Poetic Devices Worksheet

Poetic Devices Worksheet Poetic Device Definition Example My Own Example end-stopped when the end Aunt Victoria frowned and pronounced, of a sentence Tarragon. No one disagreed. or clause coincides with the end of a line, creating a logical pause at its close enjambment occurs when . . .We spin and spin the sense of a back to the villages of our mothers’ mothers. line runs over We leave behind to the the men, a white blur succeeding like moonlight on empty bajra fields seen from a speeding train. line; also called a run-on line refrain a phrase, line, see Poe's use of "nothing more" and "Nevermore" in or lines "The Raven" repeated at intervals during a poem, especially at the close of stanzas alliteration the repetition I am your son, amá, seeking of a speech the security of shadows, sound (typically a consonant) at the beginning of a word in a sequence of nearby words assonance the repetition The Lotos blooms below the barren peak: of identical or The Lotos blows by every winding creek: similar vowels All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone, Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown. consonance the repetition of So dawn goes down to day. a sequence of Nothing gold can stay. two or more consonants, with a change in the intervening vowel; repetition of consonants, especially at the end of stressed syllables onomatopoeia a word whose The moan of doves in immemorial elms, sound seems And murmuring of innumerable bees. to resemble closely the sound it denotes rhyme the repetition Do not go gentle into that good night. of sounds at Rage, rage against the dying of the light. the end of words

Device Definition Example My Own Example simile a comparison In the spring our palms peeled like snakes. between two different things using "like" or "as" metaphor an implied Their high keening is an electric net comparison pulling us in, girls who have never seen between things the old land. . . essentially unlike

symbol a word or an all I wanted was to be image that one of those hybrid signifies ornamental plums something whose blossoms are sweet and glorious other than but fall to the ground what it without ever bearing fruit. represents, with multiple meanings and connotations hyperbole the use of Here once the embattled farmers stood, exaggeration And fired the shot heard round the world. for effect

personification an inanimate Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch, object or Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the concept is dark, given human characteristics or feelings metonymy an object, As if to prove saws knew what supper meant, place, or Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap— person is used ...... to represent As he swung toward them holding up the hand something Half in appeal, but half as if to keep with which it The life from spilling. is closely associated allusion a passing I got into a thing reference to a with someone literary or because I called her historical miss ann/kennedy/rockerfeller/hughes person, place, instead of ms. or event, or to another literary work apostrophe a direct Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour: address to an England hath need of thee: she is a fen absent person Of stagnant waters: altar, sword and pen, or abstract entity