Poetic and Literary Devices 9th grade English

Alliteration

Repeated consonant sounds at the beginning of words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines. Alliteration ties words together, making them stand out, and may also emphasize sounds, helping to create a tone.

Example: fast and furious


Assonance

Repeated vowel sounds in words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines. These should be in sounds that are accented, or stressed, rather than in vowel sounds that are unaccented. Assonance ties words together, making them stand out, and may also emphasize sounds, helping to create a tone.

Example: “He’s a bruisin’ loser”
.

Consonance

Repeated consonant sounds in the middle or at the end of words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines. These should be in sounds that are accented, or stressed. This produces a pleasing kind of near-rhyme, ties words together, and may contribute to a tone or atmosphere.

Example: quiet clicks, cups of black
coffee, click, click like facts


Example: cool soul

Onomatopoeia

Words that sound like their meanings. In “Hear the steady tick of the old hall clock,” the word “tick” sounds like the action of the clock.

Example: boom, buzz, crackle, gurgle, hiss, pop, sizzle, snap, swoosh, whir, zip

Repetition

The re-use of words and phrases for an effect. Sometimes, especially with longer phrases that contain a different key word each time, this is called parallelism.

Example: I was glad; so very, very glad.

Example: Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward... ...


Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them

Volley’d and thunder’d...

Rhyme

This is the one device most commonly associated with poetry by the general public. Words that have different beginning sounds but whose endings sound alike, including the final vowel sound and everything following it, are said to rhyme.

Example: time, slime, mime


Double rhymes include the final two syllables. Example: revival, arrival, survival Triple rhymes include the final three syllables. Example: greenery, machinery, scenery

Slant rhyme, or half rhyme

If only the final consonant sounds of the words are the same, but the initial consonants and the vowel sounds are different, then the rhyme is called a slant rhyme or half rhyme. This produces a dissonant and frustrating effect when we want or expect words to rhyme. When we don’t expect them to rhyme, this ties words together. (When this appears in the middle of lines rather than at the end, it is called consonance.)

Example: soul, oil, foul; taut, sat, knit


Allusion

A brief reference to some person, historical event, work of art, or Biblical or mythological situation or character. This invites us to compare the poem’s contents to the other story.

Apostrophe

Speaking directly to a real or imagined listener or inanimate object; addressing that person or thing by name. This makes the addressee seem more present.

Example: O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done...

Connotation

The emotional, psychological or social overtones of a word; its associations apart from its literal meaning.

Contrast

Closely arranged things with strikingly different characteristics. Contrast is the general difference between things, while juxtaposition refers to their placement side by side.

Example: He was dark, sinister, and cruel; she was radiant, pleasant, and kind.

Denotation

The dictionary definition of a word; its literal meaning apart from any associations or connotations.

Figurative language

Language that uses devices to modify and supplement the denotations of words. This is language that is NOT literal. Figurative language includes similes, metaphors, hyperbole, personification, etc.

Hyperbole

An outrageous exaggeration used for effect.

Example: He weighs a ton.

Irony

A contradictory statement or situation to reveal a reality different from what appears to be true.

Example: Wow, thanks for the expensive gift...let’s see: did it come with a Fun Meal or the Burger King equivalent?

Metaphor

A direct comparison between two unlike things, stating that one is the other or does the action of the other.

Example: He’s a zero. 

Example: Her fingers danced across the keyboard.

Personification

Attributing human characteristics to an inanimate object, animal, or abstract idea.

Example: The days crept by slowly, sorrowfully.

Simile

A direct comparison of two unlike things using “like” or “as.”

Example: Her eyes are like comets.

Symbol

An ordinary object, event, animal, or person to which we have attached meaning and significance – a flag to represent a country, a lion to represent courage, a wall to symbolize separation.

Example: The small cross by the dangerous curve on the road reminded all of Johnny’s death.

Enjambment

The continuation of the logical sense of a sentence— and therefore the grammatical construction — beyond the end of a line of poetry. This is sometimes done with the title, which in effect becomes the first line of the poem.

Foot

A rhythmic unit of a line of verse. There are several common types in English verse: iamb (unstressed, stressed), trochee (stressed, unstressed), anapest (unstressed, unstressed, stressed), and dactyl (stressed, unstressed, unstressed). 

Juxtaposition

Different elements are placed side by side to emphasize the contrast between them or to reveal something about their relationship.

Line

Poetry is arranged into a series of units (lines) that do not necessarily correspond to sentences, but rather to a series of metrical feet. There is a natural tendency when reading poetry to pause at the end of a line, but you should follow the punctuation to find where natural pauses should occur. In traditional verse forms, the length of each line is determined by the form, but in modern poetry the poet has more latitude for choice. We tend to notice words at the start and end of lines, and poets may place significant words in those places as a result.

Meter

The rhythm of a poem, made up of feet. The meter is described by the type of foot and the number of feet per line, e.g., iambic pentameter (5 iambs per line), or trochaic tetrameter (4 trochees per line).

Stanza

A group of lines in a poem separated from other lines usually by blank space.

Imagery

The use of vivid language to generate ideas and/or evoke mental images, not only of the visual sense, but of sensation and emotion as well. Figurative language (comparisons, personification) is also imagery.

Related images are often clustered or scattered throughout a work, thus serving to create a particular mood or tone. Images of disease, corruption, and death, for example, are recurrent patterns shaping our perceptions of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Examples:

• Visual: Smoke mysteriously puffed out from the clown’s ears. 

• Auditory: Tom placed his ear tightly against the wall; he could hear a faint but distinct thump thump thump. 

• Tactile: The burlap wall covering scraped against the little boy’s cheek. 

• Gustatory: A salty tear ran across onto her lips. 

• Olfactory: Cinnamon! That’s what wafted into his nostrils. 

• Synesthesia: An attempt to fuse different senses by describing one kind of sense impression in words normally used to describe another. Example: The sound of her voice was sweet. Example: a loud aroma, a velvety smile 

Persona

A voice or perspective adopted by a poet.

Speaker

The “narrator” in poetry. The speaker cannot be assumed to be the poet.

Tone

The speaker/poet’s (or narrator/author’s) attitude towards the topic. We can pick up tone from imagery, diction, sentence structure, etc. Tones may be ironic, satirical, loving, condescending, bitter, pitying, fanciful, solemn, and a host of other emotions and attitudes. Tone can also refer to the overall mood of the poem itself, in the sense of a pervading atmosphere intended to influence the readers’ emotional response and foster expectations of the conclusion.