POETIC

DEVICES
 Elements of Poetry
1. Sense creates the poem.
2. Poetry is compact language.
3. Rhythm is the rise and fall in the stress of
syllables.
4. Rhyme refers to similarity of sounds of
words.
5. Meter is observed in traditional verses.
6. Figurative language is important in
poetry.

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 e
Languag
e
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What is the
importance of
Figurative
Languages in
poetry?
 Figures of
Speech

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 1. SIMILE
⊷ comparison of two
persons or things that are
unlike in most respects.
⊷ The simile uses like or as
to signal the comparison.

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 “
⊷ Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

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 2. METAPHOR
⊷ implied comparison
between two persons or
things that are unlike in
most respects.
⊷ It does not use like or as.

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 “
From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
My spirit drank repose,
The fountain of perpetual peace flows
there,-
From those deep cisterns flows.

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 3. METONYMY
the use of one word for
another that suggests it.
The substitution or
replacement of the name of
a concrete object or thing
that is closely associated

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 “
Scepter and Crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made,
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

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 “
Crown- for a monarch
Sweat of one’s brow- hard labor
Hand- help

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 PERSONIFICATI
ON
⊷ the transfer of human
characteristics to
inanimate objects or
abstract qualities.

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 “
I heard the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!

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 5. HYPERBOLE
⊷ statement greatly
exaggerated for an
aesthetic purpose.

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 “
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with azure world, he stands.

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 6. PARADOX
⊷ a statement that appears
to be contradictory.
⊷ It pairs two direct
opposites as if both could
be true.

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 “
Parting is all we know of heaven
And all we need of hell.

My father, this undoing is what bind us.

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 7. OXYMORON
⊷ is a specific kind of paradox.
⊷ Most often the term is applied to
successive words, usually an
adjective and a noun, that are
contradictory.
⊷ A combination of adjacent words
that are contradictory or opposite.

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 “
Yes, I’m in love, I feel it now,
And Celia has undone me;
And yet I’ll swear I can’t tell how
The pleasing plague stole on me.

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 “
Original copies
Passive aggressive
Random-order
Bittersweet
Open secret
Run slowly

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 8. ALLUSION
⊷ a passing reference is
made to an important
historical or literary
figure or event.

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 “
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant Land

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 Sound in
Poetry

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 1. RHYME
 One of the sound devices used often in
poetry is rhyme.
 The old nursery rhyme – Hickory,
dickory, dock, The mouse ran up the
clock – has rhyming words at the end
of the lines.
 Many times rhyme occurs within the
line. This is called internal rhyme.

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 “
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan.
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this istmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoi’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast;

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 2. ALLITERATION
 the repetition of the same consonant
sounds, usually of the initial
consonant, in words that immediately
follow each other.

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 “
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern side;

She sell sea shells by the sea shore

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper

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 3. ASSONANCE
⊷ It is the repetition of vowel sound.

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 “
I rose and told him of my woe.

My why should you lie

I rely on your eyes’ so shy

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 4. ONOMATOPOEIA
⊷ It is the use of words whose sounds
suggest their meanings.
⊷ When a poet wants the words of the
poems to sound like what is being
described, he or she chooses the
words for their sound.

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 “
A solitude made more intense
By dreary-voiced elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.

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 5. REPETITION
⊷ The repetition of a single word or a
brief phrase also contributes to the
sound and impact a poem.

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 “
O quick quick quick, quick hear the song-sparrow,
Swamp-sparrow, fox-sparrow, vesper-sparrow
At dawn and dust. Follow the dance
Of goldenfinch at noon. Leave to chance
The Blackburnian wabler, the shy one. Hail
With shrill whistle the note of the quail, the bob-white
Dodging the bay-bush.

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 6. REFRAIN
⊷ A refrain is the repetition of a line or
of several lines at regular intervals
throughout a poem.
⊷ A refrain brings the reader pleasure,
for as the mind and ears grow
accustomed to the repetition, they
are prepared for it when it comes,
and are gratified by an expectation
fulfilled.
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 All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.
 
Four lean hounds crouched low and smilingthe level meadows ran before.
The merry deer ran before.
 
Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift sweet deer
the red rare deer.
Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.
Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
 
Softer be they than slippered sleep
the lean lithe deep
the fleet flown deer.
Four fleet does at a gold valley
the famished arrow sang before.

Four red roebuck at a white water

the cruel bugle sang before.

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Recognizing
Poetic
Devices
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