1. Introduction to Literature
Poetic Devices
Introduction to Literature

2. Figurative Language
Metaphor: direct comparison of two things. Implies that one object is another object (doesn’t use “like” or “as”)
Ex. Life is a box of chocolates.
Ex. Clare is a flighty sparrow.
Simile: uses like or as to make a comparison between two basically unlike ideas
Ex. Life is like a box of chocolates
Ex. Clare is as flighty as a sparrow.
Personification:   A type of figurative language that gives human characteristics to non-human things
Ex. The wind whispered through the trees.

3. Musical devices: devices that give a poem a melodious quality
Alliteration: repetition of initial consonant sound
Ex. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
Assonance: repetition of a vowel sound
Ex. On a proud round cloud in a white high night.
Ex. “And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride.
(Edgar Allan Poe, "Annabel Lee”)
Consonance: the repetition of consonant sounds (especially near the end of a word)
Ex. Clocks on fox tick. Clocks on Knox tock. Six sick bricks tick. Six sick chicks tock. (k, ks and x)

4. Onomatopoeia: A word that imitates the sound(s) it represents
Ex. buzz = sound of a bee
Ex. Sizzle, hiss, splash
Hyperbole- A deliberate exaggeration or overstatement.
Ex. This poetry project is killing me.
Ex. This class lasts forever.

5. Repetition: the use of any element of language (sound, word, phrase, sentence) more than once.
Imagery: Descriptive or figurative language used to create word pictures for the reader.
Symbol: an object that represents something else.
Ex: the color black- death, sadness, depression, etc.
Allusion: a reference to a well-known person, place, event, literary work, or work of art.

6. Rhyme: the repetition of similar sounds at the ends of words Ex:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could.
- Robert Frost “The Road Not Taken”
Rhyme scheme: regular pattern of rhyming words that appear in a poem (AABB, ABAB, ABAA, etc.)
-The example above is ABAA

7. Meter
Meter: the rhythmical pattern of a poem, determined by the number and types of stresses or beats, in each line.
I wandered lonely as a cloud.
most common is iambic pentameter (unstressed, stressed)
All TYPES of different meters
Ex. Romeo and Juliet
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;