Poetry Glossary - Understand Poetry Terms

Term	Definition	Example
Couplet	Two lines of verse, usually in the same meter and joined by rhyme, forming a unit.	"The time is out of joint, O cursed spite / That ever I was born to set it right!"
Dactyl	A metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.	"Half a league, half a league, half a league onward."
Diction	The choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing.	The diction in the poem was formal and appropriate for the theme.
Didactic Poetry	Poetry intended to teach or convey a moral message.	Alexander Pope's "Essay on Criticism" is a didactic poem.
Dimeter	A line of verse consisting of two metrical feet.	"Up the \| mountain, \| Down the \| valley."
Dirge	A mournful song or poem for the dead.	"A Dirge" by Percy Bysshe Shelley is a well-known example.
Dirge	A mournful poem or song expressing grief, especially for the dead.	Walt Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a dirge for Abraham Lincoln.
Doggerel	Crude, simplistic verse, often in sing-song rhyme.	A poem of no literary value is often termed doggerel.
Dramatic Monologue	A poem in the form of a speech or narrative by an imagined person, in which the speaker inadvertently reveals aspects of their character.	Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" is a famous dramatic monologue.
Eclogue	A short pastoral poem, often in dialogue form.	Virgil's "Eclogues" are classic examples of this form.

Our comprehensive Poetry Glossary, designed for students, teachers, and poetry enthusiasts alike. Whether you're delving into poetic forms, exploring rhyme schemes, or understanding the nuances of metrical feet, our glossary is an essential resource to enhance your study of poetry.

Our glossary covers a wide range of poetry terms, from alliteration, the repetition of initial consonant sounds, to the structure of free verse, which flows without a fixed metrical pattern. Learn about how stressed and unstressed syllables form the foundation of metrical feet, or explore how a rhyme scheme organizes the pattern of sounds at the end of lines in a poem.

Use the search function to quickly find terms like group of lines in a stanza or the repetition of sounds in a poem or section. Whether you're looking to understand how a series of words creates rhythmic patterns or how the number of syllables affects the flow of a line of poetry, our glossary has the definitions and examples you need.