Poetic Devices Flashcards
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.
Alliteration
Repeated vowel sounds in words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines. These should be in sounds that are accented, or stressed, rather than in vowel sounds that are unaccented.
Assonance
Repeated consonant sounds at the ending of words placed near each other, usually on the
same or adjacent lines. These should be in sounds that are accented, or stressed, rather than in vowel
sounds that are unaccented. This produces a pleasing kind of near-rhyme.
Consonance
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.
Cacaphony
A series of musically pleasant sounds, conveying a sense of harmony and beauty to the language.
Euphony
Words that sound like their meanings.
Onomatopeia
The purposeful re-use of words and phrases for an effect. Sometimes, especially with longer
phrases that contain a different keyword each time, this is called parallelism. It has been a central part
of poetry in many cultures. Many of the Psalms use this device as one of their unifying elements.
Repetition
A representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning. Sometimes it can be a single word or phrase,
such as the name of a character or place. Often, it is a symbolic narrative that has not only a literal
meaning, but a larger one understood only after reading the entire story or poem
Allegory
A brief reference to some person, historical event, work of art, or Biblical or mythological
situation or character.
Allusion
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.
Ambiguity
A comparison, usually something unfamiliar with something familiar.
Analogy
Speaking directly to a real or imagined listener or inanimate object; addressing that person or
thing by name.
Apostrophe
Any figure of speech that was once clever and original but through overuse has become outdated. If
you’ve heard more than two or three other people say it more than two or three times, chances are the
phrase is too timeworn to be useful in your writing.
Cliché
The emotional, psychological or social overtones of a word; its implications and associations
apart from its literal meaning. Often, this is what distinguishes the precisely correct word from one that
is merely acceptable.
Connotation
Closely arranged things with strikingly different characteristics.
Contrast
The dictionary definition of a word; its literal meaning apart from any associations or connotations. Students must exercise caution when beginning to use a thesaurus, since often the words that are clustered together may share a denotative meaning, but not a connotative one, and the substitution of a word can sometimes destroy the mood, and even the meaning, of a poem.
Denotation
An understatement, used to lessen the effect of a statement; substituting something innocuous
for something that might be offensive or hurtful.
Euphemism
An outrageous exaggeration used for effect.
Hyperbole
A contradictory statement or situation to reveal a reality different from what appears to be true.
Irony
A direct comparison between two unlike things, stating that one is the other or does the action
of the other.
Metaphor
A figure of speech in which a person, place, or thing is referred to by something closely
associated with it.
Metonymy
A combination of two words that appear to contradict each other.
Oxymoron
A statement in which a seeming contradiction may reveal an unexpected truth.
Paradox
Attributing human characteristics to an inanimate object, animal, or abstract idea.
Personification
Word play in which words with totally different meanings have similar or identical sounds.
Pun
A direct comparison of two unlike things using “like” or “as.”
Simile
An ordinary object, event, animal, or person to which we have attached extraordinary meaning and significance – a flag to represent a country, a lion to represent courage, a wall to symbolize separation.
Symbol
Indicating a person, object, etc. by letting only a certain part represent the whole.
Synecdoche
Is fundamental to the perception of poetry, marking an important visual distinction from prose. Poetry is arranged into a series of units that do not necessarily correspond to sentences, but
rather to a series of metrical feet. Generally, but not always, the line is printed as one single line on the page. If it occupies more than one line, its remainder is usually indented to indicate that it is a continuation.
Line
One single line of a poem arranged in a metrical pattern. Also, a piece of poetry or a particular form
of poetry such as free verse, blank verse, etc., or the art or work of a poet. The popular use of the word verse for a stanza or associated group of metrical lines is not in accor-
dance with the best usage. A stanza is a group of verses.
Verse
A division of a poem created by arranging the lines into a unit, often repeated in the same pattern of
meter and rhyme throughout the poem; a unit of poetic lines (a “paragraph” within the poem). The
stanzas within a poem are separated by blank lines. Stanzas in modern poetry, such as free verse, often do not have lines that are all of the same length and meter, nor even the same number of lines in each stanza. Stanzas created by such irregular line groupings are often dictated by meaning, as in paragraphs of prose.
