ENG Poetry Devices

Devices for analysis of Poetry in English GCSE (some may overlap with non poetry related devices)

Dramatic monologue

a poem in which a speaker addresses a silent listener

Monorhyme

the use of only one rhyme in a stanza (AAAA)

Direct address

speaking directly to the audience

Antithesis

the direct opposite, a sharp contrast

Parallelism

similar / identical of structure of related words, phrases, lines

Isocolon

use of parallel structures of the same length in successive clauses (less exact than parallelism)

Alternate rhyme

ABAB

Enjambment

no punctuation at the end of a line

Dub Poetry

Combining spoken poetry with reggae music or rhythms

Refrain

repeated word, phrase, line, or group of lines

iambic pentameter

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

Assonance

Repetition of vowel sounds (ex. Killed, cold, culled)

Synedoche

using one part of an object to represent the entire object (ex. Heart & body)

Polysyndetic list

"And.... And.... And" conjunctions used after each term on the list

Asyndetic list

a list with no conjunctions

Polyptoton

repetition of words derived from the same root but with different endings

Volta

A turning point in a poem, when the argument or tone changes dramatically

Interjection

Use of "O" to exaggerate ex. "O hear me"