Devices

Poetic devices are structures used by writers to convey their messages. When used
well, poetic devices help readers to appreciate and analyze a poem.

Allegory
A poem in the form of a short moral story.

Example: "My Bees: An Allegory" by Helen Hunt Jackson

Alliteration
The repetition of initial sounds to emphasize and connect words, as well as to create
an effect through sound.

Example:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary...

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping...

– “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe

Allusion
A reference to a well-known person, artwork, place, event, or other piece of writing
used to add meaning to a story through intertextuality.

Example: The title of William Faulkner’s book The Sound and the Fury is from lines
in Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “it is a tale/Told by an idiot/full of sound and
fury,/Signifying nothing.”

Assonance
The repetition of similar vowels in successive words

Example: “Strips of tinfoil winking like people”

--"The Bee Meeting" by Sylvia Plath

Cacophony
A discordant series of harsh, unpleasant sounds helps to convey disorder.

Example:
My stick fingers click with a snicker
And, chuckling, they knuckle the keys;
Light-footed, my steel feelers flicker
And pluck from these keys melodies.

--“Player Piano,” John Updike

Consonance
Repetitive sound of consonants; consonance can occur at the beginning, middle or
ends of words in a line or lines.

Example: "Let the boy try along this bayonet blade" — "Arms and the Boy" by
Wilfred Owen

Enjambment
Pronunciation: [en-jam'-muhnt]

continuation from one line of verse into the next line; enjambed lines do not have
ending punctuation at the end of the line. When read aloud, they should be read
without a pause at the end of the line.

Example:

It is a beauteous Evening, calm and free;

The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquility;
The gentleness of heaven is on the Sea;
Listen! The mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder―everlastingly. …

--"It Is a Beauteous Evening" by William Wordsworth

Euphony
A series of pleasant sounds, conveying a sense of harmony and beauty. Clearly,
euphony is in the ear of the beholder.

Example:

Than Oars divide the Ocean,

Too silver for a seam—
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as they swim.
 --“A Bird Came Down the Walk,” Emily Dickinson

Figurative Language
Language that has meaning beyond the literal; also called “figures of speech”. For
example:

 Simile: a comparison of two things using the words “like” or “as”

 Metaphor: a comparison of two things essentially different but with some

commonalities (metaphors do not use “like” or “as.”)

 Hyperbole: an extreme exaggeration used for emphasis or humor

 Personification: human qualities attributed to an animal, object, or idea

Imagery
Words or phrases that appeal to the reader’s senses—sight, smell, touch, sound,
taste.

Irony
Writing that involves surprising, interesting, or amusing contradictions or contrasts.
There are two main types of irony:

o Verbal irony--words are used to suggest the opposite of their usual meaning

o Situational irony--something happens that contradicts our expectations

Onomatopoeia
Using words that imitate sounds.

Examples: hiss, zoom, buzz, and swish

Point of View
The perspective from which a poem is told.

o First-person: narrator is a character in the story; uses “I,” “we,” etc.

o Third-person: the narrator is outside the story; uses “he,” “she,” “they”

o Second person: "You"

Symbol
A person, place, or thing that represents something beyond itself. A symbol is often
something concrete or that represents an abstract idea.
Example: In Shakespeare’s As you Like It, ‘a stage’ symbolizes the world and
‘players’ symbolize men and women:

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;
they have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts...

Synecdoche
referring to a part of something as a representative of the whole thing

Example: In the following example, T.S. Eliot is referring to a crab, but refers to just
one of the crab’s most prominent features: its claws.

“I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”

--“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Glossary of Poetic Forms

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Forms
A poetic form describes the format of the poem. The forms can be defined by their
verse structure, rhyme scheme, or other elements.
The form of a poem is chosen in order
to convey the content. Here are some
examples.

Closed: a form that has a fixed

structure and pattern (see examples
below)

Blank Verse: iambic pentameter that

does not rhyme (many of
Shakespeare's drama use this form;
surprisingly, the cable
series Deadwood does as well.)

Free Verse: lines with no prescribed

pattern or structure — the poet
determines all the variables as seems
appropriate for each poem

We can further divide these basic types

of structures, which are
all closed forms:

Couplet
Two lines of rhyming verse that form a unit either alone or as part of a poem.

