- poet
- poet, versifier, rhymer, rhymester, poetaster, bard, minstrel, troubadour denote a composer who uses metrical or rhythmical language as his medium.Poet is used in a generic sense and in several highly specific senses. In its generic sense it applies to any writer or maker of verse; in its specific senses it applies only to a composer of verse who in his composition exhibits qualities regarded as essential by the age or time or by the writer or speaker who uses the term. With all its variations in implications in these specific senses, poet usually stresses creative and expressive power as the prime essential, sometimes without clear reference to skill in constructing verses{
every man, that writes in verse is not a Poet— Ben Jonson
}{the Poet is chiefly distinguished from other men by a greater promptness to think and feel without immediate external excitement, and a greater power in expressing such thoughts and feelings— Wordsworth
}Versifier may designate a composer who uses verse as his medium without reference to qualities thought of as essential to poetry. In contrast to poet, it implies the lack of such a quality or qualities{a clever versifier might have written Cowley's lines; only a poet could have made what Dry den made of them— T. S. Eliot
}Rhymer and rhymester, once descriptive rather than depreciative, now tend to be even more definitely and consistently depreciatory than versifier in their implication of mediocrity or inferiority.Poetaster is a term of contempt applied to versifiers whose work is regarded as unimportant, trashy, or inane{there are always poetasters enough; but of great poets . . . there are never so many as not to leave room for . . . more— Julian Hawthorne
}{indicative of the mistakes of poetasters and would-be poets rather than of real poets— Kilby
}Bard basically applies to a tribal poet-singer (as among the ancient Celts) who composed verses praising heroes, chiefs, or warriors or recounting historical facts or traditions and who sang or recited them to the accompaniment of the harp or similar musical instrument. In extended use bard is a more or less romantic or florid synonym of poet used especially of one who writes impassioned, lyrical, or epic verse{compile in all the lyrical poetry of the last 150 years a list of half a dozen first-class or even second- class bards who wrote primarily to be sung— Quiller— Couch
}Minstrel basically applies to a medieval public entertainer, often a strolling musician and mountebank, who sang songs (sometimes his own) to the accompaniment of a harp or other instrument and performed tricks; among its current extended applications is one in which it is close to bard in its implications, though it may place less emphasis on professional character and more on natural lyrical power{O black and unknown bards of long ago, how came your lips to touch the sacred fire? How, in your darkness, did you come to know the power and beauty of the minstrel's lyre?— J. W. Johnson
}Troubadour applies historically to a type of poet-musician found chiefly in southern France and northern Italy, frequently a knightly amateur, who composed lyrics (often also the music) in the Provençal tongue, usually of an amatory character and characteristically in a complicated metrical pattern; in extended use, the word loses its suggestion of artifice and technical skill in versifying and is often employed in place of minstrel in its extended sense{known as a modern troubadour, for he wrote scores of verses for Irish folk tunes— Bridgman & Curtis
}or it may specifically denote one who uses his skill in expression for the promotion of some cause{Mr. Bryan is one of the great troubadours . . . troubadouring is the thing he does best— E. G. Lowry
}{I speak after my fancies, for I am a Troubadour, you know, and won the violet at Toulouse— Tennyson
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
