Poetic Devices

6/15/2012
Poetic Devices
• Simile
a comparison using "as" or "like"
Poetic Devices • Assonance
deliberate repetition of identical or
similar vowel sounds. A partial
rhyme in which the stressed vowel
An introduction sounds are alike but the consonant
sounds are not (e.g. bike and light).
Poetic Devices Poetic Devices

• Apostrophe an address to a person • Echo
absent or dead or to an abstract repetition of key word or idea for
entity effect
• Chiasmus • Hyperbole
An exaggeration meant to
An inversion of the second of two emphasize a point rather than to be
parallel phrases (e.g. do not live to taken literally (e.g. The whole world
eat but eat to live). is in an uproar over this teaching.
• Diction This is as old as time).
poet's distinctive choices in • Metaphor
vocabulary a comparison not using as or like
when one thing is said to be
another
Poetic Devices Poetic Devices

• Onomatopoeia • Personification
"sound echoing sense"; use of attribution of human motives or
words resembling the sounds they behaviours to
impersonal agencies. The presentation
mean of an idea or value through its
• Oxymoron expression as a person (e.g. Wisdom
a seeming contradiction in two calls aloud in the street, she raises her
words put together voice in the public squares...)
• Paradox • Rhyming couplet
a pair of lines which end-rhyme
seeming contradiction that expressing one clear thought
surprises by its pithiness •
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Poetic Devices • Couplet: two successive rhyming lines.

Couplets end the pattern of a
Shakespearean sonnet.
• Rhythm • Double rhyme or trochaic rhyme:
internal 'feel' of beat and meter rhyming words of two syllables in which
perceived when poetry is read the first syllable is accented (flower,
shower)
aloud\
• Dramatic monologue: A type of poem,
• Tone derived from the theater, in which a
mood feelings or meanings speaker addresses an internal listener or
conveyed in the poem the reader. In some dramatic
monologues, especially those by Robert
Wordplay Browning, the speaker may reveal his
A clever exchange of words, a personality in unexpected and
malapropism or a pun. unflattering ways.
• Eye rhyme: Words that look as

though they should rhyme
because they are spelled
• Dramatic monologue: A type of identically but pronounced
poem, derived from the theater, in differently. Example: bear/fear,
which a speaker addresses an dough/cough/through/bough
internal listener or the reader. In
some dramatic monologues,
especially those by Robert
Browning, the speaker may reveal
his personality in unexpected and
unflattering ways.
• Heroic couplet: two successive

• Meter: The number of feet within a rhyming lines of iambic pentameter;
line of traditional verse. Example: the second line is usually end-stopped.
iambic pentameter.
• *Hymn meter or common measure:
• Foot (prosody): A measured
combination of heavy and light quatrains of iambic tetrameter
stresses. The numbers of feet are alternating with iambic trimeter
given below. rhyming a b a b.
– monometer (1 foot) • Hyperbole (overstatement):
– dimeter (2 feet) exaggeration for effect
– trimeter (3 feet) • Iamb (iambic): an unstressed stressed
– tetrameter (4 feet)
foot.
– pentameter (5 feet)
– hexameter (6 feet) • Iambic pentameter: The most natural
– heptameter or septenary (7 feet) and common kind of meter in English;
it elevates speech to poetry
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• Octave: The first eight lines of an MY PAPA'S WALTZ

Italian or Petrarchan sonnet, unified by The whiskey on your breath
rhythm, rhyme, and topic. Could make a small boy dizzy;

But I hung on like death:
• Quatrain: a four-line stanza or poetic
Such waltzing was not easy.
unit. In an English or Shakespearean We romped until the pans
sonnet, a group of four lines united by Slid from the kitchen shelf;
rhyme. My mother's countenance
• Sestet: A six-line stanza or unit of Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
poetry. Was battered on one knuckle;
• Shakespearean sonnet: A fourteen-line At every step you missed
poem written in iambic pentameter, My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
composed of three quatrains and a
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
couplet rhyming abab cdcd efef gg.
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

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6/15/2012

Poetic Devices Poetic Devices

Poetic Devices Poetic Devices

Poetic Devices • Couplet: two successive rhyming lines.

• Eye rhyme: Words that look as

• Heroic couplet: two successive

• Octave: The first eight lines of an MY PAPA'S WALTZ

rhythm, rhyme, and topic. Could make a small boy dizzy;

• Sestet: A six-line stanza or unit of Could not unfrown itself.

poem written in iambic pentameter, My right ear scraped a buckle.

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