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POETRY
Terms and Methods of Exposition
I. Reading the poem
Assigned to Person 1
Paraphrase
 Putting someone else’s work into your own words
 In poetry, this is best accomplished grammatical thought by grammatical thought
 This is a very specific endeavor—you may not gloss over several lines
Subject
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The poem’s on-the-surface concern
i.e. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bells” has obvious subject matter centered around different
types of bells (please see the next definition below)
Theme
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What the poem is actually talking about, regardless of what the subject matter may or
may not be
i.e. While Poe’s “The Bells” has the subject matter of different types of bells, the theme
of the poem actually concerns the different stages of life.
* Please note: sometimes a poem’s subject and theme are the same thing, but most often, the
surface meaning of the poem (subject) is the vehicle by which the poet wishes to talk about
something else (theme). This is entirely in keeping with the poetry genre and literature in general.
II. Voice
Assigned to Person 1
Tone:
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The mood the writer wishes to convey
This will be somewhat subjective, and so when deciding what the tone of a work is, you
should be prepared to back up that assertion by pointing out individual words, phrases, or
even large concepts that demonstrate the tone you think the writer is trying to convey.
Look, too, for places in the poem where tone shifts
Point of view:
 Who is the speaker of the poem?
 * Is the narrator an identifiable “I”? (first-person narration)
 Or is the narrator anonymous? (third-person narration)
 To whom is the narrator speaking? –an identifiable character? –a direct approach to the
reader? –the reader in general?
*Please note: With a first-person speaker, be careful not to automatically equate the narrator with
the author of the poem. Sometimes, the author creates a fictional persona, just as in novels.
Irony:
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Where the words on the page say one thing, but actually mean something else altogether.
For example: Susie asks Josie if she would go to the dance with the class nerd, and Josie
responds, “I’m sure that would be the best date of my life.” On the surface, the words
look like she sincerely would enjoy going with him, but we all know she is saying this
ironically. If spoken aloud, this is sarcasm (n.,a.k.a. verbal irony). In literature, however,
Josie’s statement would simply be ironic (adj.) or irony (n).
 Irony can be hard to detect in literature; you must read carefully.
Types of irony:
 Understatement: where what is said falls drastically short of the actual.
Example: A heat shield almost does not hold up under pressure upon return to the earth’s
atmosphere, and a reporter asks the astronaut, “What would it have been like had the heat
shield disintegrated?” When the astronaut answers, “That would have been a bad day,”
that is understatement—he would die without the heat shield.
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hyperbole: where what is said is overstated compared to the actual.
Example: I’d kill for caffeine right now.
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oxymoron: apparent contradiction at the word level
Examples: bittersweet, jumbo shrimp, deafening silence
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paradox: apparent contradiction at the conceptual level
Example: we are strong when we are weak
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dramatic irony: where the reader knows something the character(s) does not
Claudius has not confessed—the audience knows this even if Hamlet doesn’t
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situational irony: what Mrs. Wilson calls Alanis Morrisette irony
o a traffic jam when you’re already late; meeting the man of your dreams, and then
meeting his beautiful wife
III. Diction and Syntax
Assigned to Person 1
Diction: word choice
Types of diction:
1. Concrete: words that create a specific picture in a reader’s head of a defined
concept.
 i.e. desk is a concrete term—even if Joe pictures a glass desk and Jenny pictures a
wooden one, both images will have some sort of surface top, legs, and a spot for a
person to sit.
 colors are concrete
 adjectives can be concrete—hairy, for example, will indicate lots of hair, etc.
2. Abstract: words that do not create one specific image in multiple readers’ minds.
These words are more conceptual in nature.
 i.e. freedom—Joe may think of an American flag; Jenny may picture a bird
escaping a cage. There is no one, defined picture or object of the word, but rather
several different pictures can be used to portray it.
Levels of usage:
1. Formal: word choice that is elevated and follows rules of conventional grammar
2. Colloquial/informal: everyday speech and/or conversation, including clichés and
common expressions
3. Slang: words specific to various groups of people
Methods used to talk about diction:
1. Label as concrete/abstract and elevated/colloquial/slang: see above
2. Key words: the poet chooses a word or words that are unique and carry a special
purpose. They are not classified into a category, but stand on their own as
important to something the poet wants to say or suggest.
Syntax: word order
Levels of Usage:
1. Standard: the word order follows patterns you are used to and familiar with
2. Elevated: the word order is arranged differently from modern sensibilities.
This is seen most often in older poetry.
IV. Saying and Suggesting
Assigned to Person 2
Denotation: a word’s particular definition
Connotation: associations words have that go beyond their definitions
I.e. skinny and thin both denote the same thing, but skinny has an ugly connotation, while
thin is associated with attractiveness.
