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1. Musical Devices in Poetry English 10
2. What makes poetry musical? Rhyme
Alliteration
Consonance
Assonance
Onomatopoeia
Refrain
3. What is Rhyme? The Repetition of accented vowel sounds and all succeeding sounds that appear close together
4. An Example
Come with the rain, O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
Make the settled snowbank steam
-From To the Thawing Wind
By Robert Frost
5. 3 Types of Rhyme End Rhyme
Internal Rhyme
Approximate Rhyme (also called slant)
6. End Rhyme The most common form of rhyme
Places the rhyming sound at the end of a line of poetry
The following lines of poetry by Langston Hughes are a good example:
O, God of dust and rainbows, help us see
That without dust the rainbow would not be
7. Internal Rhyme Repeats sounds within lines of poetry
The following line from Edgar Allan Poes The Raven is a good example:
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary
8. Approximate Rhyme Very popular with more modern poets
The final rhyming sounds are close, but not exactly the same
Approximate rhyme is illustrated in these lines by Emily Dickinson
All of evening softly lit
As an astral hall
Father, I observed to Heaven,
You are punctual!
9. What is Alliteration? The repetition of consonant sounds in a group of words close together
Alliteration comes at the beginning of words
An easy way to remember alliteration:
Alliteration uses all the letters, except the vowels.
10. An Example of Alliteration This example comes from Ted Hughess poem, The Lake:
Snuffles at my feet for what I might drop or kick up
Sucks and slobbers the stones, snorts through its lips
11. What is Consonance? It is the repetition of consonant sounds located other than at the beginnings of words.
Again, The Lake offers a good example:
Snuffles at my feet for what I might drop or kick up
Sucks and slobbers the stones, snorts through its lips
12. What is Assonance? The repetition of vowel sounds close together
13. Whats the difference? How are rhyme and assonance different?
Rhyme is the repetition of accented vowel sounds AND the sounds that follow them
Assonance is simply the repetition of vowel sounds
Edgar Allan Poes The Bells provides a good example:
From the molten golden notes
14. What is Onomatopoeia? The use of a word whose sound imitates or reinforces its meaning. In other words, it seeks to imitate the sound for which it stands.
Examples in everyday language are words like whoosh, tick-tock, zoom, and purr.
Popcorn is also onomatopoeia because its name imitates its action.
15. What is Refrain? One or more words, phrases, or lines that are repeated regularly in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza.
In a song, we often call it the chorus.
16. How many can you find? We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.