Poetic Techniques and Elements

Poetic Elements

Figurative Language 4 Words or phrases used in such a way as to suggest something more than just their usual dictionary meaning 4 Most figurative speech involves comparisons. 4 Example: If you tell someone standing on a street corner to jump in the lake, you are speaking figuratively. 4 Examples: simile, metaphor, hyperbole and personification

Imagery 4 all images that are created in a poem 4 a mental picture created with words or phrases that appeal to the senses such as sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch

Literal Language 4 uses words in their ordinary sense 4 the opposite of figurative language 4 Example: If you tell someone standing on a diving board to jump, you are speaking literally.

Dramatic Poetry 4 poetry that utilizes the techniques of drama 4 Example: a poem uses dramatic monologue where the poem is spoken by one person and is engaged in a dramatic situation, such as “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe.

Lyric Poem 4 a poem that has a single speaker and expresses a deeply felt thought or emotion that uses a musical quality 4 the speaker usually is speaking to himself/herself 4 Example: Many songs are actually lyric poetry.

Narrative 4 a poem that tells a story 4 Example: “The Raven” is also a narrative poem about a man’s grief over the loss of a loved one.

Verse 4 a group of lines in a poem that forms a unit similar to that of a prose paragraph 4 Two types - Blank and Free

Blank Verse 4 poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter lines

Free Verse 4 poetry that does not have fixed rhythm, rhyme, meter or line length 4 can also change patterns or use no patterns at all

Haiku 4 a 3-line poem with 17 syllables –The first and third line have 5 syllables each –The second line has 7 syllable 4 Example: “Dragonfly catcher, How far have you gone today In your wandering?”

Sonnet 4 A sonnet is a 14 line lyric poem usually written in rhymed iambic pentameter 4 Consists of 3 stanzas with 4 lines and one stanza with two lines 4 Rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg

Ballad 4 anonymous stories told in song 4 usually passed down through generations

Elegy 4 a melancholy or mournful lyric poem about death

Epic 4 a long narrative poem about the deeds of gods and heroes

Fable 4 a story usually using symbolic characters or setting used to teach a lesson 4 Example: “Aesop’s Fables”

Poetic Techniques

Alliteration 4 the repetition of initial consonant sounds 4 Example: “And how the silence surged softly backward”

Assonance 4 the repetition of vowel sounds within words 4 Example: “weak and weary”

Couplet 4 a pair of lines in poetry that rhyme 4 Example: “For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”

Irony 4 the contrast between what is said and what is really meant or between what happens and what was expected to happen 4 Example: There is a poem called “Casey at the Bat” where Casey came up to bat in the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs. Everyone expected him to win the game with a hit or homerun, but he struck out to lose the game.

Metaphor 4 a figure of speech in which one thing is spoken about as if it were another, unlike thing 4 helps the reader see the similarities between two things 4 Example: ”Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly.”

Onomatopoeia 4 the use of words that imitate sounds 4 Examples: sizzle, thud, hiss, clang and pow

Personification 4 a figure of speech in which a non-human object is given human characteristics 4 Example: “I asked the soft snow to play with me She played and she melted in all her prime”

Repetition 4 the use of any element of language - a sound, a word, a phrase, or a sentence that is repeated 4 Example: In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” the word “Nevermore” was repeated many times.

Rhyme 4 Repetition of sounds at the ends of words 4 Two types –End Rhyme –Internal Rhyme

End Rhyme 4 occurs when the rhyming comes at the ends of lines in poetry 4 Example: “ Swans sing before they die - ‘twere no bad thing Should certain persons die before they sing.”

Internal Rhyme 4 occurs when rhyming appears in the same line 4 Example: “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary.”

Rhythm 4 a pattern of beats or stresses in spoken or written language 4 some poems have very specific patterns

Simile 4 a figure of speech in which like or as is used to make a comparison between two basically unlike ideas 4 Example: “Claire is as flighty as a sparrow.”

Stanza 4 a formal division of lines in a poem, considered as a unit which are often separated by spaces