What poetic techniques are there

Personification Personification is a literary device often used in poetry where human characteristics are applied to make inanimate things, objects or even animals enlivened. Punctuation Punctuation is the marks, such as full stop, comma, and brackets, used in writing to separate sentences and their elements and to clarify meaning.

Quatrain Quatrain is a literary device that contributes to the structure of a poem. It is a four-line stanza employing a very tight rhyme scheme. Refrain Refrain is a repeated line or lines used as a cohesive device in music and poetry. In this case, single words have been carried over from one line to another to tie ideas together. Underline the repeated words and note their effect of the reading.

Repetition Repetition is a literary device that repeats the same sounds, words or phrases a few times to make an idea clearer. Rhyme Rhyme occurs when words are placed in a way that emphasises the repetition of sounds particularly vowel sounds. End rhyme occurs when the last words in two or more lines of poetry rhyme. Internal rhyme occurs when two or more words in a single line rhyme. Rhyme scheme Rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song.

Conventionally, each rhyming sound is given a successive letter of the alphabet, so that a rhyme scheme could be abab cdcd, or, if in rhyming couplets, aa bb cc…. Semiotics Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols - and these are culturally created and interpreted.

Hyperbole overstatement and litotes understatement : Hyperbole is exaggeration for effect; litotes is understatement for effect, often used for irony. Iambic pentameter: Iamb iambic : an unstressed stressed foot.

The most natural and common kind of meter in English; it elevates speech to poetry. Image: Images are references that trigger the mind to fuse together memories of sight visual , sounds auditory , tastes gustatory , smells olfactory , and sensations of touch tactile. Imagery refers to images throughout a work or throughout the works of a writer or group of writers. Internal rhyme : An exact rhyme rather than rhyming vowel sounds, as with assonance within a line of poetry: "Once upon a midnight dreary , while I pondered, weak and weary.

Metaphor: A comparison between two unlike things, this describes one thing as if it were something else. Does not use "like" or "as" for the comparison see simile. Metaphysical conceit : An elaborate and extended metaphor or simile that links two apparently unrelated fields or subjects in an unusual and surprising conjunction of ideas.

The term is commonly applied to the metaphorical language of a number of early seventeenth-century poets, particularly John Donne. See "To His Coy Mistress". Meter : The number of feet within a line of traditional verse. Example: iambic pentameter. Octave: The first eight lines of an Italian or Petrarchan sonnet, unified by rhythm, rhyme, and topic. A blending of consonant and vowel sounds designed to imitate or suggest the activity being described.

Example: buzz, slurp. Paradox: A rhetorical figure embodying a seeming contradiction that is nonetheless true. Personification: Attributing human characteristics to nonhuman things or abstractions. Petrarchan sonnet: A sonnet 14 lines of rhyming iambic pentameter that divides into an octave 8 and sestet 6.

There is a "volta," or "turning" of the subject matter between the octave and sestet. Meter like this gives readers expectations about how each line will go, which can be very useful if you want to subvert them, such as how Shakespeare does in Hamlet :. What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? In this case, Keats is using this language to discuss beauty and truth, two rather lofty themes that work in tandem with the lofty language.

A pun is a play on words, using multiple meanings or similar sounds to make a joke. The result is a misunderstanding between the two that ends with Alice looking rude and uncaring. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. But before that, the repetition of each line clues you in to their importance. No matter what else is said, the repetition tells you that it all comes back to those two lines.

A rhetorical question is a question asked to make a point rather than in expectation of an answer. Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well!

I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! However, Sojourner Truth was a black woman in the time of slavery. By asking a question about an undeniable truth, Sojourner Truth was in fact pointing out the hypocrisy of the conference. A rhyme is a repetition of syllables at the end of words, often at the end of a line of poetry, but there are many unique kinds of rhymes.

However, in line five, we get a jarring line that does not rhyme, which is carried through the rest of the poem. Rhythm refers to the pattern of long, short, stressed, and unstressed syllables in writing. In this scene from Macbeth, the witches are positioned as being strange and unnatural, and the rhyme scheme Shakespeare uses is also unnatural. A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem with a strict rhyme scheme, often written in iambic pentameter.

Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. Sonnets were a standard poetry format for a long time—Shakespeare famously wrote sonnets, as did poets like Browning.

Because sonnets have a rhyme scheme, they feel removed again from realistic speech. You probably don't need to light a candle and bust out your magnifying glass to understand poetic devices, but nothing's stopping you! To learn more about them, you can:. Reading widely in a variety of literary forms—poetry, prose, essays, non-fiction, and so on—is one of the best ways to learn more poetic devices.

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