Glossary of poetry terms

This is a glossary of poetry. This is a glossary of poetry terms. Accent Vedic accent Cadence: the patterning of rhythm in poetry, or natural speech, without a distinct meter. Line: a unit into which a poem is divided. Line break: the termination of the line of a poem and the beginning of a new line. Metre (or meter): the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Metres are influenced by syllables and their 'weight'. Metrical foot (aka poetic foot): the basic repeating rhythmic unit that forms part of a line of verse in most Indo-European traditions of poetry. Arsis and thesis Prosody: the principles of metrical structure in poetry. Syllable weight and stress: weight refers to the duration of a syllable, which can be defined by the length of a vowel; whereas stress refers to a syllable uttered in a higher pitch—or with greater emphasis—than others. Stressed or long syllable (Ancient Greek: longum; notation: ): a heavy syllable Unstressed or short syllable (Ancient Greek: brevis; notation: ): a light syllable Stanza: a group of lines forming the basic recurring metrical unit in a poem. (cf. verse in music.) Verse: formally, a single metrical line. (Not to be confused with musical verse.) Gāthā Verse paragraph: a group of verse lines that make up a single rhetorical unit Anceps: a position in a metrical pattern that can be filled by either a long or a short syllable. Caesura: a stop or pause in a metrical line, typically marked by punctuation. Canto: a long subsection of a long narrative poem such as an epic. End rhyme (aka tail rhyme): a rhyme occurring in the terminating word or syllable of one line in a poem with that of another line, as opposed to internal rhyme. End-stopping line Enjambment: incomplete syntax at the end of a line; the meaning runs over from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation. Epigraph: a quotation from another literary work that is placed under the title at the beginning of a poem or section of a poem. Hemistich: a half of a line of verse.