POETIC DEVICES & LITERARY TERMS USE IN POETRY ANALYSIS

1. POETIC DEVICES & LITERARY TERMS USE IN POETRY ANALYSIS

2. Figures of speech/ Figurative language: A form of language use in which writers and speakers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words

3. Personification: Giving human attributes to an animal, object or idea. • For example: “The cat cries” • Simile: A comparison between two things which are essentially dissimilar. The comparison is directly stated through words such as like, as, than, as though or resembles • For example: "My love is like a red, red rose." • Metaphor: like a simile, makes a comparison between two unlike things, but does so implicitly, without words such as like or as. • For example: “The crowd was a storm”

4. Hyperbole / Exaggeration: A figure of speech involving exaggeration. (overstatement) • For example: John Donne uses hyperbole in his poem: "Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star.” • Image/ Imagery: A word, phrase, or figure of speech (esp. a simile or metaphor) that addresses the senses, suggesting mental pictures of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, or actions. (Image of blood, light, darkness …etc )

5. Symbol: Something that represents something else beyond themselves. • Paradox: A statement that initially appears to be self-contradictory, but that on closer inspection turns out to make sense • Tone: The author’s attitude toward the subject, character and audience. An author's tone might be sarcastic, sincere, humorous… etc

6. Theme: A central idea or meaning. • Speaker: The voice used by the author in the poem. Often a created identity rather than the author’s actual self. • Poetic diction: The use of elevated language over ordinary language. • Stanza: A grouping of lines, set off by a space, that usually has a set pattern of meter and

7. Alliteration: The repetition of the same consonant sounds at the beginnings of nearby words. • Allusion: A brief reference to a person, place, thing, event, or idea in history or literature. • Denotations: Literal, dictionary meanings of a word • Connotations: Associations and implications that go beyond a word’s literal meanings and are based on context.

8. Rhyme: Two or more words or phrases that repeat the same sounds. • Rhyme scheme: The pattern of end rhymes. AABB ABAB AABCBC • Rhythm: A series of stressed or accented syllables in a group of words, arranged so that the reader expects a similar series to follow.

9. Irony: A literary device that uses contradictory statements or situations to reveal a reality different from what appears to be true • Situational irony: an incongruity between what is expected to happen and what actually happens due to forces beyond human comprehension or control. • Cosmic irony: a writer uses God, destiny, or fate to dash the hopes and expectations of a character or of humankind in general. • Dramatic irony: a discrepancy between what a character believes or says and what the reader or audience member knows to be true. for example: when a character says to another "I'll see you tomorrow!" when the audience (but not the character) knows that the character will die before morning. • Verbal irony:a disparity of expression and intention: when a speaker says one thing but means another, or when a literal meaning is contrary to its intended effect. An example: of this is when someone says "Oh, that's beautiful", when what he means (probably conveyed by intonation) is he finds "that" quite ugly.

11. Work citation • http://www.roanestate.edu/faculty/ccurrie/engl%202020%20resources/poetic%20terms.pdf • http://www.bestlibrary.org/murrayslit/2009/09/poetic-devices.html