ABSOLUTE POESIE, die (absolute poetry)
An autonomous poetic creation which derives entirely from the artist's creative manipulation of language without recourse to any representation of empirical reality or values beyond the self-contained artistic ones. Such poetry is not concerned with describable subject-matter but with the manifestation of the creative act itself. It relies on the inherent powers of language controlled by artistic discupline. (see Baudelaire's poetic theory and practice, Benn's Probleme der Lyrik).
ALLITERATION, die (alliteration)
Consonance of the initial sounds in stressed words or syllables ("Haus und Hof"; "Mann und Maus").
ANAPHER, die (anaphora)
The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several consecutive phrases, sentences, or lines of verse.
ASSONANZ, die (assonance)
Repetition or similarity of vowel sounds in neighboring stressed words or syllables.
Category of verse, which over the last 200 years has developed from an interweaving of literary and popular elements and is characterized by a mixture of three major genres, dramatic in its dialogue, lyric in its affinity to song, and epic in its narative content (see examples by Goethe, Bürger, Schiller).
The juxtaposition of two phrases or clauses with identical syntax, but reversed word order; "Die Kunst ist lang, und kurz ist unser Leben" (Goethe, Faust).
CHIFFRE, das
In modern poetry a figure of speech which no longer establishes an understandable link with recognizable outside reality but is private code of the poet's own making.
Metrical foot of three syllables, the first stressed or long and the two following unstressed or short (xxx)
Stylistic device: omission of word(s) in a sentence resulting in incomplete construction.
ENJAMBEMENT, das
The overflow of the syntactical structure into the next metrical line, so that the end of a verse line and the end of the sentence do not coincide.
Term applied to any single literary composition written in verse, whether it be in the lyrical, the epic, or the dramatic mode. In its usual, lyrical mode the Gedicht may be characterized as an emotional, intellectual, and linguistic complex, which arises from the impulse to articulate an inner state or feeling and which employs language in its most musical, concentrated, and self-conscious form.
The use of subordination.
Metrical foot of two syllables, the first unstressed or short and the second stressed or long (xx).
Rhyme scheme aba bcb cdc ded etc.
Term of Greek origin: "what can be sung to the lyre." Characteristic features to all common forms of Lyrik are verse, rhythm, and imagery--but not necessarily stanza division and rhyme--as well as brevity, concentration on the essential, contraction of complex thought to a point of density, which purposely suggest a variety of associations and hence interpretations.
LYRISCHES ICH, das (poetic persona)
The voice that speaks as "I" in a lyric poem but is not identical with the poet.
MÄNNLICHER REIM, der (masculine rhyme)
Rhyme which ends on a stressed or long syllable.
METHAPHER, die (metaphor)
Figure of speech which transfers a word from a context to which it originally belongs to a context to which it does not originally belong. A metaphor blends two originally separate spheres together to form a new identity ("der Mond, das Auge der Nacht" (Huchel), "die Kometen mit den Feuernasen" (Heym), "schwarze Milch der Frühe" (Celan)).
METONYMIE, die (metonymy)
Figure of speech in which the term for one thing is applied to another, with which it is closely related.
METRIK, die
Prosody. In a wider sense the study of the structural elements of verse (meter, rhythm) and its arrangement (rhyme, strophe, stanza). Meter in German verse is determined by the relationship between accented and unaccented syllables. The following traditional terms are accepted to describe metre: foot as the smallest metrical unit consisting of a combination of accented and unaccented syllables. A "Verszeile" consists of a series of feet, thus one speaks of e.g. a "vierfüßiger Jambus." In Germanic verse the accented syllables should coincide with the naturally stressed syllables of the words.
Figure of speech in which two incongruous or contradictory elements are juxtaposed ("helldunkel," "alter Knabe," "jumbo shrimp").
The rhyming of two consecutive verse lines to form a Reimpaar.
PARATAXE, die (parataxis)
The juxtaposition or accumulation of main clauses.
PENTAMETER, der (pentameter)
Metrical line consisting of five feet. Also refers to the specific symmetrical six-beat line that closes a distich.
Similarity or identity of sound. When accented vowels and any sounds following are identical, they constitute a rhyme. Rhyme most commonly occurs at the end of the verse line, but may also occur internally or inititally.
REIMSCHEMA, das (rhyme scheme)
the pattern of rhymes in a stanza or poem.
A poem of fourteen lines, usually iambic pentameter. The Italian form is divided into two parts: the eight line octave and the six line sestet each of which is further divided, the octave into quatrains with a parallel rhyme scheme and the steset into two tercets or triplets with variable rhyme patterns. The structure lends itself to the development of antithetic or dialectical arguments. The form is thought to have originated in Sicily and was perfected by the Italian poet Petrarca (1304-1374). The Shakespearean form, less common in Germany, consists of three questions and a couplet.
SPONDEUS, der (spondee)
Metrical foor consisting of two stressed or long syllables.
STROPHE, die (stanza)
A group of lines of various lengths which formed the first part of an ode or chorus lyric in ancient Greek drama. The chorus recited the "Strophe" as they moved from right to left, and the answering "Antistrophe" as they moved from left to right, and the "Epode" stading still. Within the context of poetry, the strophe is a fixed number of verse lines, which as a group forms the basic structural unit of a poem.
SYNEKDOCHE, die (synechdoche)
A metrical foot of two syllables in which the stressed or long syllable is followed by an unstressed or short syllable.
always refers to a single metrical line.
WEIBLICHER REIM, der (feminine rhyme)
Rhyme which ends on an unstressed or short sylllable.
Strong pause or break within a verse line.