Karl's Phrontistery
for Prose & Poetical Forms

University of Toronto glossary of prose and poetry forms
ABC
An ABC poem has 5 lines that create a mood, picture, or feeling. Lines 1 through 4 are made up of words, phrases or clauses - and the first word of each line is in alphabetical order from the first word. Line 5 is one sentence, beginning with any letter.

Birds call
Clouds hover over the horizon
Darkness creeps away.
Each sun ray reaches into the sky.
A new day has begun.
Acrostics
Any poem whose lines' first letters vertically form either the alphabet, the poet's or dedicatee's name, a concept word (which can look hokey, but not always), or even entire sentences, if the poem has length. These go back to the Babylonians, but many poets, even modern ones, have fooled around with them. (Anne Sexton did, for instance.)
Allegory
Refers to an extended narrative (can be a poem or prose narrative) in which the characters and actions, and sometimes the setting as well, are contrived to make coherent sense on the "literal" level and at the same time to signify a second, correlated order of characters, concepts and events. In other words, an allegory carries a second meaning along with its surface story.
Ballad
The ballad is rather variously defined. The ballad form is a sweet one, and everpresent in poetry. This verse form alternates lines of four feet (hinged on four stressed syllables or beats) with lines of three feet. The feet are usually iambic (weak syllable/strong syllable), but don't have to be. This 4-3-4-3 etc. arrangement creates a kind of lilting cadence that lends itself to sweet poetry, but it is even more arresting to use this form as a container for other content, too. The tension-then-release, almost "Slinky" approach is really a song form-- more than half the songs you listen to on the radio are ballads--even many where the beat is speeded up well beyond its deliberative roots in story-based, English folk music. Also known as a popular ballad or folk ballad, ballads, in general, are a narrative poem which is, or originally was, meant to be sung. Ballads are the narrative species of folk songs, which originate, and are communicated orally, among illiterate and only partly literate people. Typically, a ballad is dramatic, condensed and impersonal: the narrator begins with the climactic episode, tells the story tersely by means of action and dialogue, and tells it without self-reference or the expression of personal attitudes or feelings.
ballade
A ballade has three stanzas of eight lines each and a half stanza of four lines (envoy). The meter is usually iambic or anapestic tetrameter, and the rhyme scheme is regularly as such:

Stanza 1 a b a b b c b c
Stanza 2 a b a b b c b c
Stanza 3 a b a b b c b c
Envoy: bcbc

Typically, there is also a refrain in the ballade.
Blues
A form of folk or popular poetry. Graphic imagery and themes drawn from a wide range of group and personal experiences distinguish blues lyrics. The blues can also exist as instrumental and vocal music, as a psychological state, as a lifestyle and as a philosophical stance.
Burlesque
A work designed to ridicule attitudes, styles, or subject matter by either handling an elevated subject in a trivial manner or a low subject with mock dignity. The burlesque may be written for the sheer fun of it; usually, however, it is a form of satire or parody.
Blank Verse
Blank verse is essentially the unrhymed counterpart of many types of poems written in tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, or whatever number of regular feet to the line. (It is usually iambic, but not rigidly so.) Imagine a sonnet, a villanelle, or any poetic form in a regular meter that is without planned end-rhymes. It can be whatever length you like. And if the meter, whatever it is, stays regular within itself--in other words, it doesn't change through the poem--you have blank verse.
Canto
A major section of a long poem. "The Faerie Queene" is divided into cantos.
Chorus
Among the ancient Greeks the chorus was a group of people, wearing masks, who sang or chanted verse while performing dance-like maneuvers at religious festivals. Choruses also served as commentators on the characters and events who expressed traditional moral, religious and social attitudes. During the Elizabethan Age the term "chorus" was applied to a single person who spoke the prologue and epilogue to a play and sometimes introduced each at as well. Henry V by Shakespeare employs a chorus.
Cinquain
A cinquain has five lines.
Line 1 is one word (the title);
Line 2 is two words that describe the title.
Line 3 is three words that tell action
Line 4 is four words that express feeling
Line 5 is one word that recalls the title

Snow
White and cold
Blowing, falling, piling,
Excitement - maybe no school!
Snow.
Clerihew
A humorous pseudo-biographical quatrain, rhymed as two couplets, with line of uneven length more or less in the rhythm of prose'. Add to this, that the name of the subject usually ends the first or, less often, the second line, and that the humor of the clerihew is whimsical rather than satiric, and there you have a complete definition.
Concrete Poetry (Pattern Poetry)
Refers to the placement of words on the page so that a picture is formed containing the image of the poem itself. Through this, concrete poetry is able to provide a multiple experience.
Confessional Poetry
Confessional Poetry refers to a type of narrative and lyric verse which deals with the facts and intimate mental and physical experiences of the poet's own life. In confessional poetry, the speaker often describes his confused chaotic state, which becomes a metaphor for the state of the world around him. Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton have both written confessional poems.
Couplet
A couplet has rhyming stanzas each made up of two lines.

