List of definitions of terms and concepts related to poetry
This is a glossary of poetry terms.
Metrical feet
A metrical foot (aka poetic foot) is the basic repeating rhythmic unit that forms part of a line of verse in most Indo-European traditions of poetry.
In some metres (such as the iambic trimeter) the lines are divided into double feet, called metra (singular: metron).
- Monosyllable
- Disyllable: metrical foot consisting of 2 syllables.
- Iamb (aka iambus): short-long
- Trochee (aka choreus or choree): long-short
- Spondee: long-long
- Pyrrhic (aka dibrach): short-short
- Trisyllable: metrical foot consisting of 3 syllables.
- Tetrasyllable: metrical foot consisting of 4 syllables.
- Tetrabrach (aka proceleusmatic): short-short-short-short
- Dispondee: long-long-long-long
- Paeon: a metrical foot of 1 long syllable and 3 short syllables in any order.
- Primus paeon: long-short-short-short
- Secundus paeon: short-long-short-short
- Tertius paeon: short-short-long-short
- Quartus paeon: short-short-short-long
- Epitrite: a metrical foot consisting of 3 long syllables and 1 short syllable.
- First epitrite: short-long-long-long
- Second epitrite: long-short-long-long
- Third epitrite: long-long-short-long
- Fourth epitrite: long-long-long-short
- Ionic: a metrical foot consisting of 2 short and 2 long syllables
- Minor ionic (aka double iamb): short-short-long-long
- Major ionic: long-long-short-short
- Diamb: short-long-short-long (i.e., two iambs)
- Ditrochee: long-short-long-short (i.e., two trochees)
- Antispast: short-long-long-short
- Choriamb: long-short-short-long (i.e., a trochee/choree alternating with an iamb)
Forms
Verse meters
In a poetic composition, a verse is formally a single metrical line.
- Monometer: a line of verse with just 1 metrical foot.
- Dimeter: a line of verse with 2 metrical feet.
- Trimeter: a line of verse with 3 metrical feet.
- Tetrameter: a line of verse with 4 metrical feet.
- Hexameter: a line of verse with 6 metrical feet.
- Heptameter: a line of verse with 7 metrical feet.
- Octameter: a line of verse with 8 metrical feet.
- Dactylic meter: any meter based on the dactyl as its primary rhythmic unit.
- Iambic meter: any meter based on the iamb as its primary rhythmic unit.
- Trochaic meter: any meter based on the trochee as its primary rhythmic unit.
- Arabic poetic meters:
- Anapestic tetrameter (aka reverse dactyl): a poetic meter that has 4 anapestic metres per line.
- Common metre: a quatrain that rhymes "abab" and alternates 4-stress and 3-stress iambic lines. This is the meter used in hymns and ballads.[1]
- Indian poetic meters:
- Long metre (aka long measure): a poetic metre consisting of quatrains (4-line stanzas) in iambic tetrameter with the rhyme pattern "abab".
- Persian metres
- Quantitative meter: the dominant metrical system in which the rhythm depends on the length of time it takes to utter a line rather than on the number of stresses.
- Traditional Welsh
Types of verse
Verse forms
(A capital letter in any rhyme schemes below indicates a line that is repeated verbatim.)
- Blank verse: non-rhyming iambic pentameter (10-syllable line). It is the predominant rhythm of traditional English dramatic and epic poetry, as it is considered the closest to English speech patterns. Examples: "Paradise Lost" by John Milton and “Sunday Morning” by Wallace Stevens.
- Chant royal: five stanzas of "ababccddedE" followed by either "ddedE" or "ccddedE."
- 'a Gra' Reformata': ten stanzas of ABA CD ABA CD ABA CD ABA CD ABA CD ABAC. Following the rhyme scheme of the Villanelle, but with 5 extra couplets just after each tercet.
- Cinquain: "ababb".
- Clerihew: "aabb".
- Enclosed rhyme (aka enclosing rhyme): "abba".
- Ghazal: "aa ba ca da ..."
- Kural: Tamil verse form
- Limerick: "aabba".
- Monorhyme: an identical rhyme on every line, common in Latin and Arabic. ("aaaaa...")
- Rondelet: "AbAabbA".
- Rubaiyat: "aaba".
- Sapphics
- Seguidilla: Spanish-origin poem with seven syllable-counted lines, rhyming the second & fourth, and the fifth & seventh lines ("abcbded")
- Sestina: a complex French verse form, usually unrhymed, consisting of 6 stanzas of 6 lines each and a 3-line envoi.
- Shadorma: an allegedly Spanish six-line stanza, syllable-count restricted form, 3/5/3/3/7/5
- Sprung rhythm: a poetic rhythm designed to imitate the rhythm of natural speech.
- Tanaga: traditional Tagalog tanaga is "aaaa"
- Terza rima: "aba bcb cdc ...", ending on "yzy z" or "yzy zz/"
Types of rhyming
A rhyme is the repetition of syllables, typically found at the end of a verse line.
Types of stanza
A stanza is a group of lines forming the basic recurring metrical unit in a poem. (cf. verse in music.)
- Alcaic: a 4-line stanza invented by the Classical Greek poet Alcaeus that uses a specific syllabic count per line and a predominantly dactylic meter.
- Ballad
- Biolet
- Burns
- Chaubola
- Cinquain
- Couplet: two successive rhyming lines ("aa"), usually of the same length (usually re-occurring as "aa bb cc dd ...").[1]
- Envoi (or envoy): the brief stanza that ends French poetic forms such as the ballade or sestina.
- Ghazal
- Octave: an 8-line stanza or poem.
- Ottava rima: an Italian stanza of eight 11-syllable lines, with a rhyme scheme of "abababcc."
- Quatorzain
- Quatrain: a 4-line poem or stanza
- Quintain
- Rhyme royal: a stanza of seven 10-syllable lines, rhyming "ababbcc."
- Sapphic
- Sestain
- Sestet: a 6-line stanza
- Spenserian: consists of 9 lines in total—8 iambic-pentameter lines and a final alexandrine—with a rhyme scheme of "ababbcbcc."
- Tercet (or triplet): a unit of three lines, rhymed ("aaa") or unrhymed, often repeating like the couplet.
- Triolet: an 8-line stanza with only two rhymes, repeating the 1st line as the 4th and 7th lines, and the 2nd line as the 8th ("ABaAabAB").
- Terza rima: an Italian stanzaic form consisting of tercets with interwoven rhymes ("aba bcb ded efe...").
): a heavy syllable
): a light syllable
