Literature Terms
Sonic and Rhythmic
Devices, Structure
AP Literature
from Perrine’s Literature Structure, Sound & Sense, 10th
ed.,
Discovering Literature, and Sparkcharts
What is poetry?
 Poetry is a literary form characterized by a strong sense
of rhythm and meter and an emphasis on the interaction
between sound and sense.
 The study of the elements of poetry is called prosody.
“Poetry is as universal as
language and almost as
ancient. The most primitive
peoples have used it, and
the most civilized have
cultivated it.”
What makes poetry so
appealing?
 Simple enjoyment
 It is regarded as giving value to the fully realized life—
something central to existence.
 Something that, without which, we are spiritually
impoverished
What is poetry?
 “Poetry might be defined as a kind of language
that says more and says it more intensely than
does ordinary language.”
 It “exists to communicate significant experience—
significant because it is concentrated and
organized.”
What is poetry?
 “Poetry makes a greater use of the “music” of
language than does language that is not poetry.
 The poet, unlike the person who uses language to
convey only information, chooses words for sound
as well as for meaning, and uses the sound as a
means of reinforcing meaning.”
Literary Term: Sonic
Devices
 “Poets may repeat any unit of sound from the
smallest to the largest. They may repeat
individual vowel and consonant sounds, whole
syllables, words, phrases, lines or groups of lines.”
(alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme)
Sonic Devices

The repetition of sound serves several purposes:
1. It is pleasing to the ear
2. It emphasizes the words in
which the repetition occurs
3. It gives structure to the
poem
Sonic Devices
Alliteration:

Repetition at close intervals of the initial consonant
sounds of accented syllables or important words:
“descending dew drops”
“luscious lemons”
“Inebriate of Air-am I”
Sonic Devices
 Alliteration: Is based on the sounds of letters, rather
than the spelling of words:
“keen” and “car” alliterate;
but “car” and “cite” do not
 Used sparingly, it can intensify ideas by emphasizing key
words.
Sonic Devices
The Eagle
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he
stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Sonic Devices
 Suicide’s Note
The calm,
Cool face of the
river
Asked me for a
kiss.
-Langston Hughes
Sonic Devices
Assonance:
 The repetition of similar vowel sounds
in a sequence of nearby words that do
not end the same
“hat…ran…amber” “asleep under a tree”
“mad as a hatter”
“each evening”
“time out of mind”
“free and easy”
“slapdash”
Sonic Devices
Consonance
 Repetition of consonant sound in any position
 A common type of near rhyme that consists of identical
consonant sounds preceded by different vowel sounds
“home…same”
“worth…breath”
Sonic Devices
 In Shakespeare’s Macbeth:
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
Sonic Devices
Euphony:
 “good sound”
 Refers to language that is smooth and musically
pleasant to the ear
 “Many consider “cellar door” one of the most euphonious
phrases in English.”
Sonic Devices
Cacophony: harsh sounds
 The clash of discordant sounds within a sentence or
phrase.
 A familiar feature of tongue twisters but can also be
used to poetic effect.
 It is language that is discordant and difficult to
pronounce.
Sonic Devices
Cacophony:
“Player Piano”
“never my numb plunker fumbles.”
-John Updike
Sonic Devices
Onomatopoeia
 The use of a word that resembles the sound it denotes.
 Words like buzz, rattle, bang, and sizzle all reflect
onomatopoeia