Poetic Devices Glossary Acrostic: a poem in which letters of successive lines form a word or pattern. An Austrian army awfully array d Boldly by battery besieged Belgade. Cossack commanders cannonading come Dealing destruction s devastating doom. Alaric Watts Aestheticism: a literary and artistic movement of the nineteenth century, emerging in France and developing in England and other European countries. Aestheticism generally held that life should be lived as art and that art should be independent of social, political, or moral teaching, hence the doctrine art for art s sake. Aesthetics: from Greek: aisthetikos, sense perception, is a term introduced into philosophical discussions in the mid-18 th to refer to the exploration of the nature of art and its place in human experience. Allegory: long and complicated story with an underlying meaning different from the surface meaning. Allegorical meanings are often political, religious, or satiric, e.g. Orwell s Animal Farm. Alliteration: the close repetition of consonant sounds usually at the beginning of words in a single line of poetry, e.g. The lone and level sands stretch far away Allusion: reference, usually brief, to a historical or literary event, figure or text. The purpose is to add additional significance or weight to a story or poem. Titles often allude to older classics, e.g., Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck alludes to a famous poem by Robert Burns. Animism: the attribution of conscious life to all natural objects or the belief that all things have souls. Animism goes beyond personification, wherein animals, natural forces and so on are given human qualities: animism gives objects vitality and often sentience. Apathy: a lack of interest. The student has considerable aptitude in English, but his apathy resulted in a poor mark. Apostrophe: the direct addressing of a person or entity as if it was present and listening, e.g. Oh wild west wind, thou breath of Autumn s being. Anticlimax: a sudden drop from the serious and elevated to the trivial and mundane. Anagram: a word or a phrase made by transposing the letters of another word or phrase, e.g. cask for sack. Archaic Language: a word, phrase or style of writing that is no longer in current use but is sometimes used to impart an old-fashioned flavour.
Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds in different words in a single line of poetry. Assonance is found in each line of the following quatrain: Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are! Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky. Atmosphere: the mood or feeling of a literary work. Atmosphere is often developed through setting (should not be confused with tone). Anachronism: the appearance of a person, event or object in a time before this person or object was in existence. An example would be the use of a rifle in Viking times or a reference to Christ in an ancient Greek epic. Blank verse: written in iambic pentameter (a light beat followed by a heavy beat. five times per line). Of all the English verse forms, it is the most fluid and comes closest to the natural rhythms in English speech. The following example is from William Wordsworth s Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey: With some uncertain notice, as might seem, Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, Or by some hermit s cave, where by his fire Cacophony: the opposite of euphony, and is a combination of harsh, unpleasant sounds which creates discordance. Cacophony can be achieved through use of difficult to articulate words, harsh consonants, or jerky rhythms, e.g. The bare black cliff changed all around him as he based/ His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang. Caricature: involves the use of exaggeration or distortion to make a person or public figure seem comic or ridiculous. Chorus: part of a poem that is repeated. Cliché: an expression used so frequently that it has lost most of its vitality, e.g. think outside of the box, the situation on the ground, she was like a deer caught in a headlight. Climax: a figure of speech contained in a sentence where each word, phrase, or clause is more forceful than the one before it, e.g. And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before. Colloquial: informal; suitable for everyday speech but not for formal writing. Colloquial language: the use of conventional or familiar language. Comic Relief: humorous content in a literary work meant to offset more serious events or episodes. Consonance: the repetition of consonant sounds in a group of words. Alliteration is a form of consonance, e.g., morning morning s minion:
Couplet: two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme, as in this line from Shakespeare s Sonnet 18: So long as men can breathe and eyes can see So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. Descriptive poem: a poem whose primary purpose is to describe an object or character. Typically, descriptive poems describe some element of the landscape, for example, a thunderstorm, a tree or a rainbow. Didactic: a form of poetry that has as its primary intention the teaching of some lesson or moral, or the making of some critical comment about society. The sonnet, although typically a lyric, is sometimes developed as a form for didactic poetry. Discrepancy: distinct difference between two things that should not be different or that should correspond. Dramatic Irony: a situation in which a reader or an audience becomes aware of something that a character in the literary text does not know. Dramatic Monologue: a form of narrative poetry in which one character speaks to one or more listeners whose replies are not given. Dissonance: harsh sound or discordance. Dissonance can be emotional or intellectual. Epigram: a brief pointed saying or quick verse that passes on some wit or wisdom, e.g. The only way to defeat temptation is to yield to it; Strike while the iron is hot. Euphemism: the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh or blunt, e.g. To pass away instead of to die ; enhanced interrogation for torture. Euphony: a combination of speech sounds which read easily and sound pleasant. Euphony employs more vowels and the softer consonants, e.g. But soft! What light on yonder window breaks? / It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Figure of speech: use of any word or group of words in a way other than literal to increase the writings effectiveness by appealing to the imagination. Hyperbole: exaggeration for effect, e.g. And I will love still my dear / Until all the seas run dry. Irony: a device by which a writer expresses a meaning contradictory to the stated or ostensible one. There are many techniques for achieving irony.. The writer may, for example, make it clear that the meaning she intends is the opposite of the literal one (verbal / rhetorical irony), or she may construct a discrepancy between expectation and its fulfillment, or between the appearance of a situation or the reality that underlies it (situation irony). Whatever her technique, the writer demands that the reader perceived the concealed meaning that lies beneath the surface statement. See dramatic irony.
