POETRY

LITERARY AND SOUND DEVICES

Theme: the main idea, moral, or message

Tone: conveys feeling and emotion, sets the mood for the work

Hyperbole: extreme exaggeration The books weigh a ton. I could sleep for a year. I have a million things to do.

Symbolism: representing things by means of symbols, objects

Simile: a comparison of two nouns using the words like or as “My love for you is like a red, red rose”

Metaphor: a comparison of two nouns saying that one thing is another “All the world is a stage”

Personification: when a non-living object has been given qualities of a person The wind whispered through the trees The moon danced on the water “Oreo: Milk’s favorite cookie.”

Alliteration: the repetition of a sound at the beginning of a series of words “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers…” A fly and a flea flew up in a flue.

Said the fly to the flea, “What shall we do?” “Let’s fly,” said the flea. “Let’s flee,” said the fly. So they fluttered and flew up a flaw in the flue

Internal Rhyme: the rhyming of words within one line of poetry “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered,

weak and weary…

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

Rhythm: The rise and fall of the voice, produced by sounds

Imagery: the use of details/description to create mental images

Onomatopoeia: the use of words whose sound makes one think of its meaning Wham! Bonk! Ding-dong “Cuckoo” Tick-tock “snap, crackle, pop”

Assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds at any place in a series of words Do you like blue? We viewed the movie about mooing rookies at

the school. “Well he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no” –

Robert Service (“The Cremation of Sam McGee, pg. 709)

Meter: when sounds occur in a particular pattern In “Paul Revere’s Ride” the meter sounds like a

horse galloping: da da DUM da da DUM

Line: a single line of poetry Stanza: a division in a poem named for

the number of lines it contains, such as a couplet (2 lines), quatrain (4 lines) This is as though the poem is broken up into

“paragraphs” “Gleaming in silver are the hills!

Blazing in silver is the sea!

And a silvery radiance spillsWhere the moon drives royally!”

–James Stevens, “Washed in Silver”

RHYME

Rhyme: repetition of similar sounds in two or more words

End Rhyme: rhyme that appears at the end of two or more lines of poetry “I would not, could not, in a box.

I could not, would not, with a fox.

I will not eat them with a mouse.

I will not eat them in a house.

I will not eat them here or there.

I will not eat them anywhere.

I do not eat green eggs and ham.

I do not like them, Sam-I-am.”

RHYME

Approximate Rhyme: words in a rhyming pattern that have the same kind of sound, but are not perfect rhymes “Hear “and “Mirror”

Iambic Pentameter: rhythm measured in small groups of syllables An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed

syllable (“five feet”) daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM

Rhyme Scheme: the pattern of rhyme between lines A,B,A,B

Voice: tone, patterns of sound, rhythm, and diction-gives printed word personality

Figurative Language: exaggerate or alter the usual meanings of words Simile, Metaphor, Hyperbole

Sensory Language: words that evoke the senses-smell, taste, touch, sound

Consonance: The repetition of a consonant sound at any place in a series of words. I dropped the locket in the thick mud.

Eric liked the black book

“And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain.” –Edgar Allen Poe

Light Verse: humorous, usually brief, often include puns and alliteration

Blank Verse: written in unrhymed iambic pentameter, most common form

Prose: lacks the formal metrical structure of verse, comprises full, grammatical sentences

Refrain: a regularly repeated line or group of lines in a poem or song

TYPES OF POETRY

Lyric: A poem that expresses feelings, but does not tell a story

Narrative: A poem that tells a story

Ballad: A song/songlike poem that tells a story, usually about lost love, betrayal, or death

Epic: A long narrative poem written in formal, elegant language that tells about a series of quests undertaken by a great hero

Ode: A long, complex poem in elegant language which celebrates one person or thing

TYPES OF POETRY

Elegy: A poem of mourning, usually about someone who died or a away of life that is gone forever

Sonnet: A poem of fourteen lines in iambic pentameter; variations include the Italian sonnet and Shakespearean sonnet

Free Verse: A poem that does not follow a regular rhyme scheme or meter