Poetic Techniques and
Elements
Poetic Elements
Figurative Language
 Words or phrases used in such a way as to suggest
something more than just their usual dictionary
meaning
 Most figurative speech involves comparisons.
 Example: If you tell someone standing on a street
corner to jump in the lake, you are speaking
figuratively.
 Examples: simile, metaphor, hyperbole and
personification
Imagery
 all images that are created in a poem
 a mental picture created with words
or phrases that appeal to the senses
such as sight, hearing, taste, smell,
and touch
Literal Language
 uses words in their ordinary sense
 the opposite of figurative language
 Example: If you tell someone
standing on a diving board to jump,
you are speaking literally.
Dramatic Poetry
 poetry that utilizes the techniques of
drama
 Example: a poem uses dramatic
monologue where the poem is spoken
by one person and is engaged in a
dramatic situation, such as “The
Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe.
Lyric Poem
 a poem that has a single speaker and
expresses a deeply felt thought or
emotion that uses a musical quality
 the speaker usually is speaking to
himself/herself
 Example: Many songs are actually
lyric poetry.
Narrative
 a poem that tells a story
 Example: “The Raven” is also a
narrative poem about a man’s grief
over the loss of a loved one.
Verse
 a group of lines in a poem that forms
a unit similar to that of a prose
paragraph
 Two types - Blank and Free
Blank Verse
 poetry written in unrhymed iambic
pentameter lines
Free Verse
 poetry that does not have fixed
rhythm, rhyme, meter or line length
 can also change patterns or use no
patterns at all
Haiku
 a 3-line poem with 17 syllables
– The first and third line have 5 syllables
each
– The second line has 7 syllable
 Example:
“Dragonfly catcher,
How far have you gone today
In your wandering?”
Sonnet
 A sonnet is a 14 line lyric poem usually
written in rhymed iambic pentameter
 Consists of 3 stanzas with 4 lines and
one stanza with two lines
 Rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg
Ballad
 anonymous stories told in song
 usually passed down through
generations
Elegy
 a melancholy or mournful lyric poem
about death
Epic
 a long narrative poem about the
deeds of gods and heroes
Fable
 a story usually using symbolic
characters or setting used to teach a
lesson
 Example: “Aesop’s Fables”
Poetic Techniques
Alliteration
 the repetition of initial consonant
sounds
 Example: “And how the silence
surged softly backward”
Assonance
 the repetition of vowel sounds within
words
 Example: “weak and weary”
Couplet
 a pair of lines in poetry that rhyme
 Example:
“For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth
brings
That then I scorn to change my state with
kings.”
Irony
 the contrast between what is said and what is
really meant or between what happens and what
was expected to happen
 Example: There is a poem called “Casey at the
Bat” where Casey came up to bat in the bottom of
the ninth inning with two outs. Everyone expected
him to win the game with a hit or homerun, but he
struck out to lose the game.
Metaphor
 a figure of speech in which one thing is
spoken about as if it were another, unlike
thing
 helps the reader see the similarities
between two things
 Example:
”Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.”
Onomatopoeia
 the use of words that imitate sounds
 Examples: sizzle, thud, hiss, clang
and pow
Personification
 a figure of speech in which a non-human object is
given human characteristics
 Example:
“I asked the soft snow to play with me
She played and she melted in all her prime”
Repetition
 the use of any element of language - a
sound, a word, a phrase, or a sentence
that is repeated
 Example: In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The
Raven” the word “Nevermore” was
repeated many times.
Rhyme
 Repetition of sounds at the ends of
words
 Two types
– End Rhyme
– Internal Rhyme
End Rhyme
 occurs when the rhyming comes at
the ends of lines in poetry
 Example:
“Swans sing before they die - ‘twere no bad
thing
Should certain persons die before they sing.”
Internal Rhyme
 occurs when rhyming appears in the
same line
 Example:
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered,
weak and weary.”
Rhythm
 a pattern of beats or stresses in
spoken or written language
 some poems have very specific
patterns
Simile
 a figure of speech in which like or as
is used to make a comparison between
two basically unlike ideas
 Example: “Claire is as flighty as a
sparrow.”
Stanza
 a formal division of lines in a poem,
considered as a unit which are often
separated by spaces