- OBJECTIVISM
- A type of 20th century poetry in which objects are selected and
portrayed for their own particular value, rather than their symbolic quality or the
intellectual concept of the author.
(Compare Classicism,
Idealism,
Imagism, Impressionism,
Metaphysical, Realism,
Romanticism, Symbolism)
- OCCASIONAL POEM
- A poem written for a particular occasion, such as a dedication, birthday, or victory. The
encomium, elegy, prothalamium, and
epithalamium are examples of occasional poems.
Sidelight: Occasional poems
are sometimes configured as pattern poetry.
(See Poet Laureate)
- OCTAMETER (ahk-TAM-uh-tur)
- A line of verse consisting of eight metrical feet.
Sidelight: Seldom used in English
poetry, Poe's "The Raven" is written in trochaic
octameter.
(See Meter)
- OCTAVE
- A stanza of eight lines, especially the first eight lines of an
Italian or Petrarchan sonnet.
(See also Ballade,
Ottava Rima,
Sonnet)
- OCTET
- See Octave
- OCTOSYLLABLE
- A metrical line of eight syllables, such as
iambic tetrameter,
or a poem composed of eight-syllable lines.
(See also Decasyllable,
Dodecasyllable,
Hendecasyllable, Heptasyllable)
- ODE
- A type of lyric or
melic verse, usually irregular rather than uniform, generally of
considerable length and sometimes continuous, sometimes divided in accordance with transitions
of thought and mood in a complexity of
stanzaic forms; it often has varying iambic
line lengths with no fixed system of rhyme schemes and is always
marked by the rich, intense expression of an elevated thought, often addressed to a praised
person or object.
Sidelight: Two other important forms of the ode arose
from classical poetry; (1) the Dorian or choric ode designed for singing,
after which Pindaric verse was patterned, and (2) the
Aeolic or Horatian Ode, of which
"Ode
to a Nightingale," considered to be one of John Keats' finest works,
is an example. More commonly used in English poetry, however, is the irregular form
exemplified by Wordsworth's
"Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early
Childhood."
Sidelight: The irregular ode retains the
lofty Pindaric style, but allows each stanza to establish its own pattern, rather than
follow a regular strophic structure.
(See also Anacreontic, Encomium,
Epinicion,
Sapphic Verse)
- ODEON or ODEUM
- A small roofed theater in ancient antiquity devoted to the presentation of musical and
poetic works to the public in competition for prizes.
Sidelight: The name is now applied to a hall or chamber
for musical and dramatic performances.
- OFF RHYME
- See Near Rhyme
- ONOMATOPOEIA (ahn-uh-mah-tuh-PEE-uh)
- Strictly speaking, the formation or use of words which imitate sounds,
like whispering, clang, and sizzle, but the term is generally expanded to
refer to any word whose sound is suggestive of its meaning whether by imitation or through cultural inference.
Sidelight: The use of
onomatopoeia is common to all types of linguistic expression, but because
sound plays such an important role in poetry, it provides
another subtle weapon in the poetic arsenal for the transfer of sense impressions
through imagery, such as Keats' "the murmurous haunt of flies on summer
eves," in "Ode to a Nightingale."
Sidelight: Though impossible
to prove, some philologists (linguistic
scientists) believe that all language originated through the onomatopoeic formation of
words.
(See also Mimesis,
Phonetic Symbolism)
- OPEN COUPLET
- A couplet in which the thought is carried beyond the
rhyming lines to end at any point in any line of a subsequent couplet.
A good example appears in Endymion,
Book I, by John Keats.
Sidelight: The open couplet
originated in Chaucer's riding rhyme and later enjoyed much popularity
in the romantic period.
(See Enjambment)
(See also Distich,
Heroic Couplet)
(Contrast End-Stopped,
Closed Couplet)
- OTTAVA RIMA (oh-TAH-vuh REE-muh)
- Originally Italian, a stanza of eight lines of
heroic verse,
rhyming abababcc.
This verse form was used in
Don Juan,
by George Gordon, Lord Byron.
Sidelight: The 8-line ottava rima
permits more room for narrative elaboration than quatrains and the repeated
rhymes in the first six lines can prepare the reader for an
epigrammatic closure in
the final couplet.
(See also Octave,
Spenserian Stanza)
- OXYMORON (ahk-see-MOR-ahn)
- The conjunction of words which, at first view, seem to be contradictory or incongruous,
but whose surprising juxtaposition expresses a truth or dramatic effect, such as,
cool fire, deafening silence, wise folly, etc.
Sidelight: An oxymoron is similar to
a paradox, but more compact, usually consisting of just two
successive words.
(See also Catachresis, Enallage,
Malapropism,
Mixed Metaphor,
Synesthesia)
(Compare Antiphrasis, Antithesis)
A poet soaring in the high reason
of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him.