Poetic Devices
Terms
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- personification
- A figure of speech in which nonhuman things or abstract ideas are given human attributes.
- Examples of hyperbole
- tons of money, waiting for ages, a flood of tears, I could eat a horse
- stanza
- Two or more lines of poetry that together form one of the divisions of a poem.
- Examples of onomatopoeic words
- buzz, hiss, zing, clippety-clop, cock-a-doodle-do, pop, splat, thump, and tick-tock
- antithesis
- A figure of speech in which words and phrases with opposite meanings are balanced against each other.
- alliteration
- The repetition of the same or similar sounds at the beginning of words.
- Examples of simile
- As in Langston Hughes's poem Harlem: "What happens to a dream deferred?/ Does it dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?"
- blank verse
- Poetry that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in this form.
- free verse
- Poetry composed of either rhymed or unrhymed lines that have no set meter.
- onomatopoeia
- A figure of speech in which words are used to imitate sounds.
- Example of personification
- The sky is falling. The leaves are dancing.
- refrain
- A phrase, line, or group of lines that is repeated throughout a poem, usually after every stanza.
- assonance
- The repetition or a pattern of similar sounds, especially vowel sounds.
- Example of assonance
- The pied piper tied lilac kites to his lime bike.
- imagery
- Figure of speech (especially a simile or a metaphor) that address the senses, suggesting mental pictures of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, or actions.
- Examples of alliteration
- She sells seashells by the seashore or Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
- hyperbole
- A figure of speech in which deliberate exaggeration is used for emphasis.
- metaphor
- A figure of speech in which two things are compared, usually by saying one thing is another.
- Example of Sight Rhyme
- The moon never beams without bring me dreams.
- consonance
- The repetition of similar consonant sounds, especially at the ends of words, as in lost and past or confess and dismiss.
- rhyme scheme
- The pattern of rhyme in a stanza or poem is shown usually by using a different letter for each final sound.
- Sight Rhyme
- A rhyme consisting of words, such as lint and pint with similar spellings but different sounds.
- accent
- The emphasis given to a syllable or word.
- simile
- A figure of speech in which two things are compared using the word "like" or "as."
- couplet
- In a poem, a pair of lines that are the same length and usually rhyme and form a complete thought. Shakespearean sonnets usually end with this.
- Example of antithesis
- "To err is human, to forgive, divine." (Alexander Pope)
- Internal Rhyme
- A word inside a line rhymes with another word on the same line.
- Examples of metaphors
- the world's a stage, he was a lion in battle, drowning in debt, and a sea of troubles.