Example:

"So, lovers dream a rich and long delight,

But get a winter-seeming summer's night."

- "Love's Alchemy," John Donne (1572-1631)

Haiku
This ancient Japanese form of poem writing is known for being short and precise.
Haikus were traditionally composed of three lines, with the first line containing five
syllables, the second line seven, and the third line another five. The traditional form
also had nature as its subject matter. Modern haiku tends not to adhere strictly to the
syllable structure or the subject matter.

Example:
An old silent pond...
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.

--Basho Matsuo (1644-1694)

Limerick
A five-line poem with a distinctive rhythm--the content is usually humorous, witty, or
lewd. The first, second and fifth lines, which are the longer lines, rhyme. The third
and fourth shorter lines rhyme as well. (A-A-B-B-A).

Example:

A bather whose clothing was strewed

By winds that left her quite nude
Saw a man come along
And unless we are wrong
You expected this line to be lewd.

- Anonymous

Quatrain
A stanza or poem consisting of four lines. The second and fourth lines rhyme and
have a similar number of syllables or feet.

Example:

The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,

And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May’st hear the merry din.

--“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

Sonnet
There are several types of sonnets. The most well-known is probably the English
(Shakespearean). This type of sonnet is a 14-line poem made up of three quatrains
(4-line stanzas) followed by one couplet. As a reminder, its rhyme scheme is ABAB
CDCD EFEF GG.

You can read about other types of sonnets as well as examples on Web Exhibits'
Poetry page.

Villanelle
A villanelle is a 19-line poem made up of five tercets and a final quatrain with two
rhymes. The first and third lines of the first tercet repeat alternately as a refrain
closing the succeeding stanzas and joined as the final couplet of the quatrain.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

--“One Art,” Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)

Just as there are different types of fiction, there are different types of poems. Some
of the types overlap, as you will see.

Dramatic
Dramatic poetry is drama written in verse form, intended to be spoken or sung. This
form is popular across cultures. Greek tragedy in verse goes back to the 6th century
B.C.E. , and there are many examples in Sanskrit, Persian, and in Chinese cultures.

Elegy
An elegy is a sad or mournful poem, especially a poem for the dead or a funeral
song. The term "elegy," which originally referred to a type of poetic meter (elegiac),
typically represents a poem of mourning. An elegy may also reflect something that
seems eerie or mysterious. The elegy can be classified as a form of lyric poetry.
Important writers of elegiac poetry include Edmund Spenser, Ben Jonson, John
Milton, Charlotte Turner Smith, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe, Evgeny Baratynsky, Alfred Tennyson, Walt Whitman, Juan Ramón Jiménez,
William Butler Yeats, Rainer Maria Rilke (Duino Elegies), and Virginia Woolf.

Epic
Epic poetry is a major form of narrative writing. This genre is represented by long
poems, usually concerning historic events that are heroic or important. An epic poem
usually tells of the life and works of a hero or mythological person or people. The
writing of epic poetry, and of long poems in general, is less common in the West
after the early 20th century. Examples of epic poems are and AeneidThe Epic of
Gilgamesh, and Valmiki's Ramayana. Derek Walcott, a modern exception to the rule,
wrote an epic called Omeros. We will be reading parts of both the Iliad and
the Aeneid in this part of the course.

Light Verse
Light verse is poetry that usually tries to be humorous or witty. Light verse poems are
;usually short, and often feature word play, including puns, interesting rhyme, or
strong alliteration. Common forms include the limerick. While light verse is not highly
valued typically, its humor often has a serious theme behind it, expressed in a subtle
or even subversive manner. Many serious poets have also written light verse. Well-
known writers of light verse include Lewis Carroll, Ogden Nash, and Wendy Cope.

Example:

The ant has made himself illustrious

Through constant industry industrious.
So what? Would you be calm and placid
If you were full of formic acid?

—Ogden Nash (1902-1971)

Lyric
Lyric poetry does not tell a story but is generally more personal in nature. Poems in
this genre are usually short, melodic, and thoughtful. Rather than telling stories of
characters and their actions, lyric poetry shows the poet's feelings and thoughts.
There are too many lyric poets to count!

