Poetic and Literary Devices

Poetic and Literary Devices

Alliteration

The repetition of similar sounds, usually a consonant sounds.

 Little old lady got mutilated late last night.

 

Allusion

A reference to a person, place, or event from another piece of literature, or in history, art or music.

 John’s love of candy is his Achilles’ heel

 

Assonance

The repetition of similar vowel sounds, in poetry

 Thou foster child of silence and slow time. John Keats

 

Ballad

A story told in verse, and usually meant to be sung.

Me and Bobby McGee

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Piano Man

 

Blank Verse

Versed written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.

 William Shakespeare

If  you can look into the seeds of time

And say which grain will grow and which will not

 

Connotation

The emotion or sense of a word.

 A department store would not be called “Cheap Clothes”, more likely the name would be “Budget Sportswear”.

 

Couplet

Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme.

Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell

That summons thee to heaven or to hell

 

Denotation

Dictionary definition of a word, the literal meaning.

Movie “star”-a famous actor (denotation-dictionary definition)

Movie “star”-actor adored by fans that leads a glamorous life.
(connotation-sense of the word)

Diction

Choosing the perfect word for clarity or effect

 

Three blind mice

 See how they run

They all ran after

the farmer’s wife,

Who cut off their tails

 with a carving knife.
Have you ever seen

such a sight in your life,

as three blind mice?

 

Three rodents with defective vision

Observe their rate of motion.

They all pursued an agriculturist’s spouse.

Who severed their spinal extremities with a common kitchen utensil.

Have you ever observed such a phenomenon in the span of your life

 as three rodents with defective vision?

 

 

Elegy

A poem of mourning and lamentation over the death of a loved one.

In Memoriam

By Alfred Lord Tennyson

 

Epic

A long narrative poem telling a story about the deeds of a hero

The Iliad

The Odyssey

Epigraph

 A quote or motto at the beginning of a chapter or story.

This book is to be neither an accusation not a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by war.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

 

Epitaph

Inscription on a headstone. A poem in memory of someone who has died.

This is the verse you gave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from the sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

Requiem by Robert Louis Stevenson

 

Figurative Language

Language that is not meant to be interpreted literally usually makes a comparision.

Metaphors-Similes-Personification

 

Flashback

A scene in a story that disrupts the story to show an earlier event, often a memory of the main character.

 

Foreshadowing

Clues or hints in a story that suggest what will happen next. Builds suspense.

 The battle in the cemetery in

All Quiet on the Western Front, foreshadows the soldiers deaths.

 

Free Verse

A poem or verse that does not have meter or pattern.

 Example:

Psalms in the Bible

 

Hyperbole

Exaggeration or overstatement

 Will all great Neptune’s ocean ws this blood clean from my hand?

From Macbeth by William Shakespeare

 

Imagery

Language that appeals to any sense or combination of senses.

 

The Pond

Cold, wet leaves

Floating on moss-covered water.

And the croaking of frogs—

Cracked bell-notes in the twilight.

Amy Lowell

Irony-Ironic

Contrast or incongruity between what is expected to happen and what actually happens.

Lyric-Lyrical

Poem that expresses the writer’s personal feelings and thoughts.

Metaphor

A comparison between two unlike things, gives added meaning

 Morning is a new sheet of paper for you to write on.

 

Meter-Metrical

Regular pattern or stresses and unstressed syllables in poetry.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass

So deep in love am I;

And I will love thee still my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry. By Robert Burns

 

Metonymy

A figure of speech in which something very closely related stands for or suggests the thing itself.

Hardhat   construction worker

The crown   King or Queen

The White House            the President

 

Motif

A recurring word, image or phrase

 The River Shannon (Angela’s Ashes)

Luck (The Rocking Horse Winner)

Doomed Lovers (Romeo and Juliet)

 

Myth

A story about the gods helps people understand things they cannot see or control.

 Poseidon and the Seas

 

Narrative

A poem that tells a story.

 Beowulf

The Odyssey

The Illiad

Narrator

One who tells a story

 First Person-character is in the story. Uses “I statements”

Third Person-Not in the story at all

 Outside point of view

Octave

An 8 line poemAn

8 line stanza in a poem 

Ode

A poem written to honor a special

*Person * Event * Season * Occasion

 Ode on a Grecian Urn

Ode to the West Wind

 Onomatopoeia

 The word sound imitates or suggests the meaning

 Hiss        Clang              Rustle    Snap

Oxymoron

Combines opposites or contradictory ideas/terms

 Living death                           Sweet Sorrow

Wise fool                        Jumbo shrimp

 

Paradox

Reveals a kind of truth, but at first seems untrue 

Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor Iron bars a cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take

That for a hermitage…. “To Althea from Prison”

 

Personification

A figure of speech, where an animal, object, idea or force of nature is given a personality or described as if it were human.

 “Sad storm, whose tears are in vain.” Percy Shelley

 Death or Chance (All Quiet on the Western Front)

Propaganda

Ideas, Information and arguments that appeal to emotions, tries to change your mind

“It is sweet and honorable to die for one’s country.”

Prose

Ordinary, straight-forward language, used in speech, newspapers, magazines, essays. 

Quatrain

Poem or stanza of 4 lines

Refrain

A word, phrase or group of lines repeated throughout a poem, usually at the end of a stanza.

Rhythm

The arrangement of syllables into a pattern. Gives a poem a musical quality.

Rhyme

Repetition of sounds or words that are close to each other in a poem

river/shiver        leap/deep

song/long           skies/eyes

Satire

Writing that ridicules the weaknesses of people, groups or institutions

Sestet

 A 6 line poem or stanza

Setting

 The time and place of a story.

Simile

A comparison between two unlike things, using like, as, than

Silence will fall like dew

White as a white cow’s milk

More beautiful than the breast of a gull

Sonnet-“little song”

A 14-line poem

Rhyme Scheme

Rhymed Iambic pentameter

Shakespearean Sonnet

3 quatrains and a Couplet

abab  cdcd  efef  gg

Symbol

An object, person, place or action that has meaning in itself and stands for something larger than itself.

Rose-love and beauty

Skulls-death

Dove-peace

Synecdoche

A figure of speech that substitutes a part for the whole.

All hands on deck

A new set of wheels

Theme

The author’s main idea

Author’s purpose or insight

Tone

The attitude a writer takes toward the subject or characters.

The choice of words and details.

Judgmental Tone

News Article about

Norman Morrison

Sympathetic Tone

Norman Morrison Poem

Tragedy

Sad or disastrous ending