Poetry Notes

… Couplet - a pair of successive lines of verse, especially a pair that rhyme and are of the same length. Example: If this be error and upon me proved I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

… Synecdoche - a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part

A part referring to the whole Referring to people according to a single characteristic: "the gray beard" for an older man or "the long hair" for a hippie Describing a complete vehicle as "wheels" Calling a worker "a pair of hands"

A whole thing referring to a part of it "The city posted a sign," which means that an employee of the local government (but not the geographic location or all of its residents) posted a sign "Capitol Hill," when referring to the US Legislature

Specific class name used to refer to a set of associated things “John Hancock" for the signature of any person a generic trademark, for example “Coke" for any variety of cola or “Kleenex" for any variety of tissue

The material that a thing is made of referring to that thing "wood" for a type of club used in golf "plastic" for credit cards "threads" for clothing

Assonance The repetition of vowel sounds "Do you like blue?"

Examples Hear the mellow wedding bells— Edgar Allan Poe “The Bells” That solitude which suits abstruser musings – Coleridge “Dejection; An Ode”

Consonance Repetition of consonant sounds at the end of accented syllables "all mammals named Sam are clammy“ The smack cracked my back.

Note: Consonance should not be confused with assonance, which is the repetition of vowel sounds. Alliteration is a special case of consonance where the repeated consonant sound is at the beginning of each word, as in "few flocked to the fight".