In speech, emphasis given a particular sound, called prosodic systems in linguistics. There are three basic accentual methods: stress, tone, and length. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics In the quantitative meters of Classical poetry, a metrical foot of two short syllables followed by one long (˘ ˘ –, e.g. dĕĭtās), or, in verse-systems based on accent, two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed (x x /, e.g. interrupt). MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics The modern sense of the term, however, refers to a break or joint in the continuity of the metrical structure of the line (where word-boundary is all but universal) and so concerns the division of lines into distinguishable cola. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics In Cl. prosody, a metrical foot consisting of one long syllable followed by two short ones. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics The chief type of meter in most Cl. and modern prosody, and perhaps in the world. In Lat. poetry, an iamb was a metrical unit, a foot (q.v.) consisting of a short syllable followed by a long. MORE
From The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature From the Greek word meaning `measure'. In poetry, metre is the measure of the rhythm of a line of verse, when the line is rhythmically systematic, ie can be divided into units of `metrical feet'. MORE
From The Columbia Encyclopedia in prosody, a line to be scanned in five feet (see versification). The third line of Thomas Nashe's "Spring" is in pentameter: "Cold doth / not sting, / the pret / ty birds / do sing." MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics The act of discovery or interp. of the meter (q.v.) of a poem as realized in one of its lines; also the graphic transcription thereof, usually by symbols, numbers, or letters either above the line or alone. S. is a notation system for meter in metrical poetry just as sheet music notates music or writing notates speech. MORE
From The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature In ancient Greek and Latin poetry, a unit of verse measure composed of two long syllables (´ ´); in English verse, two accented syllables. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics A term used for both metrical units and whole meters having the rhythm “marked—unmarked” in series. In the modern accentual meters, a trochee is a foot (q.v.) comprising a stressed syllable followed by a unstressed. MORE
From The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature A pair of rhymed lines of verse of equal length. The commonest form is the so-called heroic couplet of 10 syllables and five stresses in each line. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics A pair of metrical lines, a couplet (q.v.), heterometric in Cl. poetry but usually isometric in modern. In Cl. poetry the most common type is the elegiac d. (q.v.), consisting of a dactylic hexameter followed by a dactylic “pentameter” and often used for epigram. MORE
Short, witty, and pithy saying or short poem. The poem form was common among writers of ancient Rome, including Catullus and Martial. The epigram has been used by English poets Ben Jonson, John Donne, and Alexander Pope, Irish writers Jonathan Swift and W B Yeats, and US writer Ogden Nash. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics A stanza of 8 lines. Os. appear as isolable stanzas, such as particularly the It. ottava rima (rhyming abababcc) and the Fr. ballade (ababbcbc—qq.v.). MORE
From Dictionary of Italian Literature Its origins date back to thirteenth-century Sicily and fourteenth-century Florence. In its Sicilian form, the eight lines were rhymed alternately (abababab). MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics A stanza of 4 lines, normally rhymed. The q. is, with its many variations, the most common stanza form in European poetry, and very probably in the world. It is for the establishment, in the 3rd c. a.d., of the q. as the meter of the hymn (q.v.). MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics The minor division or last 6 lines of a sonnet (q.v.), preceded by an octave (q.v.). Sometimes the octave states a proposition or situation and the s. a conclusion, but no fast rules for content can be formulated. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics A verse unit of 3 lines, usually rhymed, most often employed as a stanzaic form. It was first developed systematically in Italian poetry (tertian). MORE
From Dictionary of Italian Literature A verse form usually composed of tercets of hendecasyllabic verse in rima incatenata (aba bcb cdc ded…xyx yzy z), in which the first line rhymes with the third, the second with the first of the following tercet, and so forth. MORE
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia In poetry and prose, the use, within a line or phrase, of words beginning with the same sound, as in Two tired toads trotting to Tewkesbury. It was a common device in Old English literature, and its use survives in many traditional phrases, such as dead as a doornail and pretty as a picture. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics The repetition of the same word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or lines. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics In prosody the technical term for one form of elision, namely omission of a word-initial syllable, esp. a vowel, e.g. ’gainst for against, mid for amid, ’neath for beneath. Often the following consonant then clusters with the succeeding word, e.g. ’tis for it is, ’twere for it were. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics In prosody the technical term for one form of elision, namely loss of a word-final syllable or vowel, e.g. eve or even for evening. Often the apocopated word then fuses with the one following, e.g. “th’Empyrean” for “the Empyrean,” “th’army,” etc., thereby avoiding hiatus (q.v.). MORE
From Dictionary of Shakespeare The repetition of vowel sounds within a sequence of words (but not the rhyming sounds repeated at the end of lines of verse). MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics The misapplication of a word, esp. to produce a strained or mixed metaphor. Most often it is not a ridiculous misapplication, as in doggerel verse, but rather a deliberate wresting of a term from its proper signification for effect. Sometimes it is deliberately humorous. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics In addition to its general meaning of harmony (agreement), c. has been used interchangeably in prosody with a wide variety of terms intended to designate certain phonic echoes. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Non-alignment of (end of) metrical frame and syntactic period at line-end: the overflow into the following poetic line of a syntactic phrase (with its intonational contour) begun in the preceding line without a major juncture or pause. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics The quality of having pleasant, easily pronounced, or smooth-flowing sounds, free from harshness; the pleasing effect of such sounds; the opposite of cacophony. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics The transmutation of ideas into images, is the product of the formative power of human cognition and is realized in all the ways in which verbal, mental, perceptual, optical, and graphic images interact. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics The Eng. cover-term for a variety of rhyming structures which have to do not with rhyming words solely at line end but line-internally. MORE
From Encyclopedia of Postmodernism Metonymy, or literally, “change of name,” is a metaphoric substitution of the name of a thing for some attribute of it; as a rhetorical trope, the change of effect for cause, cause for effect, proper name for one of its qualities, or one of the qualities of a thing for its proper name. MORE
From Encyclopedia of Postmodernism Generally, mimesis is the art of imitation; in rhetoric and poetics, it usually refers to the modes of discourse which have the imitation of nature, including human nature, as their central aim. MORE
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia Figure of speech that copies natural sounds. For example, the word ‘cuckoo’ imitates the sound that the cuckoo makes. MORE
From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable A portmanteau is a type of leather travelling bag for clothes which opens out flat into two parts. A ‘portmanteau word’ is thus a word made up of two others, and expressive of a combination denoted by those parts. MORE
From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia Study of the elements of language, especially metre, that contribute to rhythmic and acoustic effects in poetry. MORE
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia Figure of speech that uses either the part to represent the whole (‘There were some new faces at the meeting’, rather than new people), or the whole to stand for the part (‘The West Indies beat England at cricket’, using the country to stand for the national teams in question). MORE
From Dictionary of Italian Literature
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia