poetic devices
poem
A fairly short piece of writing, normally with a complex structure, divided into
single lines.
Often it expresses the speaker’s experience.
Poems may be divided into groups of lines called stanzas, and they may feature
rhyme and rhythm.
Free verse is a form of poetry which does not rhyme.
Usually the lines of a poem of this kind do not have a strict metre (regular
pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables).
The lines may vary greatly in length.
concrete poetry
Poetry whose pattern represents the subject.
A concrete poem about a house would be shaped like a house.
stanza
A number of lines in a poem grouped together by the author, often with a regular
pattern of rhyme and rhythm.
verse
It’s a single line of a poem.
theme
It is the central idea or ‘message’. It may be demonstrated by the use of
symbols, repetition and statements.
metre
It’s the regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem.
simile
A comparison between two objects or ideas, using as, like, and as if.
(“The door creaked like an old man’s bones”)
metaphor
An idea is expressed by an image.
Idea and image must share a certain feature.
(“The door was a gravestone hiding old memories.”)
personification
Human qualities are given to an object or animal.
(“The door screamed…”)
alliteration
A poetic device in which two or more words close together in a passage have the
same consonant at or near the beginning of the word.
(“Betty Botter bought some butter…”)
assonance
In this poetic device vowels in stressed syllables are repeated for emphasis.
(“loud sounds”)
run-on-line
Also called enjambement.
A thought does not end where the line ends but runs into the next line.
The opposite is end-stopped line.
repetition
In a text, single words or whole phrases, appear several times.
Repetition is a way of creating emphasis.
antithesis
The use of a pair of opposites for effect.
(“War and Peace”, Leo Tolstoy
“To be or not to be…”, Hamlet)
rhyme
Two words rhyme when they share sounds in their stressed syllables.
Normally the last syllables of a line rhyme with those of another line (end
rhyme).
The pattern the rhymes follow is called the rhyme scheme (a/b/a/b; c/c/d/d).
If words in the middle of lines rhyme, this is called internal rhyme.
rhythm
The sound pattern of a phrase. It is mainly based on metre, i.e. the regular
pattern of stresses and unstressed syllables.
climax
The moment in a play, novel, short story, narrative or poem at which the
suspense reaches its highest point.
It is usually the turning point in the action.
lyrical I
First –person narrator in a poem.