poetic devices + other info about poems

Alliteration

A repetition of the same letter in a list of words

Anaphora

A repetition of a word, phrase at the beginning of stanzas/lines of clauses

Assonance

Repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words

Caesura

A pause within a line of poetry (usually - :;.)

Emotive language

Language that arouses emotions

Enjambment

Lines that end without punctuation

Half-rhyme

Words that have the same final consonant but that don’t rhyme

Hyperbole

An exaggeration

Metaphor

When one thing is described as if it were another thing for comparison

Onomatopoeia

A word that sounds like the noise it describes

Personification

Giving human qualities to something that isn’t human

Plosive sounds

Hard constant sounds

Free verse

A poetic form where no fixed structures are used

Repetition

Repeating something that has already been written

Sibilance

Using words that produce a hissing sound

Simile

When a comparison is made using the words “like” and “as”

Zoomorphism

Giving animal qualities to a human or object

Parable

what poem?

Moral message in a metaphor

hide and seek

Ballad

what poem?

a slow sentimental or romantic song.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Catalexis

what poem?

the absence of a syllable in the last foot of a line or verse.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Villanelle

what poem?

a poem of nineteen lines, and which follows a strict form that consists of five tercets (three-line stanzas) followed by one quatrain (four-line stanza)

Do not go gentle into that good night

iambic pentameter

a rhythmic pattern that consists of ten syllables per line, with alternating stressed and unstressed syllables

Dramatic monologue

what poem?

a poem written in the form of a speech of an individual character

prayer before birth, if-, my last duchess

Petrachan Sonnet

what poem?

divides the 14 lines into two sections: an eight-line stanza (octave) rhyming ABBAABBA, and a six-line stanza (sestet) rhyming CDCDCD or CDECDE.

remember

Didactic

what poem?

Intended to teach something, particularly in having moral instruction as a motive.

if-

Cyclical structure

what poem?

This ends where it begins or begins at the end

war photographer, the tyger

Rhyming scheme: Couplet

what poem?

unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable

the tyger

Tercets

what poem?

a three-line stanza or a short poem composed of three lines

half-past two

Quatrain

a stanza or a complete poem made of four lines, often with a specific rhyme scheme like ABAB, AABB, or ABBA, used to convey a complete thought, idea, or narrative section