Rhyme and Sound in Poetry

Rhyme and Sound

• Rhymed Verse: Verses with end rhyme and regular meter.
• Blank Verse: Iambic pentameter without end rhyme.
• Free Verse: No regular meter or end rhyme.
• Rhyme: Similarity of sound between two words. True rhymes have identical stressed syllables with differing vowel sounds preceding.
• End Rhyme: Rhyme at the end of lines in a stanza.
• Internal Rhyme: Rhyme within a line of poetry.
• Masculine Rhyme: One-syllable rhyme.
• Feminine/Double Rhyme: Two-syllable rhyme.
• Leonine Rhyme: A rhyme scheme where the word preceding a caesura rhymes with the last word of the line.
• Rhyme Scheme: The pattern of end rhyme (e.g., AABB, ABAB).
• Reversal: A literary device using a shift in the meaning or focus of a work.
• Alliteration: Repetition of initial consonant sounds.
• Assonance: Repetition of vowel sounds.
• Consonance: Repetition of consonant sounds.
• Onomatopoeia: Words imitating sounds (e.g., "whippoorwill," "bang").
• Repetition: Repeating a word or phrase in a poem.
• Incremental Repetition: Repeating a line or lines with variations in each repetition.
• Refrain: Repeated lines or phrases at intervals.
• Elision: Running together of vowels to eliminate a syllable (e.g., "th'eternal").

Other Poetic Devices

• Eye Rhyme: Words spelled alike but pronounced differently (e.g., "some" and "home").
• Approximate/Slant/Oblique Rhyme: Near rhymes; imperfect matching of sounds.
• Enjambment: Running a sentence from one line to the next without punctuation.
• End-Stopped: Lines that end with punctuation.
• Caesura: A pause within a line of verse.
• Simile: A comparison using "like" or "as."
• Epic Simile (Homeric Simile): Detailed comparison.
• Metaphor: Implied comparison without "like" or "as."
• Extended Metaphor: Elaborate comparison that spans multiple lines or stanzas.
• Personification: Giving human qualities to non-human things.
• Synecdoche: A part represents a whole.
• Metonymy: Replacing a word for another closely related one.
• Hyperbole: Exaggeration.
• Litotes: Understatement.
• Antithesis: A contrasting of ideas.
• Apostrophe: Addressing an absent person or thing.
• Symbol: A word or image that represents something else.
• Epithet: Descriptive name (e.g., "Catherine the Great").
• Oxymoron: Contradictory terms (e.g., "living death").
• Allusion: Reference to another work, person, or event.
• Cacophony: Bad-sounding sounds.
• Juxtaposition: Placing contrasting things next to each other.
• Voice: The speaker/persona of the poem.
• Trope: Figurative language.
• Acrostic: Poem where the first letters of each line spell something.
• Blank Verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter.
• Cinquain: Five-line poem with a specific syllable structure.
• Epic: Long narrative poem.
• Ode: Often serious poem in praise of something.
• Sestina: Six-line stanza pattern with repeating end words.
• Limerick: Humorous five-line poem.
• Villanelle: Nineteen-line poem with specific repetition of lines and rhyme scheme.