Your job for your project:
Define any unusual words or words you do not know the meanings to
Point out connotations of words that add nuance to the interpretation of the poem
V. Imagery
Assigned to Person 2
Image: a set of words that create sensory impressions in a reader’s mind
Synesthesia: one type of sensory stimulation provokes another
Examples: the heat lowered like a bell; ants crawling on the floor tickled her skin
Method 1 of talking about images: divide them into their sensory categories
Auditory image: a set of words that appeal to the sense of hearing
Olfactory image: a set of words that appeal to the sense of smell
Gustatory image: a set of words that appeal to the sense of taste
Tactile image: a set of words that appeal to the sense of touch
Visual image: 85% of images in literature; a set of words that appeal to the sense of sight
*Kinesthetic: a more specific type of visual imager, this set of words appeals to
the sense of movement
*The green hill is a visual image—it’s static and does not move. Lightning glimmered on the
horizon is, yes, visual, but more specifically, it conveys a sense of movement.
*All kinesthetic images are visual images as well, but you are expected to use the more specific
term. Not all visual images will be kinesthetic, as per the above example.
**Very important: I heard the far-off buzz of a lawn mower. The italicized portion is an auditory
image. Buzz gives us the type of sound it makes, and far-off tells us the muted volume. However,
many students want to categorize this as a visual image—they claim they can see the lawn
mower—or an olfactory image—they claim it reminds them of the smell of new-mown grass.
However, despite the other associations you may have, the actual words on the page refer to the
sense of hearing, so it’s an auditory image. That concept applies regardless of what type of
image it is: if the words on the page refer to a particular sense, that is the label that applies.
Method 2: collect images that help create an overall, unified impression. Give the collection
a descriptive tag—i.e. images of death; images of war, etc.
Method 3: talk about a particularly key image or images within a poem
*** Images can be formed by nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. Images can also
overlap/consist of other literary devices.
VI. Figures of speech (a.k.a. literary devices) Assigned to Person 2
Allusion: a reference to Greek mythology, Biblical stories, history, other works of literature, or
contemporary events/people. Allusions are used as comparisons, and will most likely appear in
the form of similes.
Metaphor: in its simplest form, this is a direct comparison that does not use “like” or “as.”
Metaphor as a concept, though, has many different types. I.e. God is a strong tower.
Types of metaphor: you are required to use the more specific terms
Implied metaphor: collected diction that creates a metaphor: the accumulation
of certain word choices/phrases creates a metaphor without directly stating that
one thing = another thing. Your task it to collect the words, label them with a
descriptive tag, and then name the metaphor.
Example: The thief crept forward on all fours, padding silently on the grass.
When he reached the house, he crouched beneath the windows, slinking along the
walls until he came to one that was open. He listened intently, tensed to hear the
slightest sound, but when the air brought nothing to him but silence, he pushed the
window open with a gloved hand, then sprang fluidly to the sill and into the
darkened room.
The italicized words collectively create the impression that the thief is
metaphorically compared to a cat. Your label, then, could say that the metaphor is
a cat compared to a thief. If you said night creature, that would still be correct. Or
jaguar. In implied metaphors, there may be some different labels given to the
diction, but as long as you show accurately how one thing is implied to be
compared to another, the variation is fine.
Simile: an indirect comparison using “like” or “as”
Personification: giving human attributes to nonhuman things or ideas
Apostrophe: a direct address to an inanimate object or absent person. Apostrophe will be
indicated by the use of second-person pronouns, where whoever is being spoken to
doesn’t respond because they are not in the room and/or are incapable of responding.
If a poet speaks directly to an inanimate object or animal, then apostrophe means that
poet also automatically personifies that object or animal. One cannot, however, personify
people, whether they are dead or alive—people are personified by definition, so to say so
is redundant and silly.
Metonymy: using an object associated with the subject to replace the object.
Example: The White House said today . . .
Synecdoche: Using the part for the whole
Examples: All hands on deck
Pun: a word that means two things at once
 Example: get thee to a nunnery
Symbol: an object that has a literal function in the poem, but with figurative meanings attached to
it.
 Example: the conch shell in Lord of the Flies; the letter A in The Scarlet Letter
VII.
Sound
Assigned to Person 3
Sound in individual lines or as collected throughout the poem:
1. Alliteration: the beginnings of words all start with the same sound
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
Alliterative p’s: 6
Onomatopoeia: words that sound like what they mean. Eek! Bang! Sigh . . .
Rhyme: Matching, or almost matching, sounds at the ends of lines.
1. Exact: the type you are most familiar with. The sounds at the ends of different lines
match exactly.
Example:
Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily—life is but a dream
2. Half rhyme: sounds half match, but the other half does not. You might know this term
better as slant rhyme.