Litotes: a kind of understatement where the speaker or writer uses a negative of a word ironically, to the mean the opposite, e.g. She s not the friendliest person I know; He was not unfamiliar with the works of Dickens. Lyric: a short poem that expresses the private emotions or thoughts of the writer. Orignally, lyrics were poems intended to be sung. Sonnets, odes and elegies are examples of lyrics. As the poetic genre developed, it retained the melodic and musical quality. (In modern use, lyrics always plural are the words of a song.) Metonymy: the use of a characteristic associated with something to stand for the thing itself, e.g. The pen [the power of literature] is mightier than the sword [military power] ; He is reading Shakespeare [He is reading the works of William Shakespeare]; The stage has been Sire Hugh s life since he was a child. [The stage stands for involvement with theatrical production]; Fifty keels ploughed the deep [Deep stands for the ocean]. Metaphor: a comparison of two different things, qualities or actions. e.g. The apparition of these faces in the crowd; / Petals on a wet, black bough.. [The people in the metro (subway) station are like both an apparition (a ghost) and the wet, black bough of a tree]. Metaphor (Extended): continues to use the same basic elements of comparison, e.g. see Shakespeare s Sonnet 18 : Shall I compare thee to a summer s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Though rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer s lease hath all too short a date Metre: generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry. Motif: recurring theme, situation, incident, idea, image or character type that is found in literature. Mood: in a narrative text, the atmosphere. When a writer orders the setting, action and characters of a story so as to suggest a dominant emotion or patterns of emotions, the reader can say the emotional pattern is the mood of the narrative. Myth: a story, often about immortals and sometimes concerned with religious rituals, intended to give meaning to the mysteries of the world. Narrative (poem): non-dramatic verse that tells a story. Narrative poems such as the Canterbury Tales are generally long and incorporate a complex story-line. Octave: an eight-line poem or stanza. An octave can also refer to the first eight lines of an Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnet.
Ode: a poem expressing lofty emotion. Odes often celebrate an event or are addressed to nature or to some admired person, place or thing. An example is Keats Ode to a Grecian Urn (see Echoes text) Onomatopoeia: the use of words whose pronunciation suggests their meaning: the sound of the word imitates what it describes, e.g. buzz, snap, pop, ripple, slither. Oxymoron: the use of words together which contradict each other, e.g. pretty ugly, terribly happy, marriage hears. Paradox: a statement which contradicts itself, but nonetheless speaks truly, e.g. the only constant is change; The child is the father of the man. Parallelism: the arrangement of similarly constructed clauses, verses, or sentences suggesting some correspondence between them. Pastoral: a type of poem that deals in an idealized way with shepherds and rustic life. Personification: a figure of speech in which inanimate objects and animals are given human characteristics, e.g. the ravens watched thoughtfully; the waves dance before us; the building mocked him Proverb: a short, well-known saying that states a general truth or piece of advice. Quatrain: a stanza of four lines, usually with alternating rhymes. See rhyme scheme. Refrain: a word, line, phrase or group of lines repeated regularly in a poem, usually at the end of each stanza. Repetition: repetition of a words, phrase, or line for effect. Rhetorical question: the act of asking a question of which no answer is required because the answer is obvious. It is used to emphasize the idea expressed in the question, e.g.. Who is here so base that he would be a slave? Rhyme: the repetition of sounds in two or more words or phrases that appear closely to one another in a poem. Rhyme scheme: a pattern of rhymes in a poem. The four-line poem or quatrain, for example, frequently has a rhyme scheme of abab (that is, the first and third lines and second fourth lines rhyme), though it may have such variations as aabb or abcb or abba. Some rhyme schemes in longer units of verse are more complex, as in the Petrarchan sonnet. Rhythm: the arrangement of stressed or unstressed syllables in a pattern. Rhythm is most apparent in poetry, though it is part of all good writing.
Simile: a comparison drawn between two unlike things using like, as or than, e.g. I wandered lonely as a cloud, madder than old King Kong; meaner than a junk yard dog; My love is like a red, red rose. Speaker: separate from the writer; it is the person whose voice or identity dictates the poem or story. Stanza: a stanza is a segment within the formal pattern of a poem, distinguished from other stanzas by clearly indicated divisions. Subjective (language, tone, etc.): Language based on emotion, feeling, or opinion. The opposite of objective language, which is not influenced by emotion or feeling. Lyric poetry is typically subjective. Synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole, e.g. All hands on deck; your daily bread; 50 keels ploughed the deep. Syntax: the way the words of a sentence are organized or arranged. A sentence with good syntax has been assembled in accordance with the rules of grammar. Theme: The general insight or idea about life that a writer wishes to express in a literary work. Not all poems have a theme. A descriptive poem will certainly have a purpose, e.g., the description of a tree or a thunderstorm but not necessarily a theme. Tone: a particular way of speaking or writing. Tone may also describe the general feeling of a piece of work. It can demonstrate a writer s attitude toward characters, settings, conflicts, and so forth. The many forms of tone include thoughtful, chatty, formal, ironic, ridiculous, etc.; tone can also be complex mixture of attitudes. Tragedy: in general, a literary work in which the protagonist meets an unhappy or disastrous end. Understatement: the presentation of something as being smaller, less good, or less important than it actually is. Voice: the tone, syntax, and characteristics of the speaker within a work of literature. Wit: the capacity for inventive thought and quick, keen understanding often with intent of producing humorous responses. Cleverness.