Diction, Imagery & Syntax
AP ENGLISH
DICTION
Diction, or word choice, is critical in poetry. Poets look always for the most meaningful,
accurate words.
Poets often take advantage of the fact that words have more than one meaning.
Because poems are so tiny, the language if very compressed, which heightens the
meaning of the word.
Poets look for words that will have a great deal of resonance.
Poets do not use the complexity and multiplicity of meaning to confuse, but rather to
demonstrate how complex, ineffable, and ambiguous life can often be.
Poets are not trying to convey information, but to create an experience that generates an
emotional/intellectual/imaginative response in a reader.
About Words
Words have three distinct components:
Denotation: the literal, dictionary definition
Connotation: the suggested, emotional, deeper meaning beyond the definition
Sound: the sounds a poem makes due to its syllables/letters
Remember that all words vary in context. So, for one speaker, spring may connote
birth, reawakening, but to another poet (or character), it might be “the cruelest month”
(Dickinson).
Juxtaposition
Poets like to juxtapose words, images, meanings to create tension and surprise in poems.
Look at this sentence by Edith Sitwell:
This is the time of the wild spring and the mating of tigers. (Do you see how “wild”
can connote “pouncing” of a beast of pray, yet juxtaposed with the more “joyous” word
“spring,” it creates a strange tension that also happens at the close with the use of the
word “tiger” instead of saying “rabbits” or other furry, harmless beasties.
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Consider all the meanings of the word spring: to pounce or leap, the season, a source of
water, coiled elastic. Hmm…that small word gets a lot of bang for its buck.
Cacophony/euphony: Cacophony happens when words sound off, disjointed, or out of
tune when they are placed together. Euphony is when words, when placed together,
create harmony, and sounds that are pleasing to the ears—think “Fern Hill”: “lamb white
days.” (euphony means…
(The definition of cacophony is: (n) jarring or disjointed sounds
The definition of euphony is: (n) agreeable sound)
Phonetic intensives: Are words whose sound, by some process unknown to
humankind, connects to its meaning:
Initial fl sound = associated with moving light: flame, flare, flash, flicker, flimmer.
Initial gl sound = is also associate with light: glow, gleam, glint, glisten, glare
Initial sl sound = introduces words associated with “smoothly wet”: slippery, slick,
slide slime, slop, slosh, slobber, slushy
Initial st sound = associated with strength: staunch, stocky, stalwart, stout, steady,
stocky
Short i sound = associated with smallness: imp, inch, thin, slim, chink, kid, kitten
Long o or oo = suggests melacoly or sorrow: doom, mourn, woe, forlorn, toll, moody
Final are = associated with big light or noise: flare, glare, stare, blare
Final er and le = suggest repetition: glitter, flutter, shimmer, whisper, jabber, chatter,
clatter, sputter, flicker, twitter, mutter, ripple,
bubble, sparkle, rattle, rumble, jungle
Mid-word att = suggests movement: spatter, scatter, shatter, chatter, rattle, prattle,
clatter, batter
Onomatopoeia: use of words that sound like what they mean: hiss, snap, bang.
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Syntax
Syntax describes the order and structure of a sentence. Remember that often, writers use
the end of sentences to express emphasis, so this is important to notice what parts of the
sentence are at the close. In poetry, often writers use enjambment to emphasize a word or
idea or to create surprise and irony.
A typical English syntax develops a sentence in this order: subject, predicate, object.
So, writers often change this order to create effect.
Writers use syntax to heighten the
meaning, create tension and surprise, and create voice.
Here are the different things to consider about syntax:
Sentence Length: long, medium, short—how do the different lengths of sentences
impact the work as a whole?
(Short lines often take longer to read and focus attention on individual
words and ideas. Longer lines sometimes create a fast, racing feeling)
Types of Sentences:
Declarative: statement
Exclamatory: excited!
Rhetorical: question
Imperative: command
Punctuation: Why is the writer using a colon, a dash, a semi-colon, etc? What’s the
purpose of that particular punctuation on the poem as a whole? If you change the periods
to commas in a sentence (or vice versa), what happens? How does this change the
sentence/the meaning?
Clauses: Which clause is subordinate, which is the independent clause? Why has the
writer put the
Word Order: Writers will often invert a sentence (place the verb before the subject or
the object before the subject and verb) to create effect. Often placing a verb or verbal at
the beginning of the sentence give the sentence energy and juice.
Repetition/Anaphora: When poets repeat themselves—pay attention! Because the
language of poetry is so compressed (when writers use the least amount of words to say a
lot—Emily Dickinson is Queen of Compression), poets only repeat when they are trying
to create effect.
Word Omission: Sometimes writers will use ellipses… to omit words, or will make a
verb or noun “understood.” Always ask …why?
Capitalization: When writers capitalize words in weird places, ask…”why?”
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Literary Devices: Imagery
Imagery is the representation through language of sense experience (sensory language).
Here are the different types of sensory language:
Sound (auditory imagery) “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—“ (Dickinson, again)
a. Dialogue is a sound device fiction writers use to make their characters believable and
real:
“Just ‘fore sundown. Well, I was sayin’ Mayella was screamin’ fit to beat
Jesus—“ (174). (Bob Ewell from To Kill a Mockingbird)
b. “From behind us, there was an angry, muffled groan from the colored people” (175).
(Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird)
Touch (tactile imagery) “But I clung on like death…” (from “My Papa’s Waltz”)
“..but I turned to go and met Atticus’s vest front. I buried my head in it and listened
to the small internal noises that went on behind the light blue cloth: his watch was
ticking, the faint crackle of his starched shirt, the soft sound of his breathing” (134).
Tactile, sound, and visual imagery used here! Wow.
Taste (gustatory imagery)
“The apples tasted sweet and sour on the edge of my tongue”
Sight (visual imagery)
“Black body swinging in the Southern breeze…” (from “Strange Fruit”)
Smell (olfactory imagery) “The whiskey on your breath/Could make a small boy
dizzy…” (from “My Papa’s Waltz”)
Internal Sensation (organic imagery): hunger, thirst, fatigue, nausea “I felt a funeral in
my brain” Dickinson, once again.
Movement or tension in the muscle joints (kinesthetic imagery)
When poets mix two senses together, this is called synesthesia: The buzzing blue vase;
her red dress was so loud it was light a trumpet screeching through the party;
“…the car lights crawled sage fields” (from “History Lessons”)
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In poetry and prose, all of the images presented contribute in some way to the work as a
whole. When images seem to be placed strangely together, that’s your cue to ask why the
writer would do that.
Stanzas often contain similar images that speak to each other in some way.
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