Example:
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tunes without the words
And never stops at all.
3. Eye rhyme: when words look like they should rhyme, but THEY DO NOT. (If they look
like they should rhyme and do, then they demonstrate exact rhyme.)
Example:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Come live with me and be my love.
As regards where rhyme occurs:
4. End rhyme: Matching sounds occur at the ends of lines (end rhyme is the one you are
most familiar with). See above examples.
5. Internal rhyme: Matching sounds occur within the same line of poetry.
Example: The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain.
Rhyme scheme: used for end rhyme only, a rhyme scheme is assigned to rhyming poems. Each
time there is a new sound at the end of a line, give it a letter from the alphabet. Each time that
sound is then repeated, write that same letter down. A new sound gets a new letter, and so on. See
the example below:
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
a
b
c
d
c
e
f
e
f
g
g
a
b
d
Rhyme scheme is useful for detecting patterns within a poem. It is also useful for determining the
divisions within a poem, as well as to sometimes even tell us what type of poem it is. The above
sonnet, for example, contains three quatrains (abab cdcd efef), followed by a heroic couplet (gg).
This tells us the poem is an English sonnet. (See definitions of closed form poems.)
Alternate rhyme: Where every other line rhymes.
Two types:
abab—both sets of alternating lines rhyme
abcb—only one set of alternating lines rhyme
VIII. Poem Structure
Assigned to Person 3
General useful terms:
1. Juxtaposition: contrasting elements placed side by side.
2. Shift: Any words that indicate a change in direction. Some common ones: but, yet, also,
however, on the other hand, etc.
3. To determine what type of stanzas a poem has, one looks for two things:
a. Line breaks between stanzas
b. How the rhyme scheme forms divisions within the poem
4. Stanza: in prose, we think of these as paragraphs. In poetry, a stanza is set apart by line
breaks.
Terms for various stanza lengths:
Couplet: two consecutive lines that rhyme
Heroic couplet: two consecutive lines of iambic pentameter that rhyme
Tercet: stanza/division of three lines
Quatrain: stanza/division of four lines
Quintain/quintet: stanza/division of five lines
Sestet: stanza/division of six lines
Septet: stanza/division of seven lines
Octet: stanza/division of eight lines
IX. Closed form vs. Open form
Assigned to Person 3
1. Closed form poem: A poem with a regular pattern of meter, rhyme, and/or stanza
breaks.
Two types:
a. Traditional closed forms established over the course of time
b. Closed forms established by individual poets for individual poems
2. Open form poem: No regular pattern found within the poem. A.k.a. free verse
Types of established/traditional closed form poems:
1. Blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter
2. Common measure: Lines 1 and 3 are iambic tetrameter; lines 2 and 4 are iambic
trimeter.
This is the closed form most often associated with ballads.
3. Rondeau: 15 lines, eight to ten syllables each, divided stanzaically into a quintet, a
quatrain, and a sestet. The rentrement (refrain) consists of the first few words or the
entire first line of the first stanza, and it recurs as the last line of both the second and third
stanzas. Two rhymes guide the music of the rondeau, whose rhyme scheme is as follows
(R representing the refrain): aabba aabR aabbaR.
4. Sonnet: A poem of 14 lines.
Two types:
a. Italian/Petrarchan sonnet: composed of an octet that asks a question/states a
problem + a sestet that answers the question/comments on the problem. The
rhyme scheme is abbaabba + cdecde (or a variation of cde: cdcdee, ccddee).
b. Elizabethan/Shakesperian/English sonnet: three quatrains and a couplet.
Rhyme scheme: ababcdcdefefgg.
5. villanelle: 5 tercets and a quatrain; two sounds/rhymes throughout the poem—the first
and third lines of each tercet will rhyme. The last stanza will end with a couplet.
Types of poems: structure may vary, but these have to do with a poem’s overall emphasis
1. Ballad: a narrative poem, usually in common measure. Most ballads talk about love,
death, or some sort of comic situation. I.e. “Barbara Allan,” “Sir Patrick Spens,” and “Get
up and Bar the Door”
2. Bucolic/pastoral: a poem set in the country whose setting influences the poem’s message
or the events of whatever narrative might be told. Christopher Mawrlowe’s “Passionate
Shepherd to His Love”
3. Carpe diem: seize the day—these poems advocate living for the moment because death
is imminent and inescapable. i.e. Robert Herrick’s “To the Virgins: To Make Much of
Time.”
4. Ode: a poem of praise directed at a person or object. i.e. John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian
Urn”
5. Elegiac: a memorial poem. i.e. Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”
6. Lyrical: similar to ballad, only not limited to common measure format—a singular,
unified impression is created by these poems, and they are typically musical tone
7. Narrative: a poem that tells a story