Literary and Poetic Devices
(Rob’s class handout)
Alliteration – use of the same consonant at the beginning of each word
Parallelism – using the same structure in multiple lines to compare or contrast, establish rhythm
or rhyme, or create emphasis
Juxtaposition – placing two different things next to each other to make a comparison
Repetition – doing or saying the same thing again; in poetry, reusing the same words or phrases
multiple times
Anaphora - Repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of multiple lines
Euphemism – a word or phrase that is a more “polite” way of saying something (“passed on” vs.
“died”)
Tautology - Words or phrases that basically mean the same thing – used for emphasis.
Metaphor - A joining of two different things; saying they are the same (“my love is a rose”)
Simile - Saying two things are similar, but not saying they are the same (“my love is like a rose”)
Personification – attributing human characteristics to non-human things or abstract ideas.
Imagery – the elements that engage the reader’s senses; the ability to create mental pictures of
things or events.
Stanza – a fixed number of lines of verse forming a unit of a poem (the equivalent of a
paragraph in prose, but in poetry)
Couplet – a stanza consisting of two lines of verse.
Quatrain - A stanza that is composed of four lines of verse.
“Shakespearean” or “English” Sonnet – written in iambic pentameter, consisting of 14 lines in
3 quatrains and a couplet, with a Rhyme Scheme of abab cdcd efef gg.
Iambic pentameter – “five feet” – an “iamb” is a single “foot”; a beat composed of 2 syllables.
“penta” is 5; iambic pentameter is a line of verse that has a total of 10 syllables; the first syllable
is unstressed, while the second one is stressed (“ba-BUM, ba-BUM, ba-BUM, ba-BUM, baBUM)
Rhyme scheme – the pattern of rhyme that is used in a poem.