The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms - Ross Murfin 2018

Texture

Texture: A term referring to the surface details or elements of a work (especially a poem) apart from its basic structure, argument, or meaning. Texture includes imagery, meter, rhyme, and other sound patterns such as alliteration and euphony, the sensuous and concrete aspects of a poem as opposed to its intellectual content. The connotations of words may also be viewed as part of a work’s texture; the denotative meanings of those same words may not. New Critics, such as John Crowe Ransom, used texture in opposition to structure in analyzing a poem.