Across the sky they seem to flow
As wind and currents gently blow.

The cumulus clouds in the sky,
Fluffy, white, and ever so high.
Dirge
A lyrical poem or song of lament for the death of a particular person. A dirge is similar to an elegy by it is less formal and is supposed to be sung or at least spoken aloud. Elegies are sometimes performed at a funeral or memorial service.
Dramatic Monologue
A poem in which a single speaker who is not the poet utters the entire poem at a critical moment. The speaker has a listener within the poem, but we too are his/her listener, and we learn about the speaker's character from what the speaker says. In fact, the speaker may reveal unintentionally certain aspects of his/her character. We know of the listener's presence and what they say and do only from clues in the discourse of the speaker.Robert Browning perfected this form.
Elegy
An elegy is a formal, meditative poem or lament for the dead.
Envoy
In most any form, envoy refers to a concluding stanza that is shorter than the preceding ones.
Epic
A long narrative poem on a serious subject or action involving heroic characters. An epic is told in a formal and elevated style.
Epigram
Refers to a short pithy poem or saying of two or four lines containing a neatly expressed thought that often ends with a surprising or witty turn of thoughts. Epigrams are often, but not always comic or satirical.

God bless the King - I mean the Faith's defender!
God bless (no harm in blessing) the Pretender!
But who pretender is or who is King -
God bless us all! that's quite another thing. - John Byrom
Epistle
Over the past hundred years, as the telephone took over for letter writing, letters became less personal and more formal or business related. The concept of writing letters to relatives, friends, colleagues and lovers went out of fashion. In the past ten years, however, letter writing has had a rebirth of sorts as the Internet rose to prominence and people began to send e-mail to each other. There are no meter or rhyme requirements for an epistle. Epistle is more a form of voice and persona. A poet can address their epistle to a real or imaginary person and express their views or take on the character of a different writer. The wonderful quality of an epistle is that it can be such a freeing form. The tone can be formal or use very personalized voices. The poems can be many pages long or as short as a post card. Some things you should keep in mind when writing the epistle are who is writing the letter, who is the letter being written to, and how you would address that person. What would interest the writer and the recipient? How formal or informal would the writer be when addressing that person?
Epiphany
A term that refers to "a sudden spiritual manifestation." It is often used to describe the sudden flare into revelation one may feel while perceiving an ordinary object or scene.
Epithet
A descriptive phrase, a noun, or an adjective used to define a distinctive quality of a person or thing. In "The Eve of St. Agnes" by John Keats includes an epithet - "silver snarling trumpets".
Free Verse
Free verse refers to poetry that does not follow a prescribed form but is characterized by the irregularity in the length of lines and the lack of a regular metrical pattern and rhyme. Free verse may use other repetitive patterns instead (like words, phrases, and structures). Free verse is not the same thing as blank verse.
Grossblank
Blank verse, but with 12 syllables per line instead of ten. Twelve lines, iambic meter, unrhymed, any format.
Haiku or Hokku
There are multiple forms, all variations on three lines of standard lengths. The "long" form uses a 3-5-3 pattern of syllables or feet. The "short" form is 2-3-2. "Traditional" Haiku's have the same number of syllables as in the Japanese form, 5-7-5. A "freeform" Haiku just uses a short phrase a longer one and another shot one.
Heroic Couplet
Lines of iambic pentameter which rhyme in pairs: aa bb cc dd etc. The heroic couplet has been the most popular and durable of the couplet forms.
Heroic Poem
Also called an epic interior monologue this form is a monologue in which the speaker seems to be thinking aloud rather than speaking to someone. Interior monologue is a stream of consciousness which undertakes to present to the reader, the course of consciousness precisely as it occurs in a character's mind.
Italian Sonnet
Same as the petrachan sonnet.
Light Verse
A term applied t a great variety of poems that use an ordinary speaking voice and a relaxed manner to treat their subjects gaily, or playfully, or with a good - natured satire. Its subjects may be serious or petty; the defining quality is the tone of voice used and the attitude of the lyric or narrative speaker towards the subject.
Limerick
A limerick has five lines. Lines 1, 2, and 5 have seven to ten syllables and rhyme with one another. Lines 3 and 4 have five to seven syllables and also rhyme with each other.

