Definitions of Poetic Devices
- simile: a comparison using
"as" or "like" e.g., "as a great elm wallows before the
storm."
- metaphor: a comparison
not using as or like when one thing is said to be
another.
- hyperbole: exaggeration
for dramatic effect e.g., "all the perfumes of Arabia will not
sweeten this (murderer's) hand".
- oxymoron: a seeming
contradiction in two words put together: "parting is such sweet
sorrow."
- paradox: seeming
contradiction that surprises by its pithiness.
- onomatopoeia: "sound
echoing sense"; use of words resembling the sounds they mean,
e.g., biz buzz, humming, pant and puff.
- personification:
attribution of human motives or behaviours to impersonal
agencies.
- alliteration: the
deliberate repetition of consonant sounds, e.g., "Build, build
your Babels!"
- assonance: deliberate
repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds: "the tread of the
feet of the dead".
- transferred epithet:
surprising association of adjective and noun e.g., "with half
closed cynic eyes."
- apostrophe: an address
to a person absent or dead or to an abstract entity: e.g., "Death
where is thy sting?"
- antithesis: balanced
contrast for special effect: e.g., "Lord of all things, yet prey
to all."
- echo: repetition of key word
or idea for effect.
- cadence: a sequence of
sounds achieving a falling effect.
- rhyming couplet: a pair
of lines which end-rhyme expressing one clear thought.
- epigram, aphorism: pithy
or witty saying.
- ellipsis: a
circumlocution, a round-about way of expressing
something.
- euphemism: more
favourable alternative name for an unpleasant or ugly thing or
event.
- litotes: saying something
positive by using two negatives, e.g., he's no mug.
- diction: poet's
distinctive choices in vocabulary.
- rhyme: repetition of same
sounds.
- rhythm: internal 'feel' of
beat and meter perceived when poetry is read aloud.
- tone, mood,
atmosphere: feelings or meanings conveyed in the poem; dominant
feeling.
- pathetic fallacy: a
transfer of human feelings onto impersonal agencies; taking
advantage of coincidence to suggest causal link between feeling
and event, e.g., stormy Nature mourns the death of a king."As the
moon is lonely in the sky, lonely is the bush and lonely I"
(Esson).
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A self test on devices of poetry
Identify the poetical devices in these
examples:
(There may be more than one in each)
1. "like a rocket shot to a ship ashore/ the lean
red bolt of his body tore" ................
2. "Arabia will not sweeten this little hand"
.......................
3. "If anything might rouse him now/ the kind old
sun will know" ....................
4. "the road was a ribbon of moonlight, looping
the purple moor" ...................
5. "having a glass of blessings standing by."
.......................
6. "grass ...... following wind-worried"
......................
7. "they were bright bubbles bursting from the
trees" ....................
8. "the murmuring of innumerable bees"
.......................
9. "lightening his load of links with pant and
puff" .......................
10. "Tonight it doth inherit the vasty Hall of
Death" .......................
11. "faint of ghosts of ghosts, the dreams of
ghostly eyes" .....................
12. "leaves hung like dumb tongues that loll and
gasp for air" .......................
13. "Thou art my life, my love, my heart/ The very
eyes of me" ......................
14. "Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky"
......................
15. "By his dead smile, I knew we stood in Hell"
......................
16. "the cockatoo ..the wise, harsh bird, as old
and wise as Time" .......................
17. "the curious bird, his cynic eyes half closed"
......................
18. "Hail to thee bright spirit/ Bird thou never
wert!" .......................
19. "The evil that men do lives after them The
good is oft interred with their bones."
.......................
20. "Where are the songs of Spring? Ay where are
they?" ......................
G. Smith 1998