Poetry Unit Literary Devices

1. Poetry UnitLiterary Devices

2. Alliteration • The repetition of initial consonant sounds; draws attention to certain words or ideas “Slowly, silently, now the moon Walks the night in her silver moon

3. Allusion • A reference to a well-known person, place event, literary work, or work of art Ex: Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay” references the Garden of Eden

4. Atmosphere (mood) • The feeling created in the reader by the poem; it may be images, dialogue, words; usually established at the beginning

5. Audience • The particular group of readers the poet is addressing; this is considered by the poet when he/she chooses his/her tone, word choice, etc.

6. Concrete poem • A poem with a shape that suggest its subject • Poe's                  raven told            him nothing nevermore                  and Vincent's circling                    crows were a threat to destroy                      sunlight. Now I saw a bird, black with a yellow                        beak, orange rubber legs                           pecking to kill the                             lawn, storm bird                              hates with claw,                                  evil beak,                                        s                                        u                                        n                                    and eye • By Don J. Carlson

7. Couplet • A pair of lines (two) that usually ryhme

8. Dialect • The form of language from a particular people or group; differences include punctuation, grammar, and word choice

9. Dialogue • A conversation between characters; usually set off with quotations

10. Imagery • Words or phrases that appeal to one or more of the five senses

11. Inference • Taking the information and details at hand, and making an educated guess

12. Irony • Situational – when what happens is in direct contradiction to what actually occurs • Dramatic – when the readers know something that the characters do not

13. Metaphor • Comparison of two unlike things; a figure of speech where something is described as something else

14. Simile • A figure of speech that uses “like” or “ass” to make a direct comparison of two unlike things

15. Narrative poem • A story told in verse that has all the elements of a short story (conflict, plot, characters)

16. Onomatopoeia • Use of words that imitate sounds Ex: buzz, crash

17. Paraphrase • Restate the lines in your own words

18. Climax - narrative

19. Personification • A nonhuman subject is given human characteristics

20. Point of view • The perspective from which the story is told • 1st, 2nd, 3rd

21. Prose • Ordinary form of written language

22. Quatrain • Four lines in poetry

23. Refrain (chorus) • Regularly repeated lines or group of lines in a poem

24. Repetition • The use, more than once, of sounds, words, clauses, phrases

25. Rhyme • The repetition of sounds at the ends of words

26. Rhyme Scheme • The regular pattern of rhyming words in the poem

27. Speaker • The imaginary voice assumed by the writer in the poem; the character who tells the poem

28. Stanza • The formal division of lines in a poem Ex: couplet, quatrain, etc.

29. Theme • The central message; the lesson learned; a universal truth

30. Hyperbole • An obvious and intentional exaggeration Ex: “I’d give a million dollars for a bite of that cookie.”

31. Symbolism • Anything that stands or represents something else

32. Free Verse • Poetry not written in any rhyme scheme or pattern

33. Lyric poem • A short, highly musical poem that expresses that feelings and observations of a single speaker

34. Ballad • A songlike poem that often deals with adventure or romance and tells a story; usually written in 4 to six line stanzas; has often repeated lines