Stanza
A question solely for effect, which does not require an answer. By the implication the answer is obvious, it is a means of achieving an emphasis stronger than a direct statement.
Rhetorical Question
The continuation of the logical sense — and therefore the grammatical construction — beyond the end of a line of poetry. This is sometimes done with the title, which in effect becomes the first line of the poem.
Enjambment
The arrangement or method used to convey the content, such as free verse, ballad, haiku, etc. In
other words, the “way-it-is-said.” A variably interpreted term, however, it sometimes applies to details within the composition of a text, but is probably used most often in reference to the structural characteristics of a work as it compares to (or differs from) established modes of conventionalized arrange-
ments.
Form
Poetic form free from regularity and consistency in elements such as rhyme, line length,
and metrical form
Form: Open
Poetic form subject to a fixed structure and pattern
Form : Closed
Unrhymed iambic pentameter (much of the plays of Shakespeare are written in
this form)
Form: Blank Verse
Lines with no prescribed pattern or structure — the poet determines all the vari-
ables as seems appropriate for each poem
Form: Free Verse
A pair of lines, usually rhymed; this is the shortest stanza
Form: Couplet
A pair of rhymed lines in iambic pentameter (traditional heroic epic form)
Form: Heroic Couplet
A four-line stanza, or a grouping of four lines of verse
Form: Quatrain
A poem which follows a set pattern of meter, rhyme scheme, stanza form, and refrain (if there is one), . Most poets feel a need for familiarity and practice with established forms as essential to learning the craft, but having explored the techniques and constraints of each, they go on to experiment and extend their imaginative creativity in new directions. A partial listing includes:
Fixed Form
A narrative poem written as a series of quatrains in which lines of iambic tetrameter alternate with iambic trimeter with an xaxa, xbxb rhyme scheme with frequent use of repetition
and often including a refrain. The “story” of a ballad can be a wide range of subjects but frequently deals with folklore or popular legends. They are written in a straight-forward
manner, seldom with detail, but always with graphic simplicity and force. Most ballads are suitable for singing: “Barbara Allen” is an example. Many of the oldest ballads were first written and performed by minstrels as court entertainment. Folk ballads are of unknown origin and are usually lacking in artistic finish.
Because they are handed down by oral tradition, folk ballads are subject to variations and continual change. Other types of ballads include literary ballads, combining the natures of epic
and lyric poetry, which are written by known authors, often in the style and form of the folk ballad, such as Keats’ ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci.”
Ballad
A French form, it consists of three seven or eight-line stanzas using no more than three recurrent rhymes, with an identical refrain after each stanza and a closing envoi repeating
the rhymes of the last four lines of the stanza
Ballade
Also known as pattern poetry or shaped verse, these are poems that are printed on the page so that they form a recognizable outline related to the subject, thus conveying or extending the meaning of the words. Pattern poetry retains its meaning when read aloud, whereas the essence of concrete poetry lies in its appearance on the page rather than in the words; it is intended to be perceived as a visual whole and often cannot be effective when read
aloud. This form has had brief popularity at several periods in history.
Concrete Poetry
A pithy, sometimes satiric, couplet or quatrain comprising a single thought or event and often aphoristic with a witty or humorous turn of thought
Epigram
A brief poem or statement in memory of someone who is deceased, used as, or suitable for, a tombstone inscription; now, often witty or humorous and written without intent
of actual funerary use
Epitaph
A Japanese form of poetry consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. The elusive flavor of the form, however, lies more in its touch and tone than in its syllabic structure. Deeply imbedded in Japanese culture and strongly influenced by Zen Buddhism, haiku are very brief descriptions of nature that convey some implicit insight or
essence of a moment. Traditionally, they contain either a direct or oblique reference to a season
Haiku
A light or humorous form of five chiefly anapestic verses of which lines one, two and five are of three feet and lines three and four are of two feet, with a rhyme scheme of aabba. Named for a town in Ireland of that name, the limerick was popularized by Edward
Lear in his Book of Nonsense published in 1846, and is generally considered the only fixed
form of English origin. While the final line of Lear’s limericks usually was a repetition of the first line, modern
limericks generally use the final line for clever witticisms and word play. Their content also frequently tends toward the ribald and off-color.
