Literary Terms: Poetry
Allusion: Unacknowledged reference and quotations that authors assume their readers
will recognize.
Couplet: two successive rhyming lines
Explication: A complete and detailed analysis of a work of literature, often word-by-
word and line-by-line.
Image: Images are references that trigger the mind to fuse together memories of sight
(visual), sounds (auditory), tastes (gustatory), smells (olfactory), and sensations of
touch (tactile)
Internal rhyme: An exact rhyme within a line of poetry: "Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered, weak and weary."
Onomatopoeia. A blending of consonant and vowel sounds designed to imitate or
suggest the activity being described. Example: buzz, slurp.
Personification: Attributing human characteristics to nonhuman things or abstractions
Alliteration: The repetition of identical consonant sounds, most often the sounds
beginning words, in close proximity. Example: pensive poets, nattering nabobs of
negativism.
Metaphor: A comparison between two unlike things, this describes one thing as if it
were something else. Does not use "like" or "as" for the comparison
Enjambment (or enjambement): A line having no end punctuation but running over to
the next line.
Hyperbole (overstatement) and litotes (understatement): Hyperbole is exaggeration
for effect; litotes is understatement for effect, often used for irony.
Simile. A direct comparison between two dissimilar things; uses "like" or "as" to state
the terms of the comparison.
Stanza: A group of poetic lines corresponding to paragraphs in prose; the meters and
rhymes are usually repeating or systematic.
