Poetry Terms and Terminology - T

Definition

Welsh syllabic verse form - similar to a rhupunt.

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Similar to an acrostic except that the significant word or phrase is spelt out by the last letters of each line rather than by the first.

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See metaphor.

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Term coined by Allen Tate for the totality of meaning within a poem. It derives from the logical terms 'extension' and 'intension'.

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A group of three lines, often rhyming together or with another tercet.

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The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave,
until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow.

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(or Triplet) A stanza comprising of three lines e.g. The Old Familiar Faces by Charles Lamb.

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A stanza comprising of 3 lines. See also Triplet.

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A tetrameter is a line of four metrical feet.

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"And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea" (Byron, "The Destruction of Sennacherib")

"Because I could not stop for Death" (Emily Dickinson)

"Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater" (English nursery rhyme)

Picture your self in a boat on a river with [...] (The Beatles, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds")

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See quatrain.

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Tetrasyllables have four syllables in a foot.

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N/A

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The main idea, thesis or subject matter of a poem. Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn, for example, deals with the permanence of art and the impermanence of life.

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Poem of lamentation. See elegy.

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Welsh syllabic verse form. See awdl.

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The author's attitude to the subject as revealed in the style and the manner of the writing. This might be for instance serious, comic, or ironic.

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N/A

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The poetic equivalent of landscape painting e.g. Pope's Windsor Forest or Gray's Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College. A more modern example of the genre is Remains of Elmet by Ted Hughes which was a collaboration with the photographer Fay Godwin.

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See envoi.

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Poetry/literature which is handed down from previous generations (usually in the same native language) and which provides an influence/framework for subsequent poets. See canon.

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The process of translating poetry written in one language into another language. This is a notoriously difficult exercise due to the condensed language of poetry, the prevalence of figures of speech and the problem of finding equivalent rhymes.

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The strophe, antistrophe and epode of a Pindaric ode. See ode.

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Group of poets including: Herrick, Carew, Suckling, Lovelace, Randolph and Godolphin who emulated Ben Jonson. See Cavalier poets.

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Classical meter consisting of three short syllables per foot. Such a foot would be extremely rare in English poetry.

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A trimeter is a metre of three metrical feet per line

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When here // the spring // we see,
Fresh green // upon // the tree.

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(or trisyllabic) - words with three syllables

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Poetry

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Trisyllables have two syllables in a foot.

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N/A

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(or Trochee) A foot in with one accented syllable followed by one unaccented syllable

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only, total

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A foot consisting of two syllables where the first one is long or stressed and the second is short or unstressed e.g. as in 'FALLing'.

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The figurative use of language - as in simile and metaphor.

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Group of 12th and 13th century French Provençal poets including Jaufre Rudel, Arnaut Daniel and Bernart de Ventadorn. They invented a wide range of complex verse forms (see French forms) and frequently wrote about 'courtly' love.

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Group of northern French poets who composed during the 12th and 13th centuries and who were influenced by the troubadours (see above). The group included poets such as Gâce Brulé and Blondel de Nesle.

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(or Truncation) See catalectic.

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See Skeltonic.

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