Poetic Devices STILTS: terminology to help you understand poetry

STILTS is an acronym S = structure T = tone I = imagery L = language T = theme S = sound

Structure stanza: two or more lines of verse with space breaks before and after; a poem’s version of a paragraph free verse: poetry with no fixed meter or rhyme pattern blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter

Structure refrain: a word, phrase, line or stanza repeated at intervals (often in songs or lyric poetry) couplet: two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry: “Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.” Alexander Pope

Structure enjambment: when one line flows into another without grammatical pause: “ Fear the gods’ wrath—before they wheel in outrage and make these crimes recoil on your heads.” (Fagles ) end-stopped: a line of verse that ends in a full pause, usually indicated by a mark of punctuation. This is the opposite of enjambment.

Structure internal rhyme: when rhyming words fall within the line: Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary end rhyme: when rhyming words are repeated at the end of a line: Whose woods these are I think I know, His house is in the village, though; half rhyme/slant rhyme: Final consonant sounds are the same but the vowel sounds are different: fill and shell; letter and litter; bean and bone

Tone Tone: the speaker’s attitude towards the subject  EX: angry, satiric, critical, objective Tone affects Mood: the dominant feeling or atmosphere of the piece  EX: humorous, suspenseful

Imagery image: a series of words that refer to a sensory object, usually an object of sight. An image is a direct or literal re-creation of perceptual experience. figure of speech: an expression or comparison whose meaning is metaphorical, ironic, or rhetorical, not literal. In a figure of speech, at least two meanings are in play.

Imagery personification: a figure of speech in which a thing, an animal or an abstraction is given human characteristics Ex: Smiling happily, the sunflowers stretched toward the sun.

Imagery metaphor: a direct comparison of two unlike things for an effect: She is a bomb, and she exploded in my heart.  tenor: original idea/topic—what the writer is trying to make more understandable. This is something unfamiliar.  vehicle: the thing to which the tenor is being compared. This is something familiar. simile: a comparison using like or as: My love is like a red, red rose She is as cute as a button

Language diction: word choice  formal, informal, colloquial, dialect, concrete, abstract, scientific, rhetorical purpose, figurative denotation: actual/literal definition of a word: home = dwelling or place of shelter connotation: association or additional meaning that is based on the shared emotional experience with a word: home = safety, security, acceptance

Language oxymoron: a figure of speech that is a contradiction in terms Ex: jumbo shrimp, old news, freezer burn hyperbole: deliberate exaggeration or overstatement; a basic tool of irony Ex: Her mouth was as big as the Grand Canyon.

Sound alliteration: repetition of initial/beginning consonant sound Ex: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers assonance: repetition of two or more vowel sounds in successive words Ex: a fat cat sat on a mat

Sound consonance: repetition of consonant sounds not located in the beginning of words Ex: pitter patter butter) onomatopoeia: a literary device in which a thing or action is represented by a word that imitates the sound associated with it. Ex: crash, buzz, hum, tick-tock

Sound rhythm: the pattern of beats, or stresses, in a poem meter: a systematic rhythmic pattern of stresses in verse