Transcript Poetic Terms

Poetic Terms
Figurative Language and
Sound Devices
Advanced Literary
Analysis
Structure Terms
Stanza:
• a group of lines divided by a space
• a unit of poetic meaning or thought
Aubade
By Marilyn Chin
The candle that would not burn
will never share its glory.
Walking is this easy:
Sunday; Haunauma Bay, your birthday,
and we--too comfortable to notice
the sea forging inward,
that before the picture window
our special pine, dwarfed and hunched
through decades of seastorm and salty
air,
has uprooted to die in the rain.
Structure Terms
Syntax: the formal arrangement of words in a
sentence--the poet’s purposeful choice
A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides-You may have met Him --did you not
His notice sudden is
Emily Dickinson
Structure Terms
Caesura
• pause or break within a line of verse
• can be denoted using a comma, a period, a
semi-colon, colon, a dash, a hyphen, unusual
spacing between words, etc…
Had we but world enough, and time
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass out long love’s day.
-- Andrew Marvell
Structure Terms
End-Stopped Lines:
• line of verse that has a
pause at the end
(denoted by some form of
punctuation)
Enjambment/Run-on
Lines:
• line of verse that does not
pause at the end of a line
- lines flow together
Farewell, too little, and
too lately known,
Whom I began to think
and call my own;
For sure our souls were
near allied, and thine
Cast in the same poetic
mold with mine.
Diction (Word Choice)
Terms
• Literal: most obvious
meaning
*door: a movable panel
that swings, slides or
rotates to close off an
entrance
• Figurative: symbolic
meaning that uses
metaphor to
represent something
other than the
obvious
*door: opportunity
• Denotation:
dictionary meaning
*emaciated=slim
• Connotation: implied,
suggested meaning
*emaciated vs. slim
Word Choice Terms
Ambiguity: the potential for double or hidden
meanings
Slim Cunning Hands
Slim cunning hands at rest, and cozening eyesUnder this stone one loved too wildly lies;
How false she was, no granite could declare;
Nor all earth’s flowers, how fair.
Terms that Make Meaning
Persona: Voice of the poem; the speaker
created by the poet
Situation: what’s happening in the poem,
the situation the poet is describing
• Spatial: place involved
• Temporal: time (date, era, season. . . )
Terms that Make Meaning
Tone: the author’s attitude toward his/her
subject
e.g. - angry, affectionate, passionate,
bitter, melancholy, shameful, cautious,
guilty, quarrelsome. . .
(good, bad, happy, sad)
Terms that Make Meaning
Personification: giving an inanimate object
human-like characteristics; treating an
abstraction as if it were a person
Because I could not stop
for Death
He kindly stopped for
me---Emily Dickinson
Terms that Make Meaning
Allusion: a reference to something outside the
poem that carries a history of meaning and
strong emotional associations
e.g. - a “garden” may allude to
Eden, thereby referring to
innocence and order, temptation
and the Fall, etc.-- depending upon
how the poem handles the allusion
Terms that Make Meaning
• Hyperbole: a figure of speech in which exaggeration
is used for emphasis or effect
“An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze. . .”
(Marvell)
• Paradox: a seeming contradiction that may
nonetheless be true. . . .
Paradox Examples
• “I know that I know nothing.”
• Knowing “nothing" is knowing something. Thus, one can know that
he knows nothing.
• How long did the Hundred Years War last?
• 116 years, from 1337 to 1453.
• What is too much for one, enough for two, but nothing at all for
three?
• A secret
Terms that Make Meaning
Analogy: a comparison based on certain
resemblances between things that are otherwise
unlike
Simile: direct comparison using “like” or “as”
Metaphor: an indirect comparison that states one
thing is another or substitutes one thing for another
rather than using “like” or “as”
Controlling Metaphor: metaphors that dominate
or organize an entire poem
Extended Metaphor: detailed, complex metaphor
that extends over a major section of the text
A Red, Red Rose
Fog
The fog comes in
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Carl Sandburg
O, my luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June.
O, my luve is like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune
Robert Burns
Irony
A difference between the way things
seem and the way they really are.
 Situational
 Verbal
 Dramatic
Situational Irony
 When an event, action or outcome
contradicts the expected outcome
within a specific event
Verbal Irony
When either the speaker means
something totally different than what
he is saying OR the audience realizes,
because of their knowledge of the
particular situation to which the
speaker is referring, that the opposite
of what a character is saying is true.
Romeo and Juliet Example
Mercutio: Ask for me tomorrow,
and you shall find me a grave man.
Dramatic Irony

When facts are not known to the characters in a work of
literature but are known by the audience
Dramatic Irony Example
Have you ever seen a horror movie
that has a killer on the loose? You,
and the rest of the audience, know
that the teenagers should not go
walking in the woods late at night, but
they think a midnight stroll would be
romantic. Needless to say, the teens
become the next victims.
Romeo and Juliet Example:
We know Juliet has taken a
sleeping potion. Everyone
else, except Friar Lawrence,
thinks she is dead
Terms that Make Meaning
Imagery: a representation of a sensory experience
through language
The Crabs
There was a bucket full of them. They spilled,
crawled, climbed, clawed: slowly tossed
and fell: precision made: cold iodine color of their own
world of sand and occasional brown weed, round stone
chilled clean in the chopping waters of their coast.
One fell out. The marine thing on the grass
tried to trundle off, barbarian and immaculate and to be killed
with his kin. We lit water: dumped the living mass
in: contemplated tomatoes and corn: and with the good cheer of
civilized man,
cigarettes, that is, and cold beer, and chatter,
waited out and lived down the ten-food-away clatter
of crabs as they died for us inside their boiling can.
Richard Lattimore
Terms that Make Meaning
Symbolism: when a writer uses something
to stand for something else; an object to
represent an idea
Traditional/Universal: symbols that have
acquired a universal, understood meaning over
the years (e.g. - red roses = love)
Private: a symbol created by an author
for use only with a specific text (e.g. ruby slippers = self-discovery)
Terms that Make Meaning
Theme/Central Idea: an implied
statement a poem makes about its
subject; a generalization with universal
application
Sound Devices
Alliteration:
• repeated initial
consonant sound
ex) But which boy
bought the new
bike?
Sound Devices
Consonance:
• the repetition of consonant sounds that is not
limited to the initial sounds of each word
ex) rubber baby buggy bumpers
Sound Devices
Assonance:
• the repetition of a vowel sound
ex) The moon rose over an open field.
Sound Devices
Onomatopoeia
• The term used to describe
words whose meanings
are suggested by the
sound of their
pronunciation
ex) buzz, meow,
hiss
Rhyme - You do it all the time!
Term
Perfect
Rhyme
Slant
Rhyme
Definition
Examples
the sound of the two words
is exactly alike
The cat in the hat sat
on a rat - that’s exact!
occurs when the final
consonant sounds are the
same, but the vowels are
different; substitution of
assonance or consonance
for perfect rhyme
soul: oil
ill: shell
dropped: wept
Eye
Rhyme
a similarity in spelling
between words that are
pronounced differently and,
hence, not an auditory
rhyme
move: love
slaughter: laughter
Rhyme
Rhyme can occur anywhere within a line of poetry. Here
are a couple of terms:
• Internal: a rhyme occurs within a line or lines of poetry
ex) Each narrow cell within which we dwell
or And on the bay the moonlight lay
• End: a rhyme occurs at the end of a line - can begin to
form a scheme if repeated
ex) I eat my peas with honey –
I’ve done it all my life.
It makes my peas taste funny,
But it keeps them on the knife.
-- Anonymous