Essential Poetic Terms and Their Meanings
Classified in Latin
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Allegory
A narrative with two levels of meaning, one stated and one unstated.
Aubade
A song or poem greeting the sunrise, traditionally a lover's lament that the night's passion must come to an end.
Ballad
Broadly speaking, the ballad is a genre of folk poetry, usually an orally transmitted narrative song. The term "ballad" applies to several other kinds of poetry, including the English ballad stanza, which is a form often associated with the genre.
Blason
A Renaissance genre characterized by a short, catalogue-style description, often of the female body.
Cento
A poem composed entirely of lines from other poems.
Dirge
A funeral song.
Dramatic Monologue
This might be called a "closet soliloquy": a long poem spoken by a character who often unwittingly reveals