CIE iGCSE World Literature (0408): Unseen Poetry Techniques

Metaphor/ Simile

Effect? (3)

Compares two different things by speaking of one in terms of the other.

1. Emphasize, exaggerate, and add interest.

2. Vivid Image that evokes emotion - explaining something to the reader through comparison

3. Helps reader connect to the text.

Personification

Effect? (2)

An idea or thing is given human attributes/ feelings.

1. Adds life, energy, and an element of relatability to things that would otherwise be lifeless.

2. Emotional response/ connection to piece - Boosting their reception of the line and image.

Hyperbole

Effect? (2)

Deliberate exaggeration.

1. Emphasize the magnitude of something - contrast mundane details with important ones.

2. Grabs the reader's attention - makes them focus on that specific line.

Allusion

Effect?

A reference to a person/place/thing/other literary work that the reader is assumed to know

1. Metaphor that intensifies the poet's message - it hints, indicates, illustrates, or suggests a deeper meaning to the reader

2. Enhance a text by providing a comparison or reference point

3. Steer the audience in a particular direction

Symbolism

A device in literature where an object represents an idea.

Visual Imagery

Descriptive language that appeals to the sense of sight.

Auditory Imagery

Appeals to the sense of sound - melodic sounds, silence, harsh noises, even onomatopoeia

Tactile Imagery

Appels to the tense of touch - describing its temperature, texture or other sensation

Gustatory Imagery

Descriptive language that appeals to the sense of taste

Olfactory Imagery

Descriptive language that appeals to the sense of smell

Kinesthetic Imagery

Appeals to the sense of motion through describing the sensations of moving or the movements of the object.

Alliteration

Effect?

The repetition of the consonant sound at the beginning of two or more nearby words.

1. Sounds Pleasing to the ears - getting reader's attention.

2. Signify words are linked - highlighting theme or subject.

When used often:

3. Creates a mood or tone, through creating a specific rhyme.

Consonance

Effect?

Repetition of the same consonant sounds in a line of text.

1. Makes a group of words more attractive and appealing - so more memorable to readers.

2. Make readers reread words, or dwell on them - helps to highlight important messages or meanings.

When used often:

3. Creates a mood or tone, through creating a specific rhyme.

Assonance

Effect?

Repetition of vowel sounds.

1. Makes a group of words more attractive and appealing - helps to highlight important messages or meanings.

When used often:

2. Creates a mood or tone, through creating a specific rhyme.

Euphony

Effect?

Use of words/phrases that have repeated vowels and smooth consonants.

1. Sounds harmonious and soothing - makes reader feel pleasant and peaceful

2. L, M, N, R, W, V, Z, hard Th, F, H, S, and Sh

Cacophany

Effect?

Use of words with sharp, harsh, hissing and unmelodious sounds.

1. Sounds unmelodious and jarring - makes reader feel unsettled, unpleasant, and uncomfortable

2. B, D, G, K, P, T, Ch, Tch

Sibilance

Effect?

Strongly stressed "s" sound consonants to create hissing sounds.

1. Hissing sound creates sense of danger and secrecy

2. S, Sh, Z

Plosives

Effect? (2)

The abrupt sound made by closing the mouth then releasing a burst of breath.

1. Bursting sounds convey a harsh and hostile mood

2. Builds up drama

Examples: B, P, T, and D

Onomatopoeia

Effect? (2)

Word that imitates the sounds of the thing. e.g. crack, crunch etc.

1. Create auditory imagery - as if reader is in the text itself, hearing what the speaker of the poem is hearing

2. Builds up dramatic effect/action

Internal rhyme

Effect?

When a line's middle words and its end words rhyme with each other

1. Make the poem more unified - heightens the poem's effects for the reader

2. Highlight certain words to draw attention to them - emphasise their importance to the overall mood

Half-Rhyme

Effect?

When the stressed syllables of ending consonants match, but the preceding vowel sounds don't.

The ending and beginning consonant sounds are similar, but the vowel isn't. e.g. rod and red

1. Creates tension - Expectation of the rhyme is not met.

Internal-Rhyme

Rhyme that occurs within the same line of verse.

1. Creates rhythm

2. Connects words/ lines together - Intensifying the mood or tone conveyed

Perfect 'Typical' Rhymes

Type of rhyme in which the stressed vowel sounds in both words are identical, as are any sounds thereafter

1. Form links between two words - Emphasises the concepts they represent to the reader

stanza

like a paragraph in prose.

couplet

2 line stanza

tercet

3 line stanza

What is a quatrain?

4 line stanza

quintain

5 line stanza

sestet

6 line stanza

line

words arranged in a row

meter

a specific number of syllables, and emphasis when it comes to a line of poetry that adds to its musicality

rhyme scheme

the pattern of rhyme the comes at the end of each line

Caesura

Effect?

A pause in a line. often occurs in the middle of the line.

1. Slows down a Poem - Creates a dramatic effect.

2. Helps to create a rhythm - making the poem soothing to read

3. May also break a rhythm - drawing attention to one line/ idea/ theme

4. Slows a poem down

Enjambment

Effect?

The continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza.

1. Enjambment builds the drama in a poem - a cliffhanger forces the reader to keep moving forward to find out what happens next

2. Builds flow in a poem - speeds the poem up

3. Builds tension and anticipation.

Anaphora

Effect?

Repetition of a word/phrase at the beginning of successive lines

1. Evoke emotion, drive emphasis - Delivering an artistic effect to a passage

2. Make a idea/ theme/ word memorable to the reader

Repetition

Effect?

Intentionally using a word or phrase for effect multiple times

1. Creates expectations - it may or maynot be fulfilled

2. Emphasize a particular point

Refrain

Effect?

Poetic device that repeats an entire line/group of lines/stanza at regular intervals at different points across the poem.

End-Stopped Line

Effect?

Pause at the end of a line created by a full stop.

1. Allows the reader to pause at each line break - creates rhythm and drama

2. Slows down a poem.

3. Convey the end of a theme/ idea

Juxtaposition

Effect?

The placement of two opposing things side by side

1. Creates and comparison and a contrast - makes the reader consider the relationship between those elements more closely.

2. Could create a tension or anticipation.

Volta

Effect? (1)

Turn of thought in poetry. Dramatic change in the emotions or thoughts the poet is expressing.

1. Shift from the main narrative or idea of the poem - awakens readers to a different meaning/interpretation in poem’s conclusion

Examples: 'but'/ 'yet'/ 'however'

Iambic pentameter

Effect?

A poetic meter that is made up of 5 stressed syllables each followed by an unstressed syllable

1. Repetitive rhythm that hooks the readers - Helps to emphasize key ideas and emotions

2. Conveys a 'natural' or easy-flowing speech

Trochaic pentameter

Effect?

pattern of stressed - unstressed (2 syllables) repeated five times (or for five feet)

1. Introduces an unnatural sound - it can make the reader feel depressed or upbeat

2. May contrast normal metrical pattern, but still flows easily from one line to the next - hooks the reader

3. The falling rhythm creates a more somber tone - makes the reader feel emotions of hopelessness and despair

Sonnet

One stanza, 14 lines, imabic pentameter, ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme scheme

Villanelle

19 lines, five tercets then one quatrain. it has 2 refrains and 2 repeating rhymes, first and third line of each tercet repreated alternately at the end of each subsequent stanza until the last, which includes both repeated lines.

Elegy

a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead.

Ballad

Popular narrative song passed down orally. rhymed quatrains alternating four-stress and three-stress lines.

Free verse

A form of open poetry, no fixed structure, usually follows the flow of natural speech.