Poetry Glossary


Simile An explicit comparison of two things, usually with the word "as" or "like."

Sonnet A lyric poem of fourteen lines. There are two common types of sonnet, distinguished by their rhyme scheme: the Italian and the Shakespearean. The Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnet can be broken into two parts, the octave (eight lines) and the sestet (six lines). The octave typically rhymes abba abba; the sestet varies, sometimes cdecde, sometimes some variant of that. The Shakespearean (or English/Elizabethan) sonnet is instead three quatrains and a couplet: typically abab cdcd efef gg

Stanza A stanza is a group of verses. Common stanza forms are quatrains, terza rima, and the sonnet

Stream of consciousness Writing that tries to capture a character's (or the writer's) internal thought processes

Synecdoche Is the rhetorical or metaphorical substitution of a part for the whole, or vice versa e.g. heads of cattle

Synesthesia The conflation of the senses, such as when we refer to a colour as "loud" (mixing sight and sound) or a scent as "sharp" (mixing smell and touch)

Verse A single line of poetry



Previous Page
Return to Index