poetry

4 definitions found

poetry - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

  Poetry \Po"et*ry\, n. [OF. poeterie. See Poet.]
     1. The art of apprehending and interpreting ideas by the
        faculty of imagination; the art of idealizing in thought
        and in expression.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              For poetry is the blossom and the fragrance of all
              human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions,
              emotions, language.                   --Coleridge.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Imaginative language or composition, whether expressed
        rhythmically or in prose. Specifically: Metrical
        composition; verse; rhyme; poems collectively; as, heroic
        poetry; dramatic poetry; lyric or Pindaric poetry. "The
        planetlike music of poetry." --Sir P. Sidney.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              She taketh most delight
              In music, instruments, and poetry.    --Shak.
        [1913 Webster]

poetry - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  poetry
      n 1: literature in metrical form [syn: poetry, poesy,
           verse]
      2: any communication resembling poetry in beauty or the
         evocation of feeling

poetry - Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary :

  Poetry
  has been well defined as "the measured language of emotion."
  Hebrew poetry deals almost exclusively with the great question
  of man's relation to God. "Guilt, condemnation, punishment,
  pardon, redemption, repentance are the awful themes of this
  heaven-born poetry."
  
    In the Hebrew scriptures there are found three distinct kinds
  of poetry, (1) that of the Book of Job and the Song of Solomon,
  which is dramatic; (2) that of the Book of Psalms, which is
  lyrical; and (3) that of the Book of Ecclesiastes, which is
  didactic and sententious.
  
    Hebrew poetry has nothing akin to that of Western nations. It
  has neither metre nor rhyme. Its great peculiarity consists in
  the mutual correspondence of sentences or clauses, called
  parallelism, or "thought-rhyme." Various kinds of this
  parallelism have been pointed out:
  
    (1.) Synonymous or cognate parallelism, where the same idea is
  repeated in the same words (Ps. 93:3; 94:1; Prov. 6:2), or in
  different words (Ps. 22, 23, 28, 114, etc.); or where it is
  expressed in a positive form in the one clause and in a negative
  in the other (Ps. 40:12; Prov. 6:26); or where the same idea is
  expressed in three successive clauses (Ps. 40:15, 16); or in a
  double parallelism, the first and second clauses corresponding
  to the third and fourth (Isa. 9:1; 61:10, 11).
  
    (2.) Antithetic parallelism, where the idea of the second
  clause is the converse of that of the first (Ps. 20:8; 27:6, 7;
  34:11; 37:9, 17, 21, 22). This is the common form of gnomic or
  proverbial poetry. (See Prov. 10-15.)
  
    (3.) Synthetic or constructive or compound parallelism, where
  each clause or sentence contains some accessory idea enforcing
  the main idea (Ps. 19:7-10; 85:12; Job 3:3-9; Isa. 1:5-9).
  
    (4.) Introverted parallelism, in which of four clauses the
  first answers to the fourth and the second to the third (Ps.
  135:15-18; Prov. 23:15, 16), or where the second line reverses
  the order of words in the first (Ps. 86:2).
  
    Hebrew poetry sometimes assumes other forms than these. (1.)
  An alphabetical arrangement is sometimes adopted for the purpose
  of connecting clauses or sentences. Thus in the following the
  initial words of the respective verses begin with the letters of
  the alphabet in regular succession: Prov. 31:10-31; Lam. 1, 2,
  3, 4; Ps. 25, 34, 37, 145. Ps. 119 has a letter of the alphabet
  in regular order beginning every eighth verse.
  
    (2.) The repetition of the same verse or of some emphatic
  expression at intervals (Ps. 42, 107, where the refrain is in
  verses, 8, 15, 21, 31). (Comp. also Isa. 9:8-10:4; Amos 1:3, 6,
  9, 11, 13; 2:1, 4, 6.)
  
    (3.) Gradation, in which the thought of one verse is resumed
  in another (Ps. 121).
  
    Several odes of great poetical beauty are found in the
  historical books of the Old Testament, such as the song of Moses
  (Ex. 15), the song of Deborah (Judg. 5), of Hannah (1 Sam. 2),
  of Hezekiah (Isa. 38:9-20), of Habakkuk (Hab. 3), and David's
  "song of the bow" (2 Sam. 1:19-27).

poetry - Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 :

  35 Moby Thesaurus words for "poetry":
     Apollo, Apollo Musagetes, Bragi, Calliope, Castilian Spring, Erato,
     Euterpe, Helicon, Hippocrene, Muse, Parnassus, Pierian Spring,
     Pierides, Polyhymnia, afflatus, creative imagination, ease,
     elegance, facility, fire of genius, flow, fluency, grace,
     gracefulness, inspiration, metrics, poesy, poetic genius, rhyme,
     rune, smoothness, song, the Muses, verse, versification