Poetry Terms Glossary Chart (Page 3 of 4) in pdf

4. Expansion-Adds an unstressed syllable and a contraction or elision removes an unstressed syllable in

order to maintain the rhythmic meter of a line. This practice explains some words frequently used in

poetry such as th’ in place of the, o’er in place of over, and ‘tis or ‘twas in place of it is or it was.

5. Free verse- poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still rhythmical. Rhyme may be

used, but with great freedom. There is no regular meter or line length. The poet relies instead upon

DICTION, IMAGERY and SYNTAX to create a coherent whole. The poetry of Walt Whitman is perhaps

the best-known example of free verse. Most contemporary poetry is written in free verse. However, it

is not without its detractors. T. S. Eliot once said that: "No verse is free for the man who wants to do a

good job," and Robert Frost remarked that writing free verse was like "playing tennis without a net".

Free verse is not to be confused with BLANK VERSE which, although unrhymed, follows a definite form.

6. Meter- the repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry. The meter of a poem emphasizes

the musical quality of the language and often relates directly to the subject matter of the poem. Each

unit of meter is known as a foot.

In English the most common patterns are these:

 Iambic, with measures of two syllables, in which the first is unaccented and the second is

accented; e.g. “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield” (A. Tennyson, “Ulysses”);

 Dactylic, with measures of three syllables, in which the first is accented, the other two are not,

e.g.: “Rage, goddess, sing the rage, of Peleus’ son, Achilles” (Homer, The Iliad);

 Trochaic, with measures of two syllables, the first accented and the second unaccented, e.g.:

“”Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater” (Nursery Rhyme);

 Anapestic, with measures of three syllables, with the only accent on final syllable, e.g.: “The

Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and

gold” (Byron, Destruction of Sennacherib);

 Spondaic, with measures of two syllables, both of them accented, e.g.: “Rocks, caves, lakes,

fens, bogs, dens and shades of death” (Milton, Paradise Lost).

Foot: The metrical length of a line is determined by the number of feet it contains.

The most common feet have two to three syllables, with one stressed.

 iambic u /

 Monometer: One foot

 trochaic / u

 Dimeter: Two feet

 anapestic u u /

 Trimeter: Three feet

 amphibrach u / u

 Tetrameter: Four feet

 dactylic / u u

 Pentameter: Five feet

 pyrrhic u u

 Hexameter: Six feet

 spondaic / /

 Heptameter: Seven feet

In Ancient Greek poetry and Latin poetry, lines followed certain metrical patterns, based on arrangements of heavy and light syllables. A heavy

syllable was referred to as a longum and a light as a brevis (and in the modern day, reflecting the ancient terms, a longum is often called a "long

syllable" and a brevis a "short syllable," potentially creating confusion between syllable length and vowel length). A syllable was considered heavy if

it contained a long vowel or a diphthong (and was therefore "long by nature" — it would be long no matter what) or if it contained a short vowel

that was followed by more than one consonant ("long by position," long by virtue of its relationship to the consonants following). An example:

Arma virumque cano: “I sing of arms and of the man” (Virgil, The Aeneid).

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