Poetic devices

Alliteration

the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.

allusion

a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing, or idea of historical, cultural, literary, or political significance

apostrophe

a figure of speech in which a speaker addresses an absent person, abstract idea, or thing, often used to express emotion.

assonance

the repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words, creating a musical effect

blank verse

unrhymed iambic pentameter commonly used in English poetry.

cacophony

a combination of harsh and discordant sounds in poetry, often used to create a jarring effect.

cadence

the rhythmic flow of a sequence of sounds or words, often enhancing the emotional impact of a poem.

caesura

a pause or break in a line of poetry, often occurring in the middle of a line, which creates a rhythmic or emotional shift in the poem

consonance

the repetition of consonant sounds in close proximity within a sentence or phrase, particularly at the end or in the middle of words, which adds rhythm and musicality to the text.ouplc

couplet

two successive lines of poetry with the same rhyme and meter

dirge

a funeral song of lamentation, a short lyric of mourning

dramatic monologue

a kind of poem in which a single fictional or historical character other than the poet speaks to a silent audience of one or more persons

elegy

an elaborately formal lyric poem lamenting the death of a friend or public figure, or serious reflection on a serious subject

end stopped line

a line brought to a pause at which the end of a verse line coincides with the completion of a sentence, clause, or other independent unit of syntax.

enjambment

the running over of the sense and grammatical structure from one verse line or couplet into the next without a punctuated pause

epic

a long narrative poem celebrating the great deeds of one or more legendary heroes in a grand style

euphony

a pleasing smoothness of sound perceived by the ease with which the words can be spoken in combination

extended metaphor

a metaphor that is sustained for several lines or that becomes the controlling image of an entire poem

foot

smallest unit of measure in meter. described by the number of syllables it contains. named for the combination of accented and unaccented syllables.

1. iambic - two syllables, first unstressed and second stressed

2. anapestic - three syllables, first two unstressed and third stressed

3. trochaic - two syllables, first stressed second unstressed

4. dactylic - three syllables, first stressed next two unstressed

5. spondaic - two stressed syllables

free verse

poetry that does not fit a regular stanza pattern, no regular meter or rhyme scheme

hyperbole

deliberate extravagant and often outrageous exaggeration

imagery

the words or phrases a writer uses to represent persons, objects, actions, feelings, and ideas descriptively by appealing to the senses - visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, olfactory

irony

when appearance differs from reality or expectation

verbal irony

when a speaker or narrator says one thing while meaning the opposite

situational irony

when a situation turns out differently than one would normally expect, often the twist is oddly appropriate

dramatic irony

when a character or speaker says or does something that has different meaning from what he or she thinks it means though the audience or other characters understand the full implications of the speech or action

lyric poem

a short poem which expresses a personal emotion

metaphor

comparison of two seemingly unlike things

meter

ordered rhythm

1. dimeter - a lime containing two poetic feet

2. trimeter - a line containing three poetic feet

3. continues with tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, heptameter, octameter, etc

metonymy

the substitution of the name of an object closely associated with a word for the word itself (monarch as “the crown”)

octave

eight line stanza

ode

an elaborately formal lyric poem, often in the form of a lengthy address to a person or abstract entity, always series and elevated in tone

onomatopoeia

use of words that mimic the sounds they describe

oxymoron

a form of paradox which combines a pair of opposite terms into a single unusual expression (sweet sorrow)

paradox

when elements of a statement contradict each other - although the statement may appear illogical, impossible, or absurd, it turns out to have a coherent meaning that reveals a hidden truth

parody

imitation of the style or content of a piece of literature, usually to make light of the content or to ridicule the author or his style

personification

a kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human characteristics

pastoral

a poem dealing with rural life

quatrain

a four line stanza of a poem or an entire poem consisting of four lines

refrain

a line, group of lines, or part of a line repeated at regular or irregular intervals in a poem

repetition

deliberate use of any element of language more than once

rhyme

the repetition of sounds in two or more words or phrases that appear close to each other in a poem

1. end rhyme at the end of lines

2. internal rhyme within a line

3. slant rhyme is approximate rhyme

4. rhyme scheme is pattern of end rhymes

rhythm

alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables

sestet

six line stanza

shift

a change or movement in a piece resulting from an epiphany, realization, or insight gained by the speaker, a character, or the reader

simile

comparison of two different things or ideas through the use of words like or as

sonnet

a poem consisting of 14 lines of iambic pentameter

1. english or shakespearean sonnet is written in three quatrains and a couplet with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg

2. italian or petrarchan sonnet is written in one octave and one sestet with rhyme scheme or abbaabba cdecde

3. note - sometimes poets like to play with rhyme scheme in order to create variations of these traditional forms

speaker

voice in the poem

stanza

subdivision of a poem consisting of lines grouped together, often recurring patterns of rhyme, line length, and meter

symbol

any object, person, place, or action that has both meaning in itself and that sands for something larger than itself such as a quality, attitude, belief, or value

synecdoche

a form of metaphor where a part of something is used to signify the whole (all hands on deck)

tercet

three lined stanza

terza rima

italian stanzaic form used most notably by Dante, consisting of tercets with interwoven rhymes (aba bcb ded efe) a concluding couplet rhymes with the penultimate line of the last tercet

theme

the central message of a literary work

tone

writer or speakers attitude toward a subject, character, or audience - conveyed through the authors choice of words and detail

understatement

opposite of hyperbole - a kind of irony that deliberately represents something as being much less than it really is