There once was a seed in the sky.
That rode on the wind way up high.
The wind did die down.
Dropped the seed on the ground.
A flower will grow by and by.
Lyric
Any fairly short poem in which a speaker expresses intense personal emotion, a state of mind or a process of perception, thought and feeling rather than describing a narrative or dramatic situation. Originally, the term "lyric" designated poems meant to be sung but today, the term is sometimes used to refer to any short poem, especially one intended to be read aloud. Although the lyric form is uttered in the first person, the "I" in the poem need not be the author.
Meter
Meter is a rhythm of accented and unaccented syllables which are organized into patterns, called feet.In English poetry, the most common meters are these: Iambic: a foot consisting of an unaccented and accented syllable. Shakespeare often uses iambic, for example the beginning of Hamlet's speech (the accented syllables are italicized), "To be or not to be. Listen for the accents in this line from Marlowe, "Come live with me and be my love." English seems to fall naturally into iambic patterns, for it is the most common meter in English.

Trochaic: a foot consisting of an accented and unaccented syllable. Longfellow's Hiawatha uses this meter, which can quickly become singsong (the accented syllable is italicized):
"By the shores of GitcheGumee
By the shining Big-Sea-water."

The three witches' speech in Macbeth uses it: "Double, double, toil and trouble."

Anapestic: a foot consisting of two unaccented syllables and an accented syllable. These lines from Shelley's Cloud are anapestic:
"Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb
I arise and unbuild it again."

Dactylic: a foot consisting of an accented syllable and two unaccented syllables, as in these words: swimingly, mannikin, openly.

Spondee: a foot consisting of two accented syllables, as in the word heartbreak. In English, this foot is used occasionally, for variety or emphasis.

Pyrrhic: a foot consisting of two unaccented syllables, generally used to vary the rhythm.

A line is named for the number of feet it contains: monometer: one foot, dimeter: two feet, trimeter: three feet, tetrameter: four feet, pentameter: five feet, hexameter: six feet, heptameter: seven feet.

