Poetic Devices

English 3 HonorsSept. 17, 2014

Tips for Reading Poetry

• Good readers of poetry do the following:– pose questions– identify unfamiliar

vocabulary or allusions– make connections to

their own experience– rephrase inverted lines

comment on the poem

Tone, Mood, and Diction

• Tone – The author’s implied attitude towards the subject and audience

- Ex: Informal or Formal, Bitter, Playful, Serious

• Mood – The feeling created in the reader by a literary work.

• Diction – Author’s choice of words.

The Sound of Words

• Alliteration: Repeated consonant sounds at the beginning of words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines. A somewhat looser definition is that it is the use of the same consonant in any part of adjacent words.– Example: fast and furious– Example: Peter and Andrew patted the pony

at Ascot

The Sound of Words

• Cacophony A discordant series of harsh, unpleasant sounds helps to convey disorder. This is often furthered by the combined effect of the meaning and the difficulty of pronunciation.– Example:

My stick fingers click with a snickerAnd, chuckling, they knuckle the keys;Light-footed, my steel feelers flickerAnd pluck from these keys melodies. --“Player Piano,” John Updike

The Sounds of Words

• Euphony: A series of musically pleasant sounds, conveying a sense of harmony and beauty to the language.– Example:

Than Oars divide the Ocean,Too silver for a seam—Or Butterflies, off Banks of NoonLeap, plashless as they swim. --“A Bird Came Down the Walk,” Emily Dickinson (last stanza)

Internal Rhyme

• Rhyme that occurs within a single line– “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I

pondered weak and weary”

The Meaning of Words

• Allusion: A brief reference to some person, historical event, work of art, or Biblical or mythological situation or character.

The Meaning of Words

• Ambiguity: A word or phrase that can mean more than one thing, even in its context. Poets often search out such words to add richness to their work. Often, one meaning seems quite readily apparent, but other, deeper and darker meanings, await those who contemplate the poem.

The Meaning of Words

• Hyperbole: An outrageous exaggeration used for effect.– Example: He weighs a ton.

The Meaning of Words

• Oxymoron: A combination of two words that appear to contradict each other.– Example: a pointless point of view; bittersweet

• Paradox: A statement in which a seeming contradiction may reveal an unexpected truth.– Example: The hurrier I go the behinder I get.

The Arrangement of Words

• Stanza Forms: The names given to describe the number of lines in a stanzaic unit, such as: – couplet (2) – tercet (3) – quatrain (4)– quintet (5)– sestet (6)– septet (7)– octave (8).

Categorizing Poetry

Blank Verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter (much of the plays of Shakespeare are written in this form)

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

--Macbeth, William Shakespeare

Categorizing Poetry

• Free Verse: lines with no prescribed pattern or structure — the poet determines all the variables as seems appropriate for each poem– I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.I loaf and invite my soul,I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. --Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

Categorizing Poetry• Sonnet: a fourteen line poem in iambic pentameter with

a prescribed rhyme scheme; its subject was traditionally love– Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ; For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be, Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well, And better than thy stroke ;  why swell'st thou then ? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And Death shall be no more ;  Death, thou shalt die.

--John Donne, “Holy Sonnet 10”

Theme

• A central idea in a work of literature– It is NOT the subject or what the poem is

about; instead theme is a perception about life or human nature.

– A central idea or statement that controls an entire literary work.

Reference Websites

• Literary terms:– http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_A.html– http://www.chaparralpoets.org/devices.pdf

(This is a printable PDF)

• To find a poem: – Poetryfoundation.org– http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/