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H
Haiku
One of the Japanese forms of poetry, the haiku is a short poem of
three lines using five syllables in the first, seven syllables in the second,
and five syllables in the third line. It does not rhyme and is nature
oriented
Half-Rhyme
Rhyming only with the consonants in the terminal syllable(s) of a multi-
syllable word. An example is "concrete" and "litcrit". Also termed `off-
rhyme,' `slant rhyme,' or apophany, in which two single-syllable words
(such as `tell' and `toll') share the opening and closing consonants but
not the intervening vowel. See consonance.
Head Rhyme
See Alliteration
Helicon
A part of the Parnassus, a mountain range in Greece, which was the
home of the Muses. The name is used as an allusion to poetic
inspiration.
Hemistich
The approximate half of a line of poetic verse, usually divided by a
caesura. In dramatic poetry it is used whenever characters exchange
short bursts of dialogue rapidly, heightening the effect of quarrelsome
disagreement; in classical poetry such a ser,
Hendecasyllabic
A Classical Greek and Latin metrical line consisting of eleven syllables, a
spondee or trochee, a choriamb, and two iambs, the second of which
has an additional syllable at the end / ' ' / ' ~ ~ ' / ~ ' / ~ ' /.
Hendiadys
A pair of nouns linked by "and" that are substituted for an adjective-
noun pair. Shakespeare was especially fond of employing this structure.
Heptameter
Seven feet, a measure made up of seven feet (fourteeners). Examples
are Chapman's translation of Homer's "Iliad," Edgar Allan Poe's
"Annabel Lee," and Rudyard Kipling's "Tommy." Cf. Poulter's measure.
Heroic Couplet
The heroic couplet is an English form that is commonly used in epic and
narrative poetry. It is a poem constructed entirely through rhyming
couplets written in iambic pentameter. These couplets tend to be closed
rather than enjambed. It gained its popularity during the 18th century.
Heroic Quatrain
So named because it is the form in which epic poetry of heroic exploits
is generally written, its rhyme scheme is abab, composed in ten-syllable
iambic verse in English, hexameter in Greek and Latin, ottava rima in
Italian.
Heterometric composition
A poem written in meter but with lines of differing length, e.g. one line
of tetrameter, one of pentameter, one of dimeter etc.
Heteronym
See Homonym
Hexameter
Six feet; sometimes termed hexapody, a six-part foot, one measure
made up of six feet. An example is Ernest Dowson's "Non Sum Qualis."
Hiatus
See Elision
Higgledy-Piggledy
See Double Dactyl
Historical criticism
An approach to literature that uses history as a means of
understanding a literary work more clearly. Such criticism moves
beyond both the facts of an author’s personal life and the text itself in
order to examine the social and intellectual currents in which the author
composed the work. See also cultural criticism, marxist criticism, new
historicism, postcolonial criticism.
Homonym
A homonym is a word that has many different meanings in context. For
example, a bank can be both "a place where money is kept" and "a
piece of land."
Homophone
A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word,
but it has a different meaning and is spelled differently. An example of
homophone is "there" and "their."
Horatian ode
See Ode.
Hovering Accent
In scansion, a stress which is thought of as being equally distributed
over two adjacent syllables, a concept proposed to cover an accent not
in alignment with the expected metrical ictus.
Hovering Stress
A metrical accent that may apply to either of two sequential syllables,
but not to both, and so seems to "hover" over them equally.
Hudibrastic Poetry
Iambic tetrameter couplets like those in Samuel Butler's Hudibras.
Hymn
A poem praising God or other divine being or place, often sung. E.g.,
Sabine Baring-Gould, John Henry Newman, Isaac Watts, Charles
Wesley, and John Wesley.
Hypallage
A type of hyperbaton involving an interchange of elements in a phrase
or sentence so that a displaced word is in a grammatical relationship
with another that it does not logically qualify.
Hyperbaton
Inversion of word-order, e.g., noun-adjective.
Hyperbole
A figure of speech in which deliberate exaggeration is used for
emphasis. Many everyday expressions are examples of hyperbole: tons
of money, waiting for ages, a flood of tears, etc. Hyperbole is the
opposite of litotes.
Hypercatalectic
See Catalectic.
Hypermetric
A verse with one or more syllables than the metre calls for, a line with
metrically redundant syllables.
Hysteron Proteron
Related to the hyperbaton, a figure of speech in which the natural or
logical order of events is reversed.
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