A group of lines in a poem that forms a unit, analogous to a paragraph in prose. Stanza breaks signal shifts in thought, time, or perspective.
A two-line stanza. Couplets often deliver closure, wit, or a summary insight. The closing couplet of a Shakespearean sonnet typically states the poem's key idea.
A three-line stanza. The odd number of lines creates a slight sense of openness or incompleteness that the reader's ear wants to resolve.
A four-line stanza — the most common stanza form in English poetry. Ballads, hymns, and Shakespearean sonnets all use quatrains as building blocks.
A six-line stanza. In a Petrarchan sonnet, the sestet (lines 9–14) follows the octave and typically resolves, complicates, or responds to the problem the octave raised.
An eight-line stanza. In a Petrarchan sonnet, the octave (lines 1–8) presents the situation or problem. The volta separates it from the sestet.
A poetic line that runs into the next without a grammatical pause. Enjambment creates momentum, suspense, or a sense of overflow — the sentence keeps moving even as the line ends.
A line that ends with a natural pause, typically marked by punctuation. End-stopped lines create a sense of finality or closure at each line's close.
A pause within a line of poetry, usually marked by punctuation. A caesura breaks the rhythm and draws attention to both parts of the line on either side of the pause.
The voice or persona narrating a poem. The speaker is a constructed voice — never automatically the poet. AP Lit analysis always refers to "the speaker," not "the author."
The speaker's attitude toward the subject of the poem, conveyed through diction, imagery, and syntax. Tone can shift within a poem, often at the volta. Examples: elegiac, sardonic, reverent, bitter, celebratory.
The context of a poem: who is speaking, to whom, about what, and under what circumstances. Identifying the dramatic situation — speaker, occasion, and audience — is always the first step in poetry analysis.
The event or circumstance that prompts the poem — a death, a season, a moment of observation, a memory. The occasion explains why the speaker is moved to speak at all.
Addressing an absent, dead, or non-human entity directly — "O Death!"; "O wild West Wind!" Apostrophe signals emotional intensity. The speaker urgently needs to address something that cannot literally respond.
Italian for "turn." The volta is the formal shift in a sonnet — between octave and sestet in a Petrarchan sonnet, or at or before the closing couplet in a Shakespearean sonnet. It marks a change in thought, emotion, or argument.
Any change in tone, imagery, time, or argument within a poem. Signal words include: but, yet, however, still, though, now, suddenly. Shifts are often the most analytically productive moment in a poem.
A comparison between two unlike things using "like" or "as." Simile keeps the two things separate even while connecting them. Example: "My love is like a red, red rose" (Burns).
A direct comparison asserting one thing IS another, without "like" or "as." Metaphor collapses the distance between two things. Example: "Life is a broken-winged bird" (Hughes).
In a metaphor: the tenor is the subject being described (what the poet actually means); the vehicle is the image used to describe it. In "the fog comes on little cat feet," fog = tenor, cat = vehicle.
A single metaphor developed across multiple lines, a stanza, or an entire poem. Each new image adds a dimension to the central comparison. When very elaborate and intellectual, an extended metaphor is called a conceit. (Covered in depth in Unit 5: Poetry II.)