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I
Iamb, Iambus
A metrical foot consisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an
accented one. This is the rhythm of ordinary English speech. Examples
of iambic words are "divide" and "deter." Gerard Manley Hopkins' "The
Windhover" begins deceptively with a line that appears to have five
iambic feet, "I caught this morning morning's minion, king-", but that
scans differently in his own sprung rhythm. A double foot termed the
di-iamb / ~ ' ~ ' / was common in Classical Greek and Latin.
Iambic Pentameter
A type of meter in poetry, in which there are five iambs to a line. (The
prefix penta- means "five," as in pentagon, a geometrical figure with
five sides. Meter refers to rhythmic units. In a line of iambic pentameter,
there are five rhythmic units that are iambs.) Shakespeare's plays were
written mostly in iambic pentameter, which is the most common type of
meter in English poetry. An example of an iambic pentameter line from
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is "But soft!/ What light/ through
yon/der win/dow breaks?" Another, from Richard III, is "A horse!/ A
horse!/ My king/dom for/ a horse!" (The stressed syllables are in bold.)
Iambic Trimeter
A Classical Greek and Latin metre with three iambic feet (also known in
English as the Alexandrine).
Ictus
The stress.
Idealism
The artistic theory or practice that affirms the preeminent values of
ideas and imagination, as compared with the faithful portrayal of nature
in realism.
Identical Rhyme
See Perfect Rhyme
Identical Rhymes
Using the same word, identically in sound and in sense, twice in
rhyming position.
Idyll, or Idyl
Either a short poem depicting a peaceful, idealized country scene, or a
long poem that tells a story about heroic deeds or extraordinary events
set in the distant past. Idylls of the King, by Alfred Lord Tennyson, is
about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
Image
An expression that describes a literal sensation, whether of hearing,
seeing, touching, tasting, and feeling.
Imagery
Imagery is a literary reference to the five senses (sight, touch, smell,
hearing, and taste). It is the vocabulary used to create a mental image.
In poetry images are often created by using figures of speech such as
similes and metaphors.
Imagism
A movement of early 20th-century poets who used colloquial, concise,
and image-laden language, not poetic diction. These include Ezra
Pound, T. E. Hulme, H.D., D. H. Lawrence, William Carlos Williams, and
Amy Lowell.
Imitation
See Mimesis
Imperfect Rhyme
See Near Rhyme
Impressionism
As applied to poetry, a late 19th century movement embracing imagism
and symbolism, which sought to portray the effects (or poet's
impressions), rather than the objective characteristics of life and events.
Improvisatore
An improviser of verse, usually extemporaneously.
In Medias Res
The literary device of beginning a narrative, such as an epic poem, at a
crucial point in the middle of a series of events. The intent is to create
an immediate interest from which the author can then move backward
in time to narrate the story.
In Memoriam stanza
A stanza of four lines of iambic tetrameter, rhyming abba. This form
was used by Tennyson in his long poem In Memoriam.
Incremental Repetition
The repetition in each stanza--of a ballad, for example--of part of the
preceding stanza, usually with a slight change in wording for effect.
Indirect Rhyme
Rhyme that is more subtle than direct rhyme and it may be used to
echo a sound . It is also called a "half-rhyme" or a "slant rhyme."
Initial Rhyme
See Alliteration.
Interlocking rhyme
See Chain Rhyme
Internal Rhyme
Rhymes between a word within a line, often from a medial position
(termed also leonine) and one at the end of the line. Gelett Burgess'
"An Alphabet of Famous Goops," rhyming aabbcc in 3-line stanzas, is
an example. Othertimes words in the middle of two successive lines will
rhyme in an interlaced way.
Invective
See Lampoon
Inversion
See Hyperbaton
Invocation
An invocation is a prayer, to a muse or deity, which attempts to call
forth the aid of the requested being.
Ionic
A Classical Greek and Latin double foot consisting of two unstressed
syllables and two stressed syllables, either ionic a majore / ' ' ~ ~ / or
ionic a minore / ~ ~ ' ' /.
Irony
A contradiction of expectation between what is said and what is meant
(verbal irony) or what is expected in a particular circumstance or
behavior (situational), or when a character speaks in ignorance of a
situation known to the audience or other characters (situational)
Isochronous Metre
All stressed syllables are separated in isochronous metre by equal
duration of time no matter how many slacks or unstressed syllables
occur between them.
Isocolon
A line or lines that consist of clauses of equal length.
Isometric composition
The opposite of 'heterometric', i.e. verse that has lines all of the same
number of feet.
Italian Sonnet
A fourteen-line poem with two sections, an octave (eight-line stanza
rhyming abbaabba), and a sestet (six-line-stanza rhyming cddc ee), an
Englished variant of the Petrachan. Examples include Sir Thomas
Wyatt's "Whoso List to Hunt, I Know Where is an Hind" and John
Donne's "If Poisonous Minerals, and If that Tree."
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