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This is a list of terms for describing texts, with an emphasis on terms that apply specifically to poetry, that appear most frequently in literary criticism, or for which dictionary definitions tend to be unenlightening.
- Glossary of Poetic Genres
Whereas a "form" defines the way a poem arranges sounds,...
- Guide to Prosody
If a poem substitutes a troche for an iamb in the first foot...
- Collections
The Houghton Library has long collected poetry, with...
- Languages
The International Classroom: Five Languages in Focus. At...
- The Writing Life
The Harvard Spoken Word Society; Signet Society; Harvard...
- The Poetry Classroom
Poetry 101: Approaches to Poetry How to Do a Close...
- Key to Poetic Forms
Venus and Adonis stanza: iambic pentameter lines rhymed...
- Perspectives
This section of Poetry@Harvard offers a glimpse of the ways...
- Glossary of Poetic Genres
- Allegory. An allegory is a story, poem, or other written work that can be interpreted to have a secondary meaning. Aesop’s Fables are examples of allegories, as they are ostensibly about one thing (such as “The Ant and the Grasshopper”) but actually have a secondary meaning.
- Alliteration. Alliteration is the repetition of a sound or letter at the beginning of multiple words in a series. “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…”
- Allusion. An allusion is an indirect reference to something. “The Cunninghams are country folks, farmers, and the crash hit them hardest.” - Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird.
- Apostrophe. An apostrophe is a poetic device where the writer addresses a person or thing that isn’t present with an exclamation. “O stranger of the future!
- Definition of Litotes
- Common Examples of Litotes
- Examples of Litotes in Literature
- Why Do Writers Use litotes?
- Related Literary Terms
- Other Resources
The word “litotes” comes from the Greek meaning “simple” or “plain.” It occurs when a speaker, character, or someone in a normal everyday conversationstates an affirmative without using the expected, affirmative wording. The example, “You won’t regret hiring him,” juxtaposes“won’t” and “regret” next to one another. The combination of these negative...
As mentioned above, litotes is commonly used as a figure of speech in normal conversations. Below are a few of the many possible examples: 1. My car was not expensive. 2. I’m not bad at that. 3. The test was not easy. 4. You’re not wrong. 5. The story isn’t bad. 6. Those shoes aren’t unlike mine. 7. I couldn’t have done worse. 8. His choice wasn’t ...
Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare
Also known as ‘let me not to the marriage of true minds,’ ‘Sonnet 116’ provides readers with a clear example of litotes. The poet spends the lines negativing what love is not and therefore expressing what love actually is. He says that he doesn’t want to interfere with the “marriage” of true minds in the first line. He’s telling the listener that he supports marriage between like-minded people. There is a second example in the ninth line when the poet says that “Love’s not Time’s fool.” Here,...
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
There are several times in ‘Prufrock’ that T.S. Eliot’s speaker, Prufrock, uses litotes in order to talk about himself and his experience. For example, in these lines from the middle of the poem: In the second line of his excerpt, the poet writes, “I am no prophet” and that he’s pondering “no great matter.” In both of these examples, he’s negating something in order to describe what he is doing. The “no great matter” he refers to is, in fact, far greater than the line suggests. He’s confronti...
Jeremiah 30:19
There is a good example of litotes in these lines from the Bible: Here, God is saying that he’s going to restore honor and glory to the tribe of Jacob. Their numbers shall “not be few” (meaning they’ll be large), and they shall “not be small” (meaning that their glory will be expansive).
Writers use litotes in order to make their writing more interesting, multi-faceted, and more similar to how people talk in everyday conversations. Litotes is incredibly common in conversations among friends, relatives, and coworkers. This means that when it is used in a piece of dialogue, it’s going to make the entire piece feel more realistic and ...
Ambiguity: a word or statement that has more than one meaning. If a phrase is ambiguous, it means multiple things.Antiphrasis: a rhetorical devicethat occurs when someone says the opposite of what they mean, but their true meaning is obvious.Dichotomy: create conflictbetween characters, groups, states of being, ideas, and more.Metonymy: a kind of figurative languagethat refers to a situation in which one term is substituted for another.Watch: Defining LitotesListen: Figures of SpeechWatch: Top 20 Figures of Speech in the English LanguageMay 12, 2022 · Grammar rules, particularly spelling and punctuation, are nothing more than a creative tool for poets who choose to dismiss the rules altogether or use the them to decorate and add aesthetic elements to a poem. Many poets have skirted grammar with great success. Many more have failed.
- I’m often asked by writers and poets how they should handle grammar, capitalization, and punctuation in poetry. When it comes to grammar rules, is...
- Poets don’t always follow the rules, which is why poetry is attractive to writers who are especially creative, rebellious, and enjoy coloring outsi...
- As the poetry canon grows beyond measure, poets increasingly reach for creative devices to make their work stand out.Toying with grammar rules is o...
- Alliteration: Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds—particularly the sound of a word’s initial consonant—for aural effect.
- Anapest: An anapest is a metrical foot of poetry that consists of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable. Anapest is used in meter such as anapestic tetrameter (four anapests per line of poetry).
- Anaphora: In poetry, anaphora refers to a repeated word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines. As it comes at the beginning of a line, anaphora does not affect a poem’s pattern of rhyme.
- Apostrophe: An apostrophe is a poetic phrase addressed to a subject who is either dead or absent, or to an inanimate object or abstract idea.
Negative. If a word has a negative connotation, that means it is associated with negative emotions and experiences. When someone reads it, they are immediately transported to a negative frame of mind. This will likely last for more than the line containing the negative word.
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Jan 6, 2022 · We demystify how to write a poem, with a helpful guide to incorporating literary devices, rhyme scheme, and more techniques for crafting any type of poetry.
