Poetic Forms and Figures of Speech

Types of Stanzas

Two-Line Stanzas

Paired: Artful, with or without assonance or consonance (aa / AA).

Three-Line Stanzas

Tercet: Three lines with an ABA rhyme scheme.

Soleá: Three lines with an aba assonance scheme.

Four-Line Stanzas

Quatrain: Four lines with an ABBA rhyme scheme.

Quatrain: Four lines with an abba rhyme scheme.

Serventesio: Four lines with an ABAB rhyme scheme.

Copla: Four lines with a 7-5 assonance scheme (aa-5).

Redondilla: Four lines with a 8-syllable abab rhyme scheme.

Cuarteta: Four lines with an abab rhyme scheme.

Seguidilla: Four lines with an assonance scheme (ababaa).

Octava Real (8-line stanza): Eight lines with an ABBAACCA rhyme scheme.

Five-Line Stanzas

Limerick: Five lines with varying rhyme and meter.

Quintet: Five lines with varying rhyme and meter.

Lira: Five lines with a 7-11 consonant aBabB scheme.

Six-Line Stanzas

Sextet: Six lines with varying rhyme and meter.

Sextina: Six lines with varying rhyme and meter.

Broken-Foot Verse: Six lines with a 4-8 consonant abcabc scheme.

Seven-Line Stanzas

Seguidilla: Seven lines with a 5-7 assonance scheme (aabb).

Eight-Line Stanzas

Copla de Arte Mayor: Eight lines with a 12-syllable ABBAACCA rhyme scheme.

Ten-Line Stanzas

Décima: Ten lines with an 8-syllable abbaaccddc rhyme scheme.

Indefinite Stanzas

Silva: 7- and 11-syllable lines with varying assonance or consonance (abcabc).

Figures of Repetition of Sounds

Alliteration: Repetition of a sound, syllable, or word to create a musical or sound effect.

Onomatopoeia: Alliteration where the sound evokes the thing being described.

Anaphora: Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several lines or phrases.

Epiphora: Repetition of a word or phrase at the end of several lines or phrases.

Concatenation (Anadiplosis): Repetition at the beginning of a phrase or line of the word that ended the previous phrase or line.

Morphological Figures

Neologism: Creation of a new word whose meaning is understood by the context.

Archaism: Use of an obsolete word.

Ellipsis: Omission of a word or phrase.

Pleonasm: Use of redundant words.

Epithet: Unnecessary adjective attributed to a noun.

Asyndeton: Omission of conjunctions.

Polysyndeton: Accumulation of conjunctions.

Hyperbaton: Unusual word order.

Parallelism: Use of similar grammatical structures.

Rhetorical Question: Question asked for effect, not an answer.

Apostrophe: Direct address to someone or something.

Reluctance (Suspension): Interruption of a sentence.

Periphrasis: Indirect way of expressing something.

Chiasmus: Two corresponding pairs arranged in inverted order.

Zeugma: Use of a word to modify two other words in different ways.