Narrative poetry
Narrative poetry tells a story. Although epic poetry is a type of narrative poetry, the
adjective "narrative" is often used to describe shorter works. Many narrative
poems—such as Celtic ballads or Slavic heroic poems—are intended to be
performed and go back to ancient oral traditions. Narrative poets include Ovid,
Dante, Chaucer, Luís de Camões, Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, Robert Burns,
Alexander Pushkin, Edgar Allan Poe, Alfred Tennyson, Louise Glück (Odysseus
Decision), and Anne Carson.

Prose Poems
Prose poetry shows characteristics of both prose and poetry. It is similar to the short-
short-story (also called flash fiction). Prose poetry is believed to have begun in 19th-
century France. Prose-poets include Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and
Stéphane Mallarmé. Since the late 1980s, prose poetry has become popular again.

Satire
Poetry can be a powerful vehicle for satire. A satirical poem humorously or ironically
writes about human failings, social customs, politics, or social institutions in order to
change or influence opinions about them. The Romans had a strong tradition of
satirical poetry, which often written for political purposes. There is also a strong
English satirical tradition. A notable Roman example is Juvenal. John Dryden was a
master of English satirical poetry. Satirical poets outside the English-speaking world
include Ignacy Krasicki (Poland), Sabir (Azerbaijan), and Manuel Maria Barbosa du
Bocage (Portugal).

Example: Jonathan Swift’s “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift” is a classic example of
satire

Speculative
Speculative poetry, also known as fantasy deals thematically with surreal or strange
subjects, such as that found in science or horror fiction. Edgar Allan Poe is
sometimes seen as the "father of speculative poetry". Poe's most notable poem in
the genre was "Eureka: A Prose Poem."

Verse fable
The fable is an ancient genre, usually written in verse. It is a short tale that features
anthropomorphized animals, flora, objects, or forces of nature that carries a moral
lesson. Verse fables have a variety of meter and rhyme patterns. Important verse
fabulists include Aesop, Vishnu Sarma, Phaedrus, and Ambrose Bierce.

Questioning a Poem

The typical modern reader does not have a lot of experience with poetry. As a result,
many people feel they don’t understand poetry, and thus don’t read it. It’s a vicious
cycle. But, poetry is not mysterious. Here is a strategy to get to the heart of a poem.

Poetry Analysis
 You can use these questions to guide your through any poem you read—they will
help you discover the meaning of the poem, keeping in mind that poems can have
many meanings. If you have trouble answering any of the questions, just move on to
the next one.

Point One: First impressions

 What do you think the the title means?

 Read the poem more than once. You may see different things each time you read it. Make a
note of anything you notice when you read and reread it. What ideas come to you? There
are no wrong answers here.

 What is the subject of the poem?

 Who is the poet? Do you know anything about this writer?

 During which historical time period was the poem written?

Point Two: Themes

 Group the ideas in the poem together. Does the poem tell a story? (This will be easier for
some types of poems than others.)

 What do you think the poem is about?

Point Three: Imagery

 What “pictures” or imagery do you find in the poem?

 Are metaphors or similes used to express ideas?

 Are all five senses (smell, sight, hearing, touch, taste) used to bring about reactions in the
reader? How so? How does this add to the enjoyment of the poem?

Point Four: Form and Structure

 How is the poem organized?

 What type of poem is it, for example, haiku, limerick, sonnet, etc.?

Point Five: Rhyme and Rhythm

 Does the poem rhyme? If so, how? (For example, ABAB or AABB, etc.)

 What is the rhythm of the poem when you read it aloud? (And you should read it aloud!)

Point Six: Language

 Think about the poet’s choice of words and how they sound. What do you notice?
 Does the poet seem to use specific words that cause certain associations in the reader's
mind?

 Do you find alliteration, onomatopoeia, assonance, personification, or symbolism? (If you

don’t know what these things are, be sure to look them up and learn them.)

 How are words grouped to achieve certain effects?

Point Seven: The Message

 What do you think the poet is trying to say to the reader?

 How effective is the language in the poem?

 What is your response to the poem? Did you like it? Not understand it? Want to memorize it?

If you get into the habit of asking yourself questions about a poem, and then make
notes about your responses, writing about poetry will become easier and easier.