The most common metrical lines in English are tetrameter (four feet) and pentameter (five feet). Shakespeare frequently uses unrhymed iambic pentameter in his plays; the technical name for this line is blank verse. In this course, I will not be asking you to identify meters and metrical lines, but I would like you to have some awareness of their existence. Modern English poetry is metrical, i.e., it relies on accented and unaccented syllables. Not all poetry does; Anglo-Saxon poetry relied on a system of alliteration. Skillful poets rarely use one meter throughout a poem but use these meters in combinations; however, a poem generally has one dominant meter.
Mock Epic (or Mock Heroic)
A poem that imitates the elaborate form and ceremonious style of the epic genre, but applies it to a commonplace or trivial subject matter. Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Lock" is an example of a mock epic poem. The term "mock heroic" is sometimes used when dignified poetic forms are purposely mismatched to a vulgar or lowly subject. Th
Monologue
A lengthy speech made by a single person.
Motif
A theme, character, device, reference or verbal pattern which recurs in works of literature.
Name
A name poem tells about the word. It uses the letters of the word for the first letter of each line. Wind W... I ... N ... D ...
Narrative
A story, whether in prose or verse, involving events, characters, and what the characters say and do.
Occasional Poems
A poem written in commemoration of a specific occasion such as a birthday, marriage, a death, a military engagement or victory, the dedication of a public building or the opening performance of a play. W.B. Yeats' "Easter, 1916" and Maya Angelou's "Inaugural Poem" are occasional poems.
Ode
A long lyric poem that is serious in subject and treatment, elevated in style, and elaborate in its stanzaic structure.
Oral Formulaic Poetry
Poetry that is composed and transmitted by singers or reciters - includes both narrative forms (epic and ballad) and lyric forms. There is no fixed version of an oral composition because each performer tends to render it differently, and sometimes introduces differences between one performance and the next.
Parts of Speech
A parts of speech poem has five lines. Line 1 is one article and 1 noun. Line 2 is an adjective, a conjunction, and another adjective. Line 3 is one verb, one conjunction and one verb. Line 4 is one adverb. Line 5 is one noun or pronoun that relates to line one
Palinode
Refers to a poem or poetic passage in which the writer recants a statement made in a previous poem.
Panegyric
A panegyric is poetry that praises something, the opposite of a satire.
Parody
A type of high burlesque which imitates or exaggerates the serious manner and characteristic features of a particular literary work, or the distinctive style of a particular author. Parody is a device of satire.
Pastoral
Poetry that describes the simple life of country folk, usually shepherds who live a timeless, painless life in a world that is full of beauty, music and love. Synonyms for pastoral include eclogue, bucolic, or idyll.
Pattern Poetry
Also called concrete poetry - see that entry.
Petrachan Sonnet (or Italian Sonnet)
Fourteen lines of iambic pentameter rhyming in the octave (eight lines): a b b a a b b a, followed by the sestet (six lines) rhyming: c d c d c d (or some variation thereof). The octave generally contains the "problem" or theme which the sonnet will develop. Sometimes, an expression of indignation, desire or doubt may occur in the opening lines which will be resolved in the sestet.
Poem (or Poetry)
A somewhat cynical definition of poetry refers to a composition in which rhythmical, and usually metaphorical, language is used to create and aesthetic experience. Elements such as meter, rhyme etc are usually but not necessarily present.
Poetic Drama
Drama in which the dialogue is written in the form of poetry.
Quatrain
A quatrain has four lines. Lines 2 and 4 must rhyme. Lines 1 and 3 may or may not rhyme. Rhyming lines should have about the same number of syllables.
Refrain
A line, or part of a line, or group of lines, which is repeated in the course of a poem, sometimes with slight changes, usually at the end of each stanza. If the repetition is not verbatim, the phenomenon is sometimes called incremental repetition. The refrain occurs in many ballads and poems. The word "Nevermore" in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" functions as a refrain.
Renga
Refers to Japanese linked poetry. A typical renga sequence comprised 100 stanzas composed by about three poets at a single sitting of about three hours. Each stanza of a renga is like a link in a chain.
Rhyme Royal (or Rime Royal)
A seven line, iambic pentameter stanza with the rhyme scheme: a b a b b c c
Satire
The literary art of diminishing or derogating a subject by making it ridiculous and evoking toward to attitudes of amusement, contempt, scorn or indignation. Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travel, especially Book IV, is a satire on the human race.
Sestina
A poem which consists of six six-line stanzas and a final three line stanza (called an ENVOY), all unrhymed; the final word in each line of the first stanza becomes the final word in other stanzas (but in a different specified pattern); the final stanza uses these words again in a specified way, one in each half line. Example: In the diagram, each letter represents the terminal word of a verse and each line represents a stanza: Stanza 1: a b c d e f Stanza 2: f a e b d c Stanza 3: c f d a b e Stanza 4: e c b f a d Stanza 5: d e a c f b Stanza 6: b d f e c a Envoy: e c a
Shakespearean Sonnet (or English Sonnet)
A sonnet (fourteen lines of iambic pentameter) divided into three quatrains and a concluding couplet with the following rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg.
Soliloquy
Refers to an extended speech in which a character, alone on stage, expresses his thoughts. A soliloquy may reveal the private emotions, motives and state of mind of the speaker. Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech is a soliloquy.
Sonnet
A lyric poem consisting of a single stanza of fourteen iambic pentameter lines linked by an intricate rhyme scheme. See Petrachan and Shakespearean sonnets.
Spensarian Sonnet
A variation of the Shakespearean sonnet in which Spenser links each quatrain to the next with a continuing rhyme: a b a b b c b c c d c d e e
Spensarian Stanza
The Spensarian stanza was revised by Edmund Spenser for The Faerie Queene. It consists of nine lines, in which the first eight are iambic pentameter; the last line is an iambic hexameter (an ALEXANDRINE) rhyming a b a b b c b c c
Tanka
A tanka has five lines and 31 syllables. Lines 1 and 3 have five syllables each. Lines 2, 4, and 5 have seven syllables each
Terza Rima
Composed of tercets that are interlinked. Each tercet is joined to the one following by a common rhyme: aba, bcd, cdc, ded, etc.
Theme
Theme is sometimes used to indicate the subject of a work, frequently employed to designate its central idea or thesis. A theme may be stated directly or indirectly.
Villanelle
A poem that consists of five tercets and a quatrain, all on two rhymes. The opening line is repeated at the ends of tercets two and four; the final line of the first tercet concludes the third and fifth stanza. The two refrain lines are repeated at the end of the quatrain.