GLOSSARY OF POETIC TERMS
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GALLIAMBUS
In classical poetry, a lyric meter consisting of four iambic dipodies, the last of which is catalectic, dropping the final accent, or a line of four lesser Ionic feet catalectic, varied by anaclasis.

GENRE (ZHAHN-ruh)
A category of artistic, musical or literary composition characterized by a particular form, style or content. Poetry, for example, is a literary genre and lyric verse is a poetic genre.
Sidelight: The term, genre, is frequently used interchangeably with "type" and "kind."
GEORGIC (JAWR-jik)
A poem dealing with a rural or agricultural topic, but differing from pastoral poetry in that the primary intention of a georgic is didactic. Virgil's Georgics exemplifies the form.
Sidelight: The poet, James Thomson, was called the "English Virgil" after his writing of The Seasons, which is similar in content and form to Virgil's Georgics.
GHAZAL (ga-ZAL)
A short monorhymed Middle Eastern lyric poem in which the first two lines rhyme with a corresponding rhyme in the second line of each succeeding couplet, thus a rhyme scheme of aa, ba, ca, etc. The ghazal usually deals with themes of love in a melancholy mood.

(See also Canzone, Ode, Melic Verse, Romance, Society Verse)

GLEEMAN
An old English minstrel. Gleemen sometimes composed their own verse, but often recited poetry written by a scop.

GNOME
An aphorism, a short statement of proverbial truth. Composers of such verse are known as gnomic poets.

(Compare Allegory, Apologue, Didactic Poetry, Epigram, Fable, Proverb)

GOLIARDIC POETRY
Satiric verse which flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries, usually consisting of a stanza of four 13-syllable lines in feminine rhyme, sometimes with a concluding hexameter. The satire was characteristically a defiance of authority, most particularly directed against the Church.
Sidelight: The unprincipled traits of Geoffrey Chaucer's Friar and the Pardoner in The Canterbury Tales were probably influenced by the Goliardic poet, Jean De Meun, in his portion of the 13th century extended allegorical poem, Roman de la Rose, in which the friar Faus-Semblant reveals his hypocrisy though his own words.
GONGORISM (GAHN-guh-rizm)
Named for the 17th century Spanish poet, Luis de Gongora y Argote, a literary style characterized by stilted obscurity and the use of affected devices of embellishment.

(See also Baroque, Conceit, Euphuism, Marinism, Melic Verse)

GRAMMATICAL RHYME
See under Polyptoton

GRAVE (grayv or grahv)
In poetry, a mark ( ` ) indicating that the e in the English ending ed is to be pronounced for the sake of meter.
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We hold that the most wonderful and splendid
proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age.

---On Milton, Thomas B. Macauley


Well, write poetry, for God's sake, it's the only thing that matters.

---Edward Estlin Cummings