 Types and forms of poetry:

 Poetry: Literary work which is the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of
distinctive style and rhythm.
 Epic: a narrative poem dealing with heroic deeds and the adventure of hero
 Elegy: a poem of lament or grave meditation
 Didactic verse: poetry that aims to teach
 Ballad: a short simple narrative poem composed to be sung
 Lyric: a poem meant to be sung and expressing the writer’s personal feelings
 Metaphysical poetry: seventeenth century poetry of Donne, Herbert and others.
The term is applied to their intellectual poetry and far-fetched images.
 Neo-classical: describes the work of early eighteenth-century poets
 Ode: An ode is a type of lyrical stanza. It is an elaborately structured poem
praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as
well as emotionally.
 Paroral poetry: a poem dealing with the lives of shepherds praising such a life
without mention of its difficulties or problems.
 Sonnet: a poem of 14 iambic pentameter lines, divided into an octave and a sestet,
with a prescribed rhyme-scheme and concerned with a single thought or emotion.
 Shakespearian sonnet: a poem of 14 lines divided into 3 quatrains and a couplet
rhyming abab, cdcd,efef,gg.
 Romantic: a term used to describe poetry that was written in the first years of 19th
century by Wordsworth. concern with common life a description of nature,
personal experience and feelings, subjective rather than objective
Figures of speech/figurative language: nonliteral language to show
relationship or contrast
 Image: a physical representation of a person, animal, or thing that appeals to the
senses and is open to symbolic interpretation
 Metaphor: a figure of speech which makes a comparison between two things
without using a comparative device such as; “like, as” e.g.
 Simile: a figure of speech which makes a comparison between two things using a
comparative device such as; “like, as” e.g. ““she is like a rose.”
 Personification: a figure of speech which gives humans qualities to an abstract
idea e.g. “O moon”

 Symbol: a figure of speech; image or a word that represents or stands for

something else, especially a material object representing something abstract. “The
dove is a symbol of peace.” “A red rose,” or the color red, stands for love or
romance.
 Onomatopoeia: the use of words that imitate the sound of a thing. e.g. “hiss, buzz”

Alghadeer Page 1
 Other literary terms used in poetry
 Alliteration: the first consonant sound of several words in a line.
 Consonant: refers to repetitive sounds produced by consonants within a sentence
or phrase. e.g. “sun and some, more and move”
 Rhyme: the repetition of the same sounds at the ends of lines in a poem
 Rhythm: music of the lines
 Meter: meter is a poetic device that serves as a sound pattern and it
gives poetry a musical sound e.g. iambic, spondee
 Stanza: a group of lines in a poem
 Heroic couplet: a foot consists of two syllables the first is unstressed and the
second is stressed.
 Couplet: a stanza of two lines rhyming together
 Quatrain: a stanza of four lines
 Refrain: one or more phrases or lines repeated at the end of a stanza
 Sestet: a stanza of six lines
 Octave: a stanza of eight lines in a sonnet.
 Poetic diction: a special language for poetry
 Theme: the general idea of a poem e.g. nature, love, death, war.
 Tone: the poet’s attitude towards the theme.
 Mood is the feeling created by the poet for the reader e.g. romantic, realistic,
optimistic,

Important Links:

 Figurative Language and Sound Devices

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC6MsrRf_1k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv5CQro02uw

Alghadeer Page 2