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Name: _______________________________________ Period: ______________ Poetic Devices Poetic devices are literary techniques or conventions that enhance the meaning and form of the text. Despite being called poetic devices, these techniques are used in all types of writing ALLITERATION The repetition of the initial consonant in a line or sentence Ex. Dave drove dangerously down the driveway. ALLUSION An indirect reference to some piece of knowledge not actually mentioned Allusions usually come from a body of information that the author presumes the reader will know Ex. An author who writes, ―She was another Helen,‖ is alluding to the proverbial beauty of Helen of Troy ANAPHORA Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of a line throughout a text or a section of a text Ex. We will go to school; we will enjoy it; we will go home; we will go to work; we will go to bed APOSTROPHE A direct address to the dead, an inanimate object, or thing, as if it was a person Ex. ―Hello darkness, my old friend / I’ve come to talk with you again‖ ASSONANCE The repetition of similar vowel sounds Ex. The sound of the hound was bound to make me crazy. CONNOTATION The various feelings, images, and memories that surround a word Ex. Frugal vs. cheap, house vs. home CONSONANCE The repetition of consonant sounds not limited to the beginning of a word like alliteration Ex. bake, duck, soak, pick, epic DENOTATION The literal or dictionary meaning of a word Ex. "mother": the female progenitor of the species HYPERBOLE A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect Ex. ―I could sleep for a year” or “This book weighs a ton” 2 IDIOM An idiom or idiomatic expression in one language cannot be matched or directly translated word-for-word in another language Ex. ―A bee in her bonnet‖ IMAGERY A broad term which refers to the images found in a text which help a reader mentally experience what the characters experience Generally, images are figures of speech Ex. ―O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright‖ (1.5.44-53). METAPHOR A direct comparison which imaginatively identifies one object with another Ex. Love is a rose. Basketball is life. MOOD The emotional effect of a poem or story Ex. cheerful, pensive, scary, humorous ONOMATOPOEIA The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe Ex. The burning wood crackled and hissed. OXYMORON A figure of speech combining opposite or contradictory ideas Ex. ―Beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical! Dove-feathered raven!‖ (3.2.73-84). PARADOX An apparently contradictory statement which is actually true Ex. My favorite part of the day is night. To hold your children, you must let them go. PERSONIFICATION Human attributes given to inanimate objects. Ex. The sun smiled down on me. PROSE Ordinary language or literary expression not marked by rhythm or rhyme. ―All that is not prose is verse. All that is not verse is prose.‖ PUN A play on words based on the similarity of sound between two words with different meanings (―Sticks float. They would.‖) Ex. The coughing pony said, ―I’m a little hoarse.‖ 3 RHYME The repetition of vowel and consonant sounds at the end of words Ex. - brown, town, clown, renown RHYME SCHEME The pattern of end rhymes that is indicated by assigning each new end rhyme a different letter of the alphabet. SIMILE A metaphoric comparison where one object is said to be ―like‖ ―than,‖ or ―as‖ another Ex. Basketball is like life. STANZA A grouping of two or more lines of a poem and named for the number of lines it contains. Below are the most common stanzas. Couplet: Two-line stanza Triplet: Three-line stanza Quatrain: Four-line stanza Quintet: Five-line stanza Sestet: Six-line stanza Septet: Seven-line stanza Octave: Eight-line stanza TONE The attitude of the speaker Ex. Unassuming, child-like, assertive, humorous, etc. UNDERSTATEMENT The opposite of hyperbole, deliberately saying less than the situation calls for Ex. A person who has nearly died says, ―I was a little under the weather,‖ or the weatherman says, ―There’s a little breeze blowing in from the coast‖ about an approaching hurricane. 4 Rhyme Scheme Practice Write a letter of the alphabet next to each line of each poem to show the rhyme scheme. The first one is done for you. 1. A word is dead A When it is said A Some say. B I think it just C Begins to live D That day. B 2. I dwell in a lonely house I know That vanished many a summer ago, And left no trace but the cellar walls, And a cellar in which the daylight falls And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow. 3. This biplane is the shape of human flight. Its name might better be First Motor Kite. Its makers’ name – Time cannot get that wrong, For it was writ in heaven doubly Wright. 