ELEMENTS OF POETRY

Persona

The person who is understood to be speaking (or thinking or writing

Dramatic Situation

• it answers the questions: What is happening in the poem? Who is speaking to whom? What/Who is the persona or speaker talking about

• this could be the equivalent of the plot in fiction but does not necessarily involve a conflict

Diction

• word choice or vocabulary

• class of words that an author decides is appropriate to use in a particular work

• can either be denotation/denotative, its literal or dictionary meaning, or connotation/connotative, an idea or feeling that a word invoke.

Image/Imagery

• a word or series of words that refers to any sensory experience (usually sight, although also sound, smell, touch, or taste)

• an image is a direct or literal recreation of physical experience andadds immediacy to literary language

Symbol

• any image or thing that stands for something else

• in literature, they are often characters, setting, images, or other motifs that stand in for bigger ideas

• when used as a literary device, it means to imbue objects with a certain meaning that is different from their original meaning or function

Figures of Speech

• any intentional deviation from literal statement or common usage thatemphasizes, clarifies, or embellishes both written and spoken language

Sound

• rhyme, rhythm, and meter

• bbrings attention to both individual letters and words that are drawn together through their sound as well as to the overall feeling or experience

Rhyme/Rime

• two or more words that contain an identical or similar vowel sound, usually accented, with following consonant sounds (if any) identical aswell

Rhyme Scheme

• any recurrent pattern of rhyme within an individual poem or fixed form

• usually described by using small letters to represent each end rhyme—a for the first rhyme, b for the second, and so on

Rhythm

• the pattern of stresses and pauses in a poem