Sound Devices
• Poetry has a musical quality
To achieve this musical effect, poets use:
rhyme
rhythm
sound effects
Repetition
What’s is purpose?
1. Musical effect ( quality of sound)
2. Emphasize theme
3. Establish rhythm and structure
Rhyme
The repetition of the sound of the
stressed vowel
(a,e,i,o,u) and any sounds that follow it
in words that are close together.
Examples :
Look and Book
Sat and Fat
Jar and Car
Blue and Clue
Types of Rhyme
• 1. exact ( pure) rhyme : all sounds
from the stressed vowel to the end of the
word are repeated.
Example
immersion --- conversion
pleasure --- treasure
sphere--- revere
2. Slant or approximate,
rhyme:
•some sounds are repeated, but
the words are not exact echoes
of each other.
Example:
regularly--- February
landing --- scanning
song --- gone
3. Eye rhyme: words that look like they
should rhyme, but do not.
Example:
through, rough,
dough
Where Rhyme Occurs
• End Rhyme: rhymes that occur at ends of
lines.
• A regular pattern of end rhyme, or rhyme
scheme, defines the shape of a poem and
holds it together.
• Use lower case letters at ends of lines to
determine its rhyme scheme.
• Internal Rhyme : occurs within a line.
• Rhythm : musical quality based on repetition.
Is it fast, lively, bouncy, jingly, slow?
Sound Effects
• A. Onomatopoeia: use of words that sound like what
they mean.
Example: Humming, Thrumming,
Bang, Ouch!
• B. Alliteration: repetition of the same consonant sound
in several words. Usually at the beginning of words.
• Examples of Alliteration:
Sally sells sea shells
down by the sea shore
• C. assonance: repetition of the same vowel sound (short
or long) in several words.
Example:
Short “I” sound: ring and silver
Long “I" sound: rise and ply
Consonance:
• Repetition at close intervals of
the middle or final consonant
sounds of accentuated syllable
or important words.
• Example:
Book, plaque, thicker the Kaa sound
Take this kiss upon the brow a
And, in parting from you now, a
Thus much let me avow
a
You are not wrong, who deem b
That my days have been a dream; b
Yet if hope has flown away c
In a night, or in a day,
c
In a vision, or in none,
d
Is it therefore the less gone? d
Asll that we see or seem
b
Is but a dream within a dream. b
-- from “ A Dream within a Dream” by Edgar Allan Poe