List of basic poetry topics

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For a more comprehensive list, see the Glossary of poetry terms.

Poetry is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic qualities, in addition to, or instead of, its ostensible meaning. Basic topics in poetry include:

Nature of poetry

Main article: Poetry

Types of poetry

Common poetic forms

Periods, styles and movements

For movements see List of poetry groups and movements.

History of poetry

Main article: History of poetry

Basic elements of poetry

Main article: Meter (poetry)

Methods of creating rhythm

Main articles: Timing (linguistics), tone (linguistics), and pitch accent

See also Parallelism, inflection, intonation, foot

Scanning meter

Main articles: Scansion and Systems of scansion

spondee — two stressed syllables together
iamb — unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable
trochee — one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable
dactyl — one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables
anapest — two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable

The number of metrical feet in a line are described in Greek terminology as follows:

dimeter — two feet
trimeter — three feet
tetrameter — four feet
pentameter — five feet
hexameter — six feet
heptameter — seven feet
octameter — eight feet

Common metrical patterns

Main article: Meter (poetry)

Iambic pentameter (John Milton, Paradise Lost^[1])
Dactylic hexameter (Homer, Iliad;^[2] Ovid, The Metamorphoses)
Iambic tetrameter (Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress")
Iambic tetrameter (Aleksandr Pushkin, Eugene Onegin)^[3]
Trochaic octameter (Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven")^[4]
Anapestic tetrameter (Lewis Carroll, "The Hunting of the Snark";^[5] Lord Byron, Don Juan)^[6]
Alexandrine, also known as iambic hexameter (Jean Racine, Phèdre)^[7]

Rhyme, alliteration and assonance

Rhyming schemes

Main article: Rhyme scheme

Stanzas and verse paragraphs

Main article: stanza

2-line stanza: couplet or distich
3-line stanza: triplet or tercet
4-line stanza: quatrain
5-line stanza: quintain or cinquain)
6-line stanza: sestet
8-line stanza: octet

verse paragraph

Poetic diction

Main article: Poetic diction

Famous poems and poets

Main article: List of poets

William Shakespeare
Basho (芭蕉松尾）
Li Bai (李白)
Rainer Maria Rilke
Alexander Pushkin (Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Пу́шкин)
Mikhail Lermontov (Михаи́л Ю́рьевич Ле́рмонтов)
Arthur Rimbaud
Robert Frost
Ignacy Krasicki, Fables and Parables
Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven
Shel Silverstein

Poetry lists

Main article: Glossary of poetry terms

References

^ Two versions of Paradise Lost are freely available on-line from Project Guttenberg, Project Gutenberg text version 1 and Project Gutenberg text version 2.
^ The original text, as translated by Samuel Butler, is available at Wikisource.[1]
^ The full text is available online both in Russian[2] and as translated into English by Charles Johnston.[3] Please see the pages on Eugene Onegin and on Nabokov's Notes on Prosody and the references on those pages for discussion of the problems of translation and of the differences between Russian and English iambic tetrameter.
^ The full text of "The Raven" is available at Wikisource[4].
^ The full text of "The Hunting of the Snark" is available at Wikisource.[5]
^ The full text of Don Juan is available on-line.[6]
^ See the Text of the play in French as well as an English translation, Phaedra, available at Project Gutenberg.

External links

Poetry Out Loud List of Poems
Learning for a Cause, a non-profit educational organization that publishes the poetry and fiction of young writers under the age of eighteen.

List resources
Topic lists (Basic topic lists) · Glossaries · Countries · People · Timelines

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