Some Terms for Talking About Poetry

forms of meter
	accentual    	(number of strong stresses--Old English)
	syllabic     	(number of syllables)
	quantitative 	("feet" determined by "length" of syllables)
    accentual-syllabic	("feet" determined by relative stresses)

some feet
    iamb                  /         /          /         / 
        (iambic)    The QUEEN  of HEARTS, she MADE some TARTS
    trochee           /         /        /     
        (trochaic)   TELL me, PRET-ty  MAID-en
    anapest	               /        /             /            /
        (anapestic) There was AL-so a BEA-ver, that PACED on the DECK
    dactyl           /               /          /          
        (dactylic)  ALL the King's HORS-es and  ALL the King's
    pyrrhic                  spondee                 /    /  
                   in the			   HEN-HOUSE
    triple feet (feet with 3 syllables, like anapests and dactyls)
    duple feet  (feet with 2 syllables, like the others above)

	meters by numbers of feet	    stanzas by number of lines
1	monometer
2	dimeter					2	couplet
3	trimeter				3	tercet (or triplet)
4	tetrameter				4	quatrain
5	pentameter
6    	hexameter

breaks
caesura (noticeable pause within a line)     
     The QUEEN  of HEARTS,   she MADE some TARTS
enjambment (run-on lines, as opposed to end-stopped)
     Who would not give all else for two 	      run-on line
     pennyworth only of beautiful soup?		      end-stopped line

organization of poems
stichic  (line by line)
strophic (by stanzas)

some common stanza patterns
sonnet   (14 lines of rhymed iambic pentameter:
         The "Petrarchan" sonnet is divided into 8 lines of octave
             and a "turn" into a 6 line sestet;
         The "Shakespearean" has three quatrains and a final
 		   couplet, with the "turn" sometimes before the couplet)
heroic couplet (rhymed decasyllabic [10] iambic pentameter)
rime royale (7 lines of iambic pentameter rhyming ababbcc)
octava rima (8 lines of iambic pentameter rhyming abababcc--see
			Byron's Don Juan
Spenserian (9 lines, the first 8 iambic pentameter and the last an
	alexandrine (hexameter), rhyming ababbcbcc--see Faerie Queene)
ballad  (quatrain of alternating tetrameter and trimeter lines,
		   rhyming abcb or abab)