Glossary of Terms used in English

Alliteration

Where two or more words begin with the same 'sound' and occur in sequence in a passage of writing or in speech,

e.g. "…what dread grasp
        Dare its deadly terrors clasp?"

Assonance

Where two or more similar vowel sounds within words occur in sequence in a passage of writing or in speech.

e.g. "counting bells knelling classes to a close."

Ballad

A poem that tells a story; originally ballads were written to be sung and many still have the simple style and repetition found in song lyrics.

Iambic Metre

A pattern of unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable: de-dum de-dum de-dum.

e.g. "My foe outstretched beneath the tree."

Image

A mental picture created by the words a writer chooses for effect. For example, in 'A Poison Tree' Blake describes his anger as if it were a tree he has planted and wants to grow.

Imagery

A term which covers all the various types of image in a text.

Metaphor

A type of image that makes an implied comparison by referring to something as being the thing that it resembles,

e.g. "the trains' long cries are swallowed
        in the throats of tunnels."

Metre

The rhythm of the lines in a poem, created by the regular patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Narrative Verse

Poetry that tells a story: the commonest form of this is a ballad.

Narrator

The storyteller within a story or poem, who can either be the writer, or the writer speaking through one or more of the characters.

Onomatopoeia

The use of sounds and words that imitate the sound of what is being described.

e.g. "the air stammering with gunfire."

Personification

Writing about ideas, abstractions or objects - for example, time the seasons, the planets - as if they were people.

e.g. "Forest don't broadcast her business."

Pun

A clever or funny play on words which look or sound similar but have a different meaning.

Rhyme

The repetition of similar or identical sounds at the end of, or within, lines of poetry. Letters can be used to show a pattern.

e.g. "I was angry with my friend               A
        I told my wrath, my wrath did end    A
        I was angry with my foe ..............     B
        I told it not, my wrath did grow ...     B

Rhythm

The pattern of strong and weak beats (stresses) in poetry.

Setting

Where and when the events of a story, poem or play took place.

Simile

An image which makes a comparison by saying that one thing is like another,

e.g. "The peasants came like swarms of flies."
       "The peasants were as a swarm of flies."

Sonnet

A fourteen line poem with a complicated rhyme scheme.

Stanza

A word meaning an individual verse in a poem, useful for making the distinction between verse (in a poem) and verse (poetry in general).

Structure

The shape and way in which a text is organised.

Style

The particular aspects of a writer's technique which produce an individual and distinctive effect.

Syllable

One of the sections that a word can be broken down into.

         1  2  3            1    2             1  2    3    4  5
e.g. qua li fy .......ex pel....... un re mark a ble

Symbol (Symbolism)

An image that is used more than once by a poet and which takes on a particular meaning and importance for that poet.

Theme

The subject or subjects covered by a writer: not simply the facts and what happens, but the underlying meaning behind them.

Tone

The 'character' of a piece of writing; it is determined by its intended audience and is made up of such elements as choice of vocabulary and sentence structure.

Verse

An individual section of a poem; part of its formal structure. It can also refer to poetry in general.