Sound Devices
“producing music in poetry”
Alliteration: the repetition of beginning consonant
sounds in two or more words near each other
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
or
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee
**all sound devices pertain to words that are
“relatively close together”
Assonance: when the vowel sound is repeated in
the middle of more than one word where the
other sounds are different
And so, all the night tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling – my darling – my life and my bride.
Consonance: when the consonant sound is repeated at the
end of words and the vowel sounds are different
Examples: “hot” and “cat” or “young” and “strong”
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Diction: a writer’s choice of words
– Formal, informal, slang, poetic, ornate, abstract,
etc.
Identify the diction:
“You are all kindness, Madame; but we must
abide by our original plan.” (Pride & Prejudice)
“Ain’t everybody’s daddy the deadest shot in
Maycomb County?” (To Kill a Mockingbird)
Iambic Pentameter
“The Art of the Poet”
10-syllable lines of rhymed,
unstressed/stress meter. The stressed
syllables are purple.
‘T’is three o’clock; and, Romans, yet ere
night
We shall try fortune in a second fight
Label the unstressed/stressed syllables
And after this let Caesar seat him sure:
For we will shake him, or worse days endure.
Cassius: I.ii.321-322
When iambic pentameter is read out loud it will follow a beat such as –da DUM,
da-DUM or toe-heel, toe-heel
Rhythm & Meter
Meter: regular rhythm involving stressed and unstressed
syllables
Types of Meter
Types of Feet
Iamb: - /
Trochee: / Spondee: / /
Anapest: - - /
Dactyl: / - -
Dimeter – 2 feet Tetrameter – 4 feet
Trimeter – 3 feet Pentameter – 5 feet
*Each of these are one metrical foot
Label the meter in each of these lines:
Because I could not stop for death iambic tetrameter
He kindly stopped for me.
iambic trimeter
Poetry scansion: when you mark the syllables and
the rhyme scheme
Hickory Dickory Dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one,
The mouse ran down!
Hickory Dickory Dock.
Onomatopoeia: the use of words to imitate
the sounds they describe
“crack” or “whir”
“Gr-r-r—there go, my heart’s abhorrence!”
Rhyme:
when the ending vowel and consonant sounds are the same in two
or more words.
End rhyme: words rhyming at the end of poetic
lines
It's enough to make me weep...
And all because of that little creep
Internal rhyme: one or both rhyming words
occur in the middle of a line
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Scan these lines
Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Identify the sound devices
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know. (consonance )
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here (assonance)
To watch his woods fill up with snow. (alliteration)
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near (assonance)
Between the woods and frozen lake (consonance)
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake. (consonance)
The only other sound's the sweep (alliteration)
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Free Verse Assignment:
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write a paragraph entitled “Who Am I”
break the paragraph into lines
revise the lines until they look, feel, and
sound right to you
turn in your poem