Poetry Essentials
LITERARY TERMS FOR INTERPRETING POEMS
Sound
Devices Used
in Poetry
1. RHYME/RHYTHM
(1) Internal Rhyme
(2) End Rhyme
2. ALLITERATION
3. ASSONANCE
4. CONSONANCE
5. ONOMATOPOEIA
INTERNAL RHYME
Also called middle rhyme, a rhyme occurring within a line of poetry,
as in this line from “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe:
•“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary...”
ALLITERATION
The repetition of initial stressed,
consonant sounds in a series of
words within a phrase or verse line
“She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.”
-From “She walks in Beauty” by Lord
Byron
ASSONANCE—internal vowel rhyme
THE CLOSE JUXTAPOSITION OF THE
SAME OR SIMILAR VOWEL SOUNDS,
BUT WITH DIFFERENT END
CONSONANTS, IN A LINE OF POETRY
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding
sight,
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
-From Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle into
the Good Night”
“He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
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.”
-From Robert Frost’s “Stopping by the Woods
on a Snowy Evening”
CONSONANCE—internal consonant rhyme
REPETITION OF A CONSONANT SOUND
MOST OFTEN THROUGH THE MIDDLE
OR END OF SEVERAL WORDS THAT
ARE CLOSE TO EACH OTHER
“He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.”
-From “The Eagle” by Alfred Lord
Tennyson
“Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows—through doors—
burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the
congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is
studying . . .”
-From “Beat! Beat! Drums!” by Walt
Whitman
ONOMATOPOEIA*
“I too am not a bit tamed, I too am
untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the
world.”
-From “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman
*words that are spelled like the sounds they
represent
Figurative
Language and
the Art of Poetry
1. Simile
2. Metaphor
3. Extended Metaphor
4. Personification
5. Symbolism
6. Allegory
7. Metonym
8. Synecdoche
9. Hyperbole
10. Understatement
SIMILE
A COMPARISON USING THE WORDS “LIKE” OR
“AS”
“In the eastern sky there was a yellow
patch like a rug laid for the feet of the
coming sun . . .” — The Red Badge of
Courage, by Stephen Crane
METAPHOR
AN IMPLICIT, IMPLIED OR HIDDEN COMPARISON
BETWEEN TWO THINGS THAT AREN’T TYPICALLY
COMPARED
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
“She entered with ungainly struggle like
some huge awkward chicken, torn,
squawking, out of its coop.” — The
Adventure of the Three Gables, by Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”
-From AsYou Like It, Act II, Scene VII by
William Shakespeare
EXTENDED METAPHOR
But all the time
-A COMPARISON BETWEEN TWO UNLIKE OR
DISSIMILAR THINGS THAT CONTINUES
THROUGHOUT A SERIES OF LINES IN A POEM
“Mother and Son”
by Langston Hughes
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
Don’t you set down on the steps
It’s had tacks in it,
‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
And splinters,
And boards torn up, And places with no carpet
on the floor —
Bare.
Don’t you fall now —
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
PERSONIFICATION
-A FIGURE OF SPEECH IN WHICH A THING, AN
IDEA OR AN ANIMAL IS GIVEN HUMAN
ATTRIBUTES OR QUALITIES
[…]
“I ran up six flights of stairs
I told her: “You I loved best in life
to my small furnished room
... but you’re a killer; Beauty kills!”
opened the window
Not really meaning to drop her
and began throwing out
those things most important in life
Then Beauty ... ah, Beauty—
As I led her to the window
I immediately ran downstairs
getting there just in time to catch her
First to go, Truth, squealing like a fink:
“You saved me!” she cried
“Don’t! I’ll tell awful things about you!”
I put her down and told her: “Move on.” […]
“Oh yeah? Well, I’ve nothing to hide ... OUT!”
-From “The Whole Mess . . . Almost” by Beat
poet Gregory Corso
SYMBOLISM
ALLEGORY
THE USE OF SYMBOLS TO
REPRESENT IDEAS OR QUALITIES
A POEM OR STORY IN WHICH THE
CHARACTERS AND EVENTS ARE
SYMBOLS THAT STAND FOR IDEAS
ABOUT HUMAN LIFE OR FOR A
POLITICAL OR HISTORICAL SITUATION
“The Rose That Grew From Concrete”
Did you hear about the rose that grew
from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong it
learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams,
it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
when no one else ever cared.
