AP Lit Poetic Devices

Assonance

Repetition of vowel sounds (a, e, i, o, u) within words.

Consonance

Repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the end or middle of words, but not usually the beginning.

Analogy

A comparison between two different things that highlights some form of similarity

POV 1st person

Told from the viewpoint of “I”

POV 2nd person

Told from the viewpoint of “you”

POV 3rd person

Told from the viewpoint of omniscient narrator (“she”, “he”)

Allusion

An indirect mention or hint to a famous person, place, event, or other work, relying on the audience's familiarity to add deeper meaning

Caesura

A pause, usually near the middle of a line of verse, usually indicated by the sense of the line, and often greater than the normal pause

Couplet

A two-line stanza, usually with end-rhymes the same

Enjambment

the continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of poetry to the next.

Meter

the repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry. The meter of a poem emphasizes the musical quality of the language and often relates directly to the subject matter of the poem. Each unit of meter is known as a foot. Meter = foot + scansion

Onomatopoeia

 the use of words whose sound suggests their meaning. Examples are “buzz,” “hiss,” or “honk.”

Poetic Foot

a group of syllables in verse usually consisting of one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables associated with it. The most common type of feet are as follows: (u = unstressed, / = stressed)

Iambic

Unstressed, stressed

Trochaic

Stressed, unstressed

Quatrain

Four line stanza with any combo of rhymes

Scansion

a system for describing the meter of a poem by identifying the number and the type(s) of feet per line.