Limerick
Derived from the Greek word for lyre, was originally designed to be sung. One of the three main groups of poetry (the others being narrative and dramatic), the most frequently used modern form, including all poems in which the speaker’s ardent expression of a
(usually single) emotional element predominates. Ranging from complex thoughts to the simplicity of playful wit, the melodic imagery of skillfully written lyric poetry evokes in the reader’s mind the recall of similar emotional experiences.
Lyric
Any of several stanzaic forms more complex than the lyric, with intricate rhyme schemes and irregular number of lines, generally of considerable length, always written in a style marked by a rich, intense expression of an elevated thought praising a person or object.
Ode
It consists of a varying number of four-line stanzas
with lines rhyming alternately; the second and fourth lines of each stanza repeated to form the first
and third lines of the succeeding stanza, with the first and third lines of the first stanza forming the
second and fourth of the last stanza, but in reverse order, so that the opening and closing lines of
the poem are identical.
Pantoun
a fixed form used mostly in light or witty verse, usually consisting of fifteen octo- or decasyllabic lines in three stanzas, with only two rhymes used throughout. A word or words from the first part of the first line are used as a (usually unrhymed) refrain ending the second and third
stanzas, so the rhyme scheme is aabba aabR aabbaR.
Rondeau
A fixed form consisting of six 6-line (usually unrhymed) stanzas in which the end words
of the first stanza recur as end words of the following five stanzas in a successively rotating order,
and as the middle and end words of each of the lines of a concluding envoi in the form of a tercet.
Sestina
First stanza, 1- 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6
Second stanza, 6 - 1 - 5 - 2 - 4 - 3
Third stanza, 3 - 6 - 4 - 1 - 2 - 5
Fourth stanza, 5 - 3 - 2 - 6 - 1 - 4
Fifth stanza, 4 - 5 - 1 - 3 - 6 - 2
Sixth stanza, 2 - 4 - 6 - 5 - 3 - 1
Concluding tercet:
middle of first line - 2, end of first line - 5
middle of second line - 4, end of second line - 3
middle if third line - 6, end of third line - 1
Sestina Order
A fourteen line poem in iambic pentameter with a prescribed rhyme scheme; its subject was traditionally love. Three variations are found frequently in English, although others are
occasionally seen.
Sonnet
A style of sonnet used by Shakespeare with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg
Shakespearean Sonnet
A form of sonnet made popular by Petrarch with a rhyme scheme of
abbaabba cdecde or cdcdcd
Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet
A variant of the Shakespearean form in which the quatrains are linked with a chain or interlocked rhyme scheme, abab bcbc cdcd ee.
Spenserian Sonnet
A series of sonnets in which there is a discernable unifying theme, while each retains its own structural independence. All of Shakespeare’s sonnets, for example, were part of a
sequence.
Sonnet Sequence
A poem or stanza of eight lines in which the first line is repeated as the fourth and seventh
lines, and the second line as the eighth, with a rhyme scheme of ABaAabAB, as in Adelaide
Crapsey’s “Song” (the capital letters in the rhyme scheme indicate the repetition of identical lines).
Triolet
A poem consisting of five 3-line stanzas followed by a quatrain and having only two rhymes. In the stanzas following the first stanza, the first and third lines of the first stanza
are repeated alternately as refrains. They are the final two lines of the concluding quatrain. The villanelle gives a pleasant impression of simple spontaneity, as in Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “The House on the Hill.”
Villanelle
An attempt to fuse different senses by describing one kind of sense impression in words normally used to describe another.
Synesthesia
