Glossary of Poetic Terms

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Galliambic Meter composed of two iambic dimeters e.g. Tennyson's Boadicea.
 
Genre Kind or style of literary output e.g. poem, novel, play, short story etc.
 
Georgian Poets Group of poets whose work was published in a series of volumes between 1912-1922 by Rupert Brooke, Harold Monro and Edward Marsh. It includes: D. H. Lawrence, John Masefield, Edmund Blunden, Siegfried Sassoon, W.H. Davies, Walter de la Mare, Ralph Hodgson, Edward Thomas, James Stephens, Andrew Young, J.C.Squire, James Elroy Flecker, A.E.Housman and Robert Graves. Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon and Edmund Blunden later objected to being labelled 'Georgian'.
 
Georgics Poems about farming or farmers. The term derives from Virgil's carmina georgica.
 
Ghazal/Ghazel Arabic love poem or love-song.
 
Gleeman Minstrel or entertainer.
 
Glossary What you're reading now.
 
Glyconic Verse A lyric meter invented by the Greek poet Glykon.
 
Gnomic Verse Verse containing gnomes, maxims and aphorisms. It particularly refers to the work of certain sixth and seventh centuries B.C. Greek poets - such as Theognis.
 
Gobbledegook Onomatopoeic word (derived from the noise made by poultry) for incomprehensible or jargon-laden writing/language.
 
Golden Treasury, The Influential anthology compiled by F.T. Palgrave and first published in 1861.
 
Goliardic Verse Verse written during the 12th and 13th centuries and attributed to the Goliards who were wandering scholars. It was primarily written in Latin and was ribald and satirical in tone. The most notable collection of Goliardic verse is the Carmina Burana which was discovered in the monastery of Benediktbeuern in 1803.
 
Gongorism Elaborate and affected poetic style which was originated by the 16th century Spanish poet Luis de Gongora y Argote.
 
Grand Style Term coined by Matthew Arnold (in one of his Oxford lectures) to describe the lofty, elevated tone of poets such as Homer, Pindar, Dante and Milton etc.
 
Graveyard Poets Group of 18th century poets who specialised in poetry on the subject of human mortality - often set in graveyards. The group included Thomas Parnell, Edward Young, Robert Blair and most notably Thomas Gray.
 
Group, the Poetry group founded in London in 1955 by Philip Hobsbaum and his wife. Members of the group included: Peter Porter, Ted Hughes, Peter Redgrove, George MacBeth and Edward Lucie-Smith.
 
Grub Street Originally a street near Moorfields in London inhabited by minor writers and poets. The term is now synonymous with literary hackwork.
 
Gushi Chinese poetic term which literally means 'old poetry'. However, it is more normally used to refer to less formal verse than jintishi.
 
Gwawdodyns Welsh syllabic verse form. See awdl.
 
   

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