Poetic Terms

Advanced Literary Analysis

Figurative Language and

Sound Devices

Structure Terms

• a group of lines divided by a space

• a unit of poetic meaning or thought

Stanza:

AubadeBy Marilyn Chin

The candle that would not burn

will never share its glory.

Walking is this easy:

Sunday; Haunauma Bay, your birthday,

and we--too comfortable to notice

the sea forging inward,

that before the picture window

our special pine, dwarfed and hunched

through decades of seastorm and salty air,has uprooted to die in the rain.

Structure Terms

Syntax: the formal arrangement of words in a sentence--the poet’s purposeful choice

A narrow Fellow in the GrassOccasionally rides--You may have met Him --did you notHis notice sudden is

Emily Dickinson

Structure Terms

Caesura• pause or break within a line of verse• can be denoted using a comma, a period, a

semi-colon, colon, a dash, a hyphen, unusual spacing between words, etc…

Had we but world enough, and timeThis coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which wayTo walk, and pass out long love’s day.

-- Andrew Marvell

Structure Terms

End-Stopped Lines:

• line of verse that has a pause at the end (denoted by some form of punctuation)

Enjambment/Run-on Lines:

• line of verse that does not pause at the end of a line - lines flow together

Farewell, too little, and too lately known,

Whom I began to think and call my own;

For sure our souls were near allied, and thine

Cast in the same poetic mold with mine.

Diction (Word Choice) Terms

• Literal: most obvious meaning *door: a movable panel that swings, slides or rotates to close off an entrance

• Figurative: symbolic meaning that uses metaphor to represent something other than the obvious*door: opportunity

• Denotation: dictionary meaning

*emaciated=slim

• Connotation: implied, suggested meaning

*emaciated vs. slim

Word Choice TermsAmbiguity: the potential for double or hidden meanings

Slim Cunning HandsSlim cunning hands at rest, and cozening eyes-

Under this stone one loved too wildly lies;How false she was, no granite could declare;

Nor all earth’s flowers, how fair.

Terms that Make Meaning

Persona: Voice of the poem; the speaker created by the poet

Situation: what’s happening in the poem, the situation the poet is describing

• Spatial: place involved

• Temporal: time (date, era, season. . . )

Terms that Make Meaning

Tone: the author’s attitude toward his/her subject

e.g. - angry, affectionate, passionate, bitter, melancholy, shameful, cautious, guilty, quarrelsome. . .

(good, bad, happy, sad)

Terms that Make Meaning

Personification: giving an inanimate object human-like characteristics; treating an abstraction as if it were a person

Because I could not stop for Death

He kindly stopped for me--

--Emily Dickinson

Terms that Make Meaning

Allusion: a reference to something outside the poem that carries a history of meaning and strong emotional associations

e.g. - a “garden” may allude to Eden, thereby referring to innocence and order, temptation and the Fall, etc.-- depending upon how the poem handles the allusion

Terms that Make Meaning

• Hyperbole: a figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect

“An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze. . .” (Marvell)

• Paradox: a seeming contradiction that may nonetheless be true. . . .

Paradox Examples

• “I know that I know nothing.”

• Knowing “nothing" is knowing something. Thus, one can know that he knows nothing.

• How long did the Hundred Years War last? 

•  116 years, from 1337 to 1453.

• What is too much for one, enough for two, but nothing at all for three?

• A secret

Terms that Make Meaning

Analogy: a comparison based on certain resemblances between things that are otherwise unlike

Extended Metaphor: detailed, complex metaphor that extends over a major section of the text

Controlling Metaphor: metaphors that dominate or organize an entire poem

Metaphor: an indirect comparison that states one thing is another or substitutes one thing for another rather than using “like” or “as”

Simile: direct comparison using “like” or “as”

A Red, Red Rose

O, my luve’s like a red, red roseThat’s newly sprung in June.O, my luve is like the melodieThat’s sweetly played in tune

Robert Burns

FogThe fog comes in on little cat feet.It sits lookingover harbor and cityon silent haunchesand then moves on.

Carl Sandburg

Irony

A difference between the way things seem and the way they really are.

Situational

Verbal

Dramatic

Situational Irony

When an event, action or outcome contradicts the expected outcome within a specific event

Verbal Irony

When either the speaker means something totally different than what he is saying OR the audience realizes, because of their knowledge of the particular situation to which the speaker is referring, that the opposite of what a character is saying is true.

Mercutio: Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.

Romeo and Juliet Example

Dramatic Irony

When facts are not known to the characters in a work of literature but are known by the audience

   

Have you ever seen a horror movie that has a killer on the loose? You, and the rest of the audience, know that the teenagers should not go walking in the woods late at night, but they think a midnight stroll would be romantic. Needless to say, the teens

become the next victims.    

Dramatic Irony Example

Romeo and Juliet Example:

We know Juliet has taken a sleeping potion. Everyone

else, except Friar Lawrence, thinks she is dead

Terms that Make Meaning

Imagery: a representation of a sensory experience through language

The Crabs

There was a bucket full of them. They spilled,crawled, climbed, clawed: slowly tossedand fell: precision made: cold iodine color of their ownworld of sand and occasional brown weed, round stonechilled clean in the chopping waters of their coast.One fell out. The marine thing on the grasstried to trundle off, barbarian and immaculate and to be killedwith his kin. We lit water: dumped the living massin: contemplated tomatoes and corn: and with the good cheer of civilized man,cigarettes, that is, and cold beer, and chatter,waited out and lived down the ten-food-away clatter of crabs as they died for us inside their boiling can.

Richard Lattimore

Terms that Make Meaning

Symbolism: when a writer uses something to stand for something else; an object to represent an idea

Traditional/Universal: symbols that have acquired a universal, understood meaning over the years (e.g. - red roses = love)

Private: a symbol created by an author for use only with a specific text (e.g. - ruby slippers = self-discovery)

Terms that Make Meaning

Theme/Central Idea: an implied statement a poem makes about its subject; a generalization with universal application

Sound Devices

Alliteration:

• repeated initial consonant sound

ex) But which boy bought the new bike?

Sound Devices

Consonance:• the repetition of consonant sounds that is not

limited to the initial sounds of each wordex) rubber baby buggy bumpers

Sound Devices

Assonance:

• the repetition of a vowel sound

ex) The moon rose over an open field.

Sound Devices

Onomatopoeia

• The term used to describe words whose meanings are suggested by the sound of their pronunciation

ex) buzz, meow, hiss

Rhyme - You do it all the time!

Term Definition Examples

Perfect Rhyme

the sound of the two words is exactly alike

The cat in the hat sat on a rat - that’s exact!

Slant

Rhyme

occurs when the final consonant sounds are the same, but the vowels are different; substitution of assonance or consonance for perfect rhyme

soul: oil

ill: shell

dropped: wept

Eye

Rhyme

a similarity in spelling between words that are pronounced differently and, hence, not an auditory rhyme

move: love

slaughter: laughter

Rhyme

Rhyme can occur anywhere within a line of poetry. Here are a couple of terms:

• Internal: a rhyme occurs within a line or lines of poetry

ex) Each narrow cell within which we dwell

or And on the bay the moonlight lay

• End: a rhyme occurs at the end of a line - can begin to form a scheme if repeated

ex) I eat my peas with honey –

I’ve done it all my life. It makes my peas taste funny,

But it keeps them on the knife.

-- Anonymous