ENGL 202-03 | Fall 2005 | Poetry Terms | 1
Literary Terms — Poetry
General Terms
Dramatic situation: answers the question: "Who is speaking to who m under what circumstanc es?"
Persona: the speaker of the poem; not to be con fused with the autho r; sometimes the person a in the poem may not be
the author.
Genre: Separate catego ries delineated by distin ct style, form, and co ntent
Lyric poetry: a particul ar genre; poems that ar e primarily about a su bject and contain little n arrative content; the poe t’s
emotions, an abstract id ea, a satirical insight, or a description of a per son or place. The persona in a lyric is
usually closely identified w ith the poet. Lyric po etry remains the larg est genre.
Narrative poetry: anothe r genre; that is, poetry whose main functio n is to tell a story. Lik e prose fiction, narrative
poems have characters, plot , setting, and poin t of view, and may be d iscussed in the same term s as, say, a
short story. The epic is a narrative poem abou t the heroic exploits of th e hero. Other types are folk epics,
literary epics, ballads, folk ballads, art or liter ary ballads, metrical ro mances, mock-heroic na rratives, and
realistic narratives.
The Language of Poetry
A poet’s diction: the per sonal use of words and style that marks a p oet’s poetry.
Diction: refers to the individ ual words in a poem .
Level of diction: may r ange from slang at on e extreme to formal usage at the other, although most poetry tends to fall
somewhere in the middl e.
Denotation: literal meaning
Connotation: implied m eaning or feel that some words have acquired; wh at a word suggests.
Syntax: word order, poets often detract from st andard usage.
Etymology: the history o f a word’s usage, its sou rces and changes in me aning over time.
Concrete diction: deno te that which can be per ceived by the senses.
Imagery or image: sen sory details denoting sp ecific physical experience s; sight is most often us ed in poetry but sou nd,
touch, taste, and smell a re too. Some images in corporate more than o ne sense perception as wel l.
Abstract diction: words that do not appeal to the senses but often carry th e burden of meaning of a poem.
Onomatopoeia: refers to words whose sound im itates their meaning .
Figurative Language
Metaphor: a direct comp arison between two unlik e things.
Implied Metaphor: a comp arison which is implied or suggested but no t stated.
Simile: A comparison using “like” or “as.”
Conceit: an extended m etaphor, in most cases comp aring things that app arently have almost nothin g in common; often
controls the entire poem .
Hyperbole: an overstat ement; a comparison us ing conscious exagger ation.
Understatement: the opp osite of hyperbole.
Allusion: a metaphor mak ing direct comparison to a historical or literary event or character, a my th, a biblical
reference, and so forth.
Metonymy: use of a rel ated object to stand for the thing actually being talked about.
Synecdoche: use of a part for the whole, or vice v ersa.
Personification: giving human traits to non-hu man things or abstraction s.
Paradox: an apparent contradiction or illogi cal statement.
Oxymoron: a short p aradox, usually consisting of an adjective and n oun with conflicting me anings.
Allegory and Symbol
Allegory: a narrative th at exists on at least two levels simultaneously , a concrete literal level and a second level of
abstract meaning; throu ghout an allegory a cons istent sequence of par allels exists between the l iteral and the
abstract. Sometimes allegor ies may imply third o r fourth levels of meanings as well. In pros e, we often refer
to allegories as parables.
Symbol: any concrete thing or any action in a po em that implies meaning beyond its literal leve l.
Traditional symbols: ho ld roughly the same me aning for members of a given society.
Tone of voice
Tone: a speaker’s impli ed attitude toward the wo rds said.
Irony: the element of tone by which a poet m ay imply an attitude t hat is in fact contrary to what the words appear to
say; its simplest form is sarcasm; its more compl ex forms are satire and epig ram.
