Poetry - Sound and Rhythm

Terms Related to Poetry – Sound and Rhythm

Alliteration –

the repetition of sounds in the beginnings of word; front rhyme

Anaphora –

repetition of word or words at the beginning of lines or stanzas

Approximate rhyme –

near rhyme

Assonance –

use of vowel sounds for rhyming

Cacophony –

unrhymed or discordant sounds

Caesura –

a pause or stop in the middle of a verse

Consonance –

use of consonants for rhyming

End-stopped line –

a pause at the end of a line of verse

Enjambment/run-on line –

continuation of a thought or sentence onto a new line

Euphony –

good or pleasing sound

Eye rhyme –

a similarity in spelling between words that are pronounced differently

Falling meter –

movement from stressed to unstressed meter

Imperfect rhyme –

close but not exact rhyme; near rhyme; approximate rhyme

Meter –

the recurring pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in lines of poetry of specific length

Near rhyme –

approximate rhyme

Onomatopoeia –

words that sound like the sound they mean: buzz

Perfect rhyme –

when a sound in a word is the same as the sound in another word

Rhyme –

the repetition of similar sounds

Rhythm –

is the movement of sound in a recurrent pattern; the beat

Rising meter –

movement from unstressed to stressed meter

Run-on line/enjambment –

the continuation of a sentence or thought onto the next line

Scansion –

a way of marking the metrical pattern in a poem

Slant rhyme –

close but not exact rhyme; near rhyme; approximate rhyme

Stress –

the emphasis on particular syllables