MOST BASIC LITERARY TERMS

Allegory: Work that contains layers of meaning. 

John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress

Blank Verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter. 

John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667)

Burlesque: Work which exaggerates some piece of work, literary form or anything to the extent of making a mockery out it.

Parody, Travesty are related terms. 

Conceit [old word for concept]: Intellectual poetic comparion or image, beloved compared to a ship.

John Donne's "Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," for example: "Let man's soul be a sphere, and then, in this, / The Intelligence that moves, devotion is." 

Epic: Long narrative in which everthing is grand. Stories, adventures, heroic powers makes an epic an epic. Hero is exalted to the level of gods, every action he takes and the qualities he possessive everything is taken to the level of perfection. He is a paragon of excellence.

e.g. Homer, Iliad

  

Free verse: No rhyme whatsoever, no rules what so ever. Most liberal form of poetry. e.g.

I cannot strive to drink
dry the ocean's fill
since you replenish my gulps
with your tears

Irony: Verbal or situational irony is when, opposite of what you (reader or audience) expected happens; What you expected is not what happens. 

Metaphysical Poetry. The term metaphysical was applied to a style of 17th Century poetry first by John Dryden and later by Dr. Samuel Johnson because of the highly intellectual and often abstruse imagery involved.

Chief among the metaphysical poets are John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell, and Henry Vaughan. While their poetry is widely varied (the metaphysicals are not a thematic or even a structural school), there are some common characteristics:

• 1. Argumentative structure. The poem often engages in a debate or persuasive presentation; the poem is an intellectual exercise as well as or instead of an emotional effusion.
• 2. Dramatic and colloquial mode of utterance. The poem often describes a dramatic event rather than being a reverie, a thought, or contemplation. Diction is simple and usually direct; inversion is limited. The verse is occasionally rough, like speech, rather than written in perfect meter, resulting in a dominance of thought over form.
• 3. Acute realism. The poem often reveals a psychological analysis; images advance the argument rather than being ornamental. There is a learned style of thinking and writing; the poetry is often highly intellectual.
• 4. Metaphysical wit. The poem contains unexpected, even striking or shocking analogies, offering elaborate parallels between apparently dissimilar things. The analogies are drawn from widely varied fields of knowledge, not limited to traditional sources in nature or art. Analogies from science, mechanics, housekeeping, business, philosophy, astronomy, etc. are common. These "conceits" reveal a play of intellect, often resulting in puns, paradoxes, and humorous comparisons. Unlike other poetry where the metaphors usually remain in the background, here the metaphors sometimes take over the poem and control it.

Metaphysical poetry represents a revolt against the conventions of Elizabethan love poetry and especially the typical Petrarchan conceits (like rosy cheeks, eyes like stars, etc.).

Source:

http://www.virtualsalt.com/litterms.htm