Definitions

//**Lyric Poem:**// a lyric is a short poem in which a single speaker l personal thoughts and feelings. Most poems other than dramatic and narrative poems are lyrics. In ancient Greece, lyrics were meant to be sung-the word lyric comes from the word lyre, the name of a musical instrument that was used to accompany songs. Modern lyrics are not usually intended for singing but they are characterized by strong, melodic rhythms. Lyrics can be in a variety of forms and cover many subjects, from love and death to everyday experiences. They are marked by imagining and create for the reader a strong, unified impression.

//**Sonnet**:// A sonnet is a one-stanza poem of fourteen lines, written in iambic pentameter. One way to describe a verse line is to talk about how many stressed and unstressed syllables are in the line. A simple grouping of syllables, some stressed, some unstressed, is called a foot. The iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Pentameter means there are five feet in the line. "Iambic Pentameter," then, means a line of ten syllables, which alternates unstressed and stressed syllables according to the iambic rhythm. A volta is a turning point in a sonnet. The volta usually occurs at the beginning of a sestet in Italian. It is used to distract readers of the beat of Iambic Pentameter or a set rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme of a sonnet refers to the pattern formed by the rhyming words at the end of each line. Each end-rhyme is assigned a letter, and the fourteen letters assigned to the sonnet describe the rhyme scheme. Different kinds of sonnets have different rhyme schemes. A sonnet can be broken down into four sections called quatrains. The first three quatrains contain four lines each and use an alternating rhyme scheme. The final quatrain consists of just two lines which both rhyme. Each quatrain should progress the poem as follows:

First quatrain: This should establish the subject of the sonnet. Number of lines: 4. Rhyme Scheme: ABAB

Second quatrain: This should develop the sonnet’s theme. Number of lines: 4. Rhyme Scheme: CDCD

Third quatrain: This should round off the sonnet’s theme. Number of lines: 4. Rhyme Scheme: EFEF

Fourth quatrain: This should act as a conclusion to the sonnet. Number of lines: 2. Rhyme Scheme: GG

//**Free Verse:**// Poetry that does not rhyme. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech. Poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, is not entirely free. Free verse displays some elements of form. Most free verse, for example, self-evidently continues to observe a convention of the poetic line in some sense, at least in written representations, though retaining a potential degree of linkage, however nebulous, with more traditional forms.

**//Simile://** A simile is a comparison of two things that are unlike in nearly every way, yet similar in one way. Similes usually use the words, “like” or “as” in describing the two things they are comparing. They are found all through ancient literature and modern literature, although in older literature they are used more in a scholorary fashion, whereas in modern literature they are more spontaneous and free. Similes can be used to make a piece of writing more colorful and creative, interesting and fun to read. They are even used in every day speech, “He is as stubborn as a bull!”

//**Metaphor:**// Metaphors differ from Similes because in a metaphor the writer does not compare the two things, but describes them as being identical. The metaphor states that something is something else, where the simile states that something is like something else.

//**Imagery:**//Visually descriptive or figurative language, esp. in a literary work: "Tennyson uses imagery to create a lyrical emotion". Imagery involves one or more of your five senses (hearing, taste, touch, smell, sight). An author uses a word or phrase to stimulate your memory of those senses. These memories can be positive or negative which will contribute to the mood of your poem

//**Alliteration:**// The commencement of two or more stressed syllables of a word group either with the same consonant sound or sound group (consonantal alliteration) as in from stem to stern, or with a vowel sound that may differ from syllable to syllable (vocalic alliteration) as in each to all.

//**Assonance**//: resemblance of sounds, rhyme in which the same vowel sounds are used with different consonants in the stressed syllables of the rhyming words, as in penitent and reticence.

//**Consonance:**// accord or agreement, correspondence of sounds; harmony of sounds, a simultaneous combination of tones conventionally accepted as being in a state of repose

//**End Rhyme:**// rhyme of the terminal  syllables of  lines of poetry, in poetry, a rhyme that occurs in the last syllables of verses, as instanza one of Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening": Whose woods these are I think I know, His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow

**//Slant Rhyme://** Half rhyme or slant rhyme, sometimes called near rhyme or imperfect rhyme, is consonance on the final letters of the words involved. Many slant rhymes are also mouth rhyme.

**//Hyperbole://** A hyperbole is an extreme exaggeration used to make a point. It is like the opposite of “understatement.” It is from a Greek word meaning “excess.” Hyperboles can be found in literature and oral communication. They would not be used in nonfiction works, like medical journals or research papers; but, they are perfect for fictional works, especially to add color to a character or humor to the story. Hyperboles are comparisons, like similes and metaphors, but are extravagant and even ridiculous.

//**Pun:**//the humorous use of a word or phrase so as to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; a play on words.

//**Allusion:**// a passing or casual reference; an incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication: The novel's title is an allusion to Shakespeare; the act or practice of making a casual or indirect reference to something; the act of alluding: The Bible is a fertile source of allusion in art; a metaphor; parable.

//**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Tone: **//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">A poem's tone is the attitude that its style implies; Tone can shift through a poem: 'A Barred Owl', by Richard Wilbur, has a first stanza with a comforting, domestic tone, and a second that insists this kind of comfort plays a vicious world false. The shift in tone is part of what is enjoyable about the poem.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">//**Personification:**// the attribution of human nature or character to animals, inanimate objects, or abstract notions, especially as a rhetorical figure; the person or thing embodying a quality or the like; an embodiment or incarnation; an imaginary person or creature conceived or figured to represent a thing or abstraction.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">//**Onomatopoeia:**// the formation of a word, as cuckoo, meow, honk, or boom, by imitation of a sound made by or associated with its referent; the use of imitative and naturally suggestive words for rhetorical, dramatic, or poetic effect.

//**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Connotation: **// <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">a. the associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning: A possible connotation of “home” is “a place of warmth, comfort, and affection.” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">b. the suggesting of additional meanings by a word or expression, apart from its literal meaning; the act of connoting. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">2. Something suggested or implied by a word or thing, rather than being explicitly named or described: “Religion” has always had a negative connotation for me. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">3. the set of attributes constituting the meaning of a term and thus determining the range of objects to which that term may be applied; comprehension; intension.