, the foreign above the familiar, energy above restraint, and the search for an absolute above concern with the here and now. The romantic is one who takes this attitude. One of the prominent poets of the Romantic period is William Wordsworth.

Sarcasm

A form of verbal irony, in which, under the guise of praise a caustic and bitter expression of strong and personal disapproval is given. Sarcasm is personal, jeering, intended to hurt, and is intended as a sneering taunt.

Satire

A literary work or mode of writing intended to arouse ridicule, contempt, or disgust at abuses and follies of man and his institutions, and aimed at the correction of malpractices by inspiring both indignation and laughter with a mixture of criticism and wit. E.g. Wole Soyinka, “Telephone Conversation” Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal” Samuel Johnson, “Vanity of Human Wishes”.

Simile

The comparing or likening of two things that have some strong point or points of resemblances, both of which are mentioned and the comparisons directly stated. It compares something to something else using words like as and like. “He is as brave as a lion”

Stanza

A recurrent grouping of two or more lines of a poem; in terms of length, metrical form, and, often, rime-scheme. However, the division into stanzas is sometimes made according to thought as well as form, in which case the stanza is a unit not unlike a paragraph of prose. Strophe is another term used for stanza, but one should avoid verse in this sense, since verse is properly reserved to indicate a single line of poetry.

Structure

The planned framework of a piece of literature. Though such external matters as kind of language used (French or English), prose or verse, or kind of verse, or type of sentence are sometimes referred to as “structural” features, the term usually is applied to the general plan or outline. Thus the scheme of topics (as revealed in a topical outline) determines the structure of a formal essay. The logical division of the action of a drama and also the mechanical division into acts and scenes are matters of structure. In a narrative the plot itself is the structural element. Often the author advertises his structure as a means of securing clearness, while at other times the artistic purpose of the author leads him to conceal his structure (as in narratives) or subordinate it altogether (as in some informal essays). In the novel today, as the most reliable as well as the most revealing key to the two, structure is used to define not only verse form and formal arrangement but also the sequence of images and ideas which unite to convey the meaning of the poem.

Style

The arrangement of words in a manner which at once best expresses the individuality of the author and the idea and intent in his mind. The best style, for any given purpose, is that which most nearly approximates a perfect adaptation of one’s language to one’s ideas. Style, then, is a combination of two elements: the idea to be expressed, and the individuality of the author.

A study of styles for the purpose of analysis will include such general qualities as: diction, sentence structure and variety, imagery, rhythm, coherence, emphasis, and arrangement of ideas.

Symbol

On the most literal level a symbol is something which is itself and yet stands for or suggests or means something else; as a flag is a piece of coloured cloth which stands for a nation. All language is symbolic in this sense, and many of the objects which we commonly use in daily life are. Literal symbols are of two broad types: one includes those which embody within and suggest time and eternity; the voyage suggests life; and phallic symbols are universally recognized. Such symbols are used widely in the world’s literature. The other type of symbol secures its suggestiveness not from qualities inherent in itself but from the way in which it is used in a given work. Thus in Moby-Dick the voyage, the land, the ocean – these objects are pregnant with meanings that seem almost independent of Melville’s use of them in his story; on the other hand, the white whale is invested with meaning – and differing meanings for different crew members – through the handling of materials in the novel. Similarly, in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, rain, which is merely a physical fact in the opening chapter, is converted into a symbol of death through the uses to which it is put in the book.

Symbolism

In its broad sense, symbolism is the use of one object to represent or suggest another; or, in literature, the use of symbols in writing, particularly the serious and extensive use of such symbols.

Symbolism is also the name given to a literary movement which originated in France in the last half of the nineteenth century, strongly influenced Irish and of British writing around the turn of the century, and has been a dominant force in much British and American poetry in the twentieth century. It sees the immediate, unique, and personal emotional response as the proper subject of art and its full expression as the ultimate aim of art.

Synecdoche

A form of metaphor which in mentioning a part, signifies the whole or vice-versa. In order to be clear, a good synecdoche must be based on an important part of the whole and not a minor part and, usually, the part selected to stand for the whole must be the part most directly associated with the subject under discussion.

Theme

The central, or dominating idea in a literary work. In non-fiction prose it may be thought of as the general topic of discussion, the subject of the discourse, the thesis. In poetry, fiction, and drama it is the abstract concept which is made concrete through its representation in person, action and image in the work.

Tone

Tone is used in contemporary criticism, as a term designating the attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience implied in a literary work. In such a usage, a work may have a tone that is formal, informal, intimate, solemn, sombre, playful, serious, ironic, condescending, or any of many other possible attitudes. Clearly, tone in this sense contributes in a major way to the effect and the effectiveness of a literary work.

In another sense, tone is used to designate the mood of the work itself and the various devices that are used to create that mood. In this sense, tone results from combinations and variation of such things as metre, alliteration, assonance, consonance, diction, sentence structure, repetition, imagery, symbolism, etc.

Unity

The concept that a literary work shall have in it some organizing principle to which all its parts are related so that, viewed in the light of that principle, the work is an organic whole. A work which has unity is cohesive in its parts, complete, self-contained, and integrated.

Universality

A critical term frequently employed to indicate the presence in a piece of writing of an appeal to all readers of all time. When writing presents the great human emotions common to all peoples of all civilizations – jealousy, love, pride, courage, etc – in literary form and through characters and actions that remain meaningful to other ages, it may be said to have universality. Of all qualities which make for universality in literature, the successful portrayals of human character are the most important.

Verse

A verse is a line in a poem, especially one that has a formal structure, or sometimes used synonymously with stanza, notably in hymnology.

CONCLUSION

The poet writes a poem, whether it was planned, or recorded as the one given in a dream or trance or as an outpouring of emotions. At the end of the exercise, the poem is revised to ensure that the desired rhythmic balance is achieved. The poet ensures that images, figurative language and figures of speech are used appropriately to convey the intended message. This revision also ensures that the final product expresses the poet’s emotion

appropriately.