Exploring Poetic Devices and Figurative Language

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

Language using figures of speech and it cannot be taken literally.

IMAGERY

The representation through language of sense experience; language that appeals to the senses.

FIGURE OF SPEECH

Any way of saying something other than in an ordinary way.

Alliteration

Used for poetic effect, a repetition of the initial sounds of several words in a group.

Allusion

A reference in one literary work to a character or theme found in another literary work.

Apostrophe

A figure of speech wherein the speaker speaks directly to something nonhuman.

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds in a literary work, especially in a poem.

Cacophony

An unpleasant combination of sounds.

Consonance

The repetition of consonant sounds with differing vowel sounds in words near each other in a line or lines of poetry.

Figurative Language

In literature, a way of saying one thing and meaning something else.

Hyperbole

A figure of speech in which an overstatement or exaggeration occurs.

Imagery

A word or group of words in a literary work which appeal to one or more of the senses: sight, taste, touch, hearing, and smell.

Irony

the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning

Irony of Situation

The result of an action is the reverse of what the actor expected.

Dramatic Irony

The audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not.

Verbal Irony

The contrast is between the literal meaning of what is said and what is meant.

Sarcasm

A form of verbal irony

Metaphor

A figure of speech wherein a comparison is made between two unlike quantities without the use of the words 'like' or 'as.'

Metonymy

A figure of speech in which a word represents something else which it suggests.

Onomatopoeia

A literary device wherein the sound of a word echoes the sound it represents.

Oxymoron

A combination of contradictory terms.

Paradox

A situation or a statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection, does not.

Pun

A play on words.

Personification

A figure of speech in which something nonhuman is given human characteristics.

Rhyme

The same sound in two or more words.

Rhyme Scheme

The way rhymes are arranged in a work.

Rhythm

Arranging the stresses in a line of poetry in a particular pattern.

Simile

A figure of speech which takes the form of a comparison between two unlike quantities for which a basis for comparison can be found, and which uses the words 'like' or 'as' in the comparison.

Stanza

Groupings of lines in a poem or divisions of a poem.

Understatement

the presentation of something as being smaller, worse, or less important than it actually is.