4. There was a road ran past our house Too lovely to explore. I asked my mother once – she said That if you followed where it led It brought you to the milkman’s door. (That’s why I have not traveled more.) 5. The ostrich is a silly bird With scarcely any mind. He often runs so very fast, He leaves himself behind. And when he gets there, has to stand And hang about til night, Without a blessed thing to do Until he comes in sight. 5 METAPHOR POEMS The Toaster A silver-scaled dragon with jaws flaming red Sits at my elbow and toasts my bread. I hand him fat slices, and then, one by one, He hands them back when he sees they are done. --William Jay Smith Apartment House A filing cabinet of human lives Where people swarm like bees in tunnelled hives, Each to his own cell in the covered comb, Identical and cramped -- we call it home. --Gerald Raftery ********************* You are going to describe something metaphorically without naming the object explicitly. 1. Pick an everyday object from around the house, such as a dryer or iron. 2. Now list some things that it reminds you of or that it could be like. 3. Now all you have to do is write four lines to describe your object. Your lines could rhyme AA BB just the last two above or your poem might rhyme only two lines or perhaps not rhyme at all. Line 1 Line 2 Line 3 Line 4 6 NEGRO SPIRITUALS AND WORK SONGS During both the Slavery and Reconstruction Eras, African Americans were allowed to sing songs while working if the lyrics were not obviously against slaveholding society. The songs could be sung either by one or several slaves, and such tunes were primarily intended for expressing personal feelings, cheering one another, or simply making arduous tasks more bearable. NEGRO SPIRITUALS AND THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD The Underground Railroad (UGRR) helped slaves to run to free a country. While it was not literally a railroad, it consisted of a series of safe houses and abolitionist guides who could assist slaves in several ways. While no spirituals mentioned the Underground Railroad directly, many did utilize allusions to it and recognized the network as a path to freedom. The act of escaping is often veiled in religious symbolism. For example, when needed, slaves walked (―waded‖) in water so that dogs could not smell their tracks. Slaves sometimes found passage hidden within coaches (symbolized through Biblical ―chariots‖) where they could ride away. These chariots stopped at ―stations,‖ a word that could mean any location where protection from slave hunters could be sought. Use of symbolism allows Negro spirituals like ―Wade in the Water,‖ ―The Gospel Train,‖ and ―Swing Low, Sweet Chariot‖ to directly refer to the UGRR. Sourced from: http://www.negrospirituals.com/history.htm "The Gospel Train" is a traditional African-American spiritual first published in 1872 as one of the songs of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. A standard Gospel song, it is found in the hymnals of many Protestant denominations and has been recorded by numerous artists. The Gospel train's comin' I hear it just at hand I hear the car wheel rumblin' And rollin' thro' theland Get on board little children Get on board little children Get on board little children There's room for many more I hear the train a-comin' She's comin' round thecurve She's loosened all her steam and brakes And strainin' ev'ry nerve The fare is cheap and all cango The rich and poor are there No second class aboard this train No difference in the fare 7 "Steal Away" was composed by Wallace Willis, Choctaw freedman in the old Indian Territory, sometime before 1862. Alexander Reid, a minister at a Choctaw boarding school, heard Willis singing the songs and transcribed the words and melodies. He sent the music to the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. The Jubilee Singers then popularized the songs during a tour of the United States and Europe. Refrain: Green trees are bending, Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus! Poor sinners stand a-trembling; Steal away, steal away home, The trumpet sounds within my soul, I ain’t got long to stay here. I ain’t got long to stay here. My Lord, He calls me, Refrain He calls me by the thunder; The trumpet sounds within my soul, My Lord, He calls me, I ain’t got long to stay here. He calls me by the lightning; The trumpet sounds within my soul, Refrain I ain’t got long to stay here "Wade in the Water" is the name of a Negro spiritual first published in New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers (1901) by John Wesley Work II and his brother, Frederick J.

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