Poetic Terms

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Poetic Terms
Figurative Language and Sound Devices

• Advanced Literary Analysis

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Structure Terms
Stanza

• a group of lines divided by a space
• a unit of poetic meaning or thought

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Aubade By 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.
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Structure Terms

• Syntax the formal arrangement of words in a
  sentence--the poets purposeful choice

A narrow Fellow in the Grass Occasionally
rides-- You may have met Him --did you not His
notice sudden is Emily Dickinson
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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 time This coyness,
lady, were no crime. We would sit
down, and think which way To walk, and pass out
long loves day. -- Andrew Marvell
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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.

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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
• emaciatedslim
• Connotation implied, suggested meaning
• emaciated vs. slim

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Word Choice Terms

• Ambiguity the potential for double or hidden
  meanings
• Slim Cunning Hands
• Slim 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 earths flowers, how fair.

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Terms that Make Meaning

• Persona Voice of the poem the speaker created
  by the poet
• Situation whats happening in the poem, the
  situation the poet is describing
• Spatial place involved
• Temporal time (date, era, season. . . )

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Terms that Make Meaning

• Tone the authors attitude toward his/her
  subject

e.g. - angry, affectionate, passionate, bitter,
melancholy, shameful, cautious, guilty,
quarrelsome. . .
(good, bad, happy, sad)
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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
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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
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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. . . .

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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

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Terms that Make Meaning

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

Simile direct comparison using like or as
Metaphor an indirect comparison that states one
thing is another or substitutes one thing for
another rather than using like or as
Controlling Metaphor metaphors that dominate or
organize an entire poem
Extended Metaphor detailed, complex metaphor
that extends over a major section of the text
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A Red, Red Rose O, my luves like a red, red
rose Thats newly sprung in June. O, my luve is
like the melodie Thats sweetly played in
tune Robert Burns
Fog The fog comes in on little cat feet. It
sits looking over harbor and city on silent
haunches and then moves on. Carl Sandburg
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Irony

• A difference between the way things seem and the
  way they really are.
• Situational
• Verbal
• Dramatic

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Situational Irony

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

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(No Transcript)
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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.

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Mercutio Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall
find me a grave man.
Romeo and Juliet Example
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Dramatic Irony

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

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    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
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Romeo and Juliet Example We know Juliet has
taken a sleeping potion. Everyone else, except
Friar Lawrence, thinks she is dead
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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
tossed and fell precision made cold iodine
color of their own world of sand and occasional
brown weed, round stone chilled clean in the
chopping waters of their coast. One fell out.
The marine thing on the grass tried to trundle
off, barbarian and immaculate and to be
killed with his kin. We lit water dumped the
living mass in 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
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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)
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Terms that Make Meaning

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

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Sound Devices

• Alliteration
• repeated initial consonant sound
• ex) But which boy bought the new bike?

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Sound Devices

• Consonance
• the repetition of consonant sounds that is not
  limited to the initial sounds of each word
• ex) rubber baby buggy bumpers

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Sound Devices

• Assonance
• the repetition of a vowel sound
• ex) The moon rose over an open field.

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Sound Devices

• Onomatopoeia
• The term used to describe words whose meanings
  are suggested by the sound of their pronunciation
• ex) buzz, meow, hiss

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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 - thats 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
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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
• Ive done it all my life.
• It makes my peas taste funny,
• But it keeps them on the knife.
• -- Anonymous