Poetic Devices

PREPARED BY: MUHAMMAD USMAN

FACULTY MEMBER OF NUML UNIVERSITY LAHORE
Poetic Devices
Poetic devices are the tools that poets use when writing poems.
Figures of speech/ Figurative language: A form of language use in which writers
and speakers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words.
Some poetic devices include:
1. Theme
2. Imagery
3. Simile
4. Metaphor
5. Personification
6. Symbol
7.  Irony:
Theme
The main idea or meaning of a text. Often, this is an insight
about human life revealed in a literary work
The theme of a poem is the message an author wants to
communicate through the piece. The theme differs from the
main idea because the main idea describes .
For example: A constant theme in his novels is religion. What
the text is mostly about
 Imagery
 Imagery appeals to one or many of our five senses and creates “images”
in our mind
 5 Senses are…
 Sight
 Sound
 Touch
 Taste
 Smell
For example: Imagery using touch: After the long run, he collapsed in
the grass with tired and burning muscles. The grass tickled his skin
and sweat cooled on his brow. In this example, imagery is used to
describe the feeling of strained muscles, grass's tickle, and sweat cooling
on skin.
Simile
Simile compares two UNLIKE items/ideas using “like,” “as” or “than”
 Example: leaves twirled like dancers on the water
 I am short like my sister.
 As cold as ice.

Metaphor
Comparison NOT using like or as. like a simile, makes a comparison between
two unlike things, but does so implicitly, without words such as like or as.
For example: “The crowd was a storm”
Eg: I was lonely as a cloud.
Personification
 Giving human attributes to an animal, object or idea. • For example:
“The cat cries” 
 Personification give human attributes or qualities to non-human things
or abstract ideas
 Example: leaves danced on the water
 Example: The sun smiled down on me today!

Symbolism
Symbolism is the idea that things represent other things.
 Black is often used to represent death or evil.
 White stands for life and purity.
 Irony:
 A situation in which something which was intended to have a particular result has the
opposite or a very different result:
Example: A pilot has a fear of heights.