The arrangement of words in a sentence. These may be grammatically correct or deliberately incorrect or fractured if a poet feels it is appropriate.

An example of confused syntax (also known as anacoluthon) is in Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale, with the incoherent language of the enraged Leontes.

Most dear’st! my collop! Can thy dam?—may’t be?—
Affection! thy intention stabs the centre:
Thou dost make possible things not so held,
Communicatest with dreams;—how can this be?—
With what’s unreal thou coactive art,
And fellow’st nothing …

Poetry that does not have a regular pattern of rhyme, meter, or rhythm – loosely used from the early years of the 20th century to describe many forms of irregular, syllabic, or unrhymed verse, freed from the traditional demands of meter.

Walt Whitman was an early free verse innovator; peep the lengthy lines (and sometimes curious line breaks) in his Leaves Of Grass collection:

Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age, / Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while / they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself

Unrhymed iambic pentameter.

An example from John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, which is written entirely in blank verse:

Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of EDEN, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing, Heavenly Muse…

An extended and elaborate metaphor used in a passage of a poem or throughout an entire poem.

Example:

O stay, three lives in one flea spare
Where we almost, yea, more than married are
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is

— John Donne’s “The Flea”

The mood or atmosphere of a work, although in some more restricted uses this refers to the author’s attitude toward the reader. Tone is usually described with an adjective, such as serious, playful, tranquil, etc.

It is highly important to note that although tone may shift within a piece of writing, it should never waver.

A symbol is something that stands for or represents something else beyond it, by virtue of some sort of resemblance, suggestion, or association. For example, an egg may symbolize fertility, rebirth, springtime, potential, etc.

Example: Prince.

“A story with a second distinct meaning, usually moral or political, partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning.”
— Chris Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (Oxford UP, 1990)

For instance, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible leveled a critique against the “Red Scare” of the 1950’s.

John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is also an allegory, with the characters taking on wider significance. So Christian’s journey represents a man’s journey through life to reach God.

Allegory can be regarded as a highly complex metaphor extended over the length of a story.

Language that evokes the senses (not just sight).

Typically, imagery can be divided into eight key types (although these may vary subjectively):

• Visual imagery
• Auditory imagery
• Olfactory imagery
• Gustatory imagery
• Tactile imagery
• Kinesthetic imagery
• Organic imagery
• Thematic imagery

The first five all come under sensory imagery.

Example:

Jonathan Richman’s No-one Was Like Vermeer:

Some paintings smell of joy and sweat
Some paintings plain look so fine
Some paintings are sad and passionate
But Vermeer sends a chill up your spine

Personification is essentially a type of metaphor, in which human characteristics figuratively applied to animals or inanimate objects. ex: Alonso in The Tempest:

Methought the billows spoke and told me of it;
The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder

Not to be confused with anthropomorphism, in which the object or animal itself is literally doing human things. (ie. Disney animal characters; Animal Farm and many of Aesop’s fables).

Figurative language departs from literal meaning to achieve a special effect or meaning. Metaphor, simile, and personification are types of this.

Examples

• I dug all the way to China.

• She thinks she is the center of the universe.

• The quiz leered at me, daring me to answer.

None of these things could literally be true, but they add greater meaning and emphasis.