Glossary of Poetic Terms

Robert Shubinski has assembled an excellent on-line resource for this problem, using the simple arrangement of an A to Z glossary. Each entry is given a definition, and the more important items are supplemented with explanations of their role or significance. Most entries are hyperlinked, and references are added to similar topics. Readers of 'Ballad' for instance are pointed towards 'Broadside', 'lay', 'chanson de geste', 'epopee', and 'heroic quatrain'. So, a typical entry reads: Headword - Definition - [possible] Example - and Associated topics:

Sidelight: Cadence differs from meter in that it is not necessarily regular, but rather a more flexible concept of rhythm such as is characteristic of free verse and prose poetry.

(See also Accent, Ictus, Sprung Rhythm, Stress) - (Compare Caesura)

The resource includes all those bewildering terms of classical rhetoric such as 'anaphora', 'meiosis', and 'catalexis' which only those with an education in classics are likely to know - but because it's so comprehensive we are also offered the more straightforward 'analogy', 'ballad', 'Clerihew', and 'metre' - or as it is spelled here, 'meter'.

What the entries lack in many cases is an illustrative example. It would be more useful to show one stanza of a ballad for instance, than to say in terms of a definition that it is 'alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with the last words of the second and fourth lines rhyming'.

However, there are guides to the pronunciation of these terms, many of which one rarely hears spoken. [Care to tackle 'Polysyndeton' or 'Anadiplosis'?] It's an interesting side issue [connected with phonetic 'spelling'] to note that if you pronounce 'apostrophe' as 'uh-PAHS-truh- fee' you will sound like an American.

So, if you know which term you're searching for, you can get to it fairly quickly. The problem with this type of alphabetised resource is that you often need the information in reverse order. For instance, if you have a poetic effect on hand in a phrase such as 'the wine dark sea', how do you know which term to look for in describing it?

But having said all that, it's a wonderfully comprehensive glossary, with lots of foreign terms explained and a useful link to the author's home page where he offers a page of tips on the general appreciation of poetry. I also checked out some of his links to other sites: all of them proved useful. This is a work of love - and it's also available in a single 302K downloadable file.