Literary Devices
Literary Devices used by poets
• Figurative Language : symbol, simile,
metaphor
• Extended Metaphor
• Hyperbole
• Personification
• Imagery
Figures of Speech or Figurative
language: using words in a non-literal
or unusual sense
• For example: “I am so hungry I could eat a
cow.”
• - “That zit on your face is like a mountain”
• Literal –by the letter – the thing is the thing.
•
For example: the literal meaning of “I am so
hungry I could eat a cow” is you eat an entire
cow. -How many burgers is that?
• Which ones do you know of ?
Symbolism – to make one thing represent
another
• For example:
•
represents what?
• Is a symbol of what?
Symoblism in poetry
• ‘The Road Not Taken’ –by Robert Frost
• http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15717
• ‘Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night’ –by Dylan
Thomas
• http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15377
• ‘Me Against the World’ – Tupac Shakur
•
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cjv7hEAytU
Simile: comparing two things using like
or as
•
•
•
Example: Tears
flowed like a river.
My love is like a red, red, rose.
‘A Simile’ by Navarre Scott Momaday
What did we say to each other
that now we are as the deer
who walk in single file
with heads high
with ears forward
with eyes watchful
with hooves always placed on firm ground
in whose limbs there is latent flight
‘A Dream Deferred’ by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
-‘Still I Rise’:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15623
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svnunOifOLk = Kweli
Metaphor: one thing is used in an unusual
way to compare it to another
• Example: “ The world is a stage.”
•
“ When I look at you my heart is a bird in flight.”
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings –Maya Angelou
• . . . ’The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and is tune is heard
on the distant hillfor the caged bird
sings of freedom’ . . .
• -Top 10 in Hip-Hop
http://www.flocabulary.com/hiphopmetaphors.html
• -“The People” - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7B2VgRShew
Extended Metaphor
• a metaphor that continues throughout a few
lines, a page, chapter, or an entire poem or
story.
• Hope as a "Little Bird"
"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,
"And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
"I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.”
-Emily Dickinson
Check out: Diego spitting his poem
Personification
– to give a thing human/person-like qualities
“The fog comes on little cat feet
it sits looking over the river and city
on silent legs then moves on.” - C. Sandberg
My Life Stood – A Loaded Gun
• My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun In Corners - till a Day
The Owner passed - identified And carried Me away - And now We roam in Sovereign Woods And now We hunt the Doe And every time I speak for Him The Mountains straight reply • And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through • And when at Night - Our good Day done I guard My Master's Head ...
-Emily Dickenson
• -”I Gave You Power” -Nas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXAtUR80IOQ
•
-Start at: 28 seconds into it
Hyperbole
• -extreme exaggeration
• “This book weighs a ton.”
• “I am so hungry I can eat a cow.”
used by poets
• Rhyme & Rhyme Scheme
• Alliteration
• Onomatopoeia
Rhyme
• Active Rhyme – identical recurring sounds in
words
i.e. – cat and hat
• Passive Rhyme – similar recurring sounds in
words
i.e. – eject and rechecked
see rhyme zone
Rhyming Scheme
• - the pattern of rhyming lines
abab=
abba=
the dog (a)
the dog (a)
and the cat (b)
and the cat (b)
the log (a)
the bat (b)
and the bat. (b)
and the log (a)
Alliteration –repetition of an initial
sound in two or more words
• “. . . What a tale of terror, now, their
turbulency tells!” -Poe
• “Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin for to carry me home. “
-Spiritual
Alliteration
• “. . . Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night. . . .”
-Dylan Thomas
• Daddy's Gone A Hunting
• Bye, baby bunting,
Daddy's gone a - hunting,
Gone to get a rabbit skin
To wrap baby bunting in.
-Mother Goose
• -Blackalicious http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvPnM2Q1nwU
Onomatopoeia – using words for
sounds
• For example - Buzz, Pow, Ugh, Tick-tock, Bam!
Horray for Halloween
When cats howl “Meow”
And howls hoot “Hoo”
And witches fly up in the sky
Horray for Halloween “Boo!”
Created by
Joe Tedesco