-Tupac Shakur (b. 1971)
METONYM
SYNECDOCHE
A FIGURE OF SPEECH THAT REPLACES
THE NAME OF A THING WITH THE NAME
OF SOMETHING ELSE WITH WHICH IT IS
CLOSELY ASSOCIATED
“The pen is mightier than the sword.”
A LITERARY DEVICE IN WHICH A PART
OF SOMETHING REPRESENTS THE
WHOLE OR IT MAY USE A WHOLE TO
REPRESENT A PART.
***
“The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling . . . “
-From Robert Frost’s “Out, Out—”
“I should have been a pair of ragged claws /
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”
-From T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J.
Alfred Prufrock”
***
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your
ears.”
-Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” Act I.
HYPERBOLE
UNDERSTATEMENT
EXAGGERATED STATEMENTS OR
CLAIMS NOT MEANT TO BE TAKEN
LITERALLY
THE PRESENTATION OF SOMETHING AS
BEING SMALLER, WORSE, OR LESS
IMPORTANT THAN IT ACTUALLY IS
HYPERBOLE
UNDERSTATEMENT
EXAGGERATED STATEMENTS OR
CLAIMS NOT MEANT TO BE TAKEN
LITERALLY
THE PRESENTATION OF SOMETHING AS
BEING SMALLER, WORSE, OR LESS
IMPORTANT THAN IT ACTUALLY IS
“I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry . . .”
-From W.H Auden’s poem “As I Walked One
Evening”
“I have to have this operation. It isn’t very
serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the
brain.”
-Statement by Holden Caulfield in J.D.
Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye
THE BUILDING
BLOCKS OF
POETRY: FORM
AND DICTION
1. STANZA, LINE AND
FORM
2. RHYME SCHEME
3. CONNOTATION
4. DENOTATION
5. TONE/POETIC
DICTION
STANZA, LINE AND FORM
STANZA—A grouping of lines separated from others in a poem.
In modern free verse, the stanza, like a paragraph in prose
writing, can be used to mark a shift in mood, time, or thought.
QUATRAIN—A four line stanza
FORM—The way that the lines of a poem are arranged on a
page
COUPLET—A pair of successive lines of verse, especially a pair
that rhyme and are of the same length.
RHYME SCHEME
A RHYME SCHEME IS THE PATTERN
OF RHYMES AT THE END OF EACH LINE OF A
POEM. IT IS USUALLY REFERRED TO BY USING
LETTERS TO INDICATE WHICH LINES RHYME;
LINES DESIGNATED WITH THE SAME LETTER
ALL RHYME WITH EACH OTHER.
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
A
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
A
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
B
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
-”Dreams” by Langston Hughes
-From William Wordsworth’s “I
Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
B
CONNOTATION
DENOTATION
THE EMOTIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
IMPLIED BY A WORD APART FROM ITS
LITERAL MEANING
THE LITERAL MEANING OF A WORD
Home, House, Residence, Dwelling
Denotation:
These words all mean a place in which someone lives.
Connotation:
Home:
cozy, loving, comfortable, security, images or feelings of people
you associate with it
It could also opposite --depending upon a person’s experiences.
(Traditionally, the connotation is “cozy, loving,” etc., and a reader
should be aware of this and other connotations in a reading
passage.)
House:
the actual building or structure
Residence:
Cold, no feeling
Dwelling:
primitive or basic (picture a cave, etc.)
TONE
POETIC DICTION
A POEM'S TONE IS THE ATTITUDE THAT ITS
STYLE IMPLIES.
THE TERM USED TO REFER TO THE STYLE, THE
VOCABULARY, AND THE METAPHORS USED IN
THE WRITING OF POETRY
I hate the way you talk to me
And the way you cut your hair
I hate the way you drive my car
I hate it when you stare
I hate your big dumb combat boots
And the way you read my mind
I hate you so much that it makes me sick
It even makes me rhyme
I hate the way you're always right
I hate it when you lie
I hate it when you make me laugh
Even worse when you make me cry
I hate the way you're not around
And the fact that you didn't call
But mostly I hate the way I don't hate
you
Not even close, not even a little bit, not
even at all.
From Ten Things I Hate About You:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGV4hxh
xW8o