Literary devices: definitions and examples

Poetry devices (a major sampling):

homoeoteleuton

Similar sound endings to words, phrases, or sentences. "Near Rhyme."

• "That’s why, darling, it’s incredible

  That someone so unforgettable

  Thinks I’m unforgettable too."

  ("Unforgettable," sung by Nat King Cole)







• "Loose lips sink ships."

  (public service ad during World War II)

• 
  

• Incredibly, wonderfully, sensually delightful. Full of love, the sky above, can't get enough, of these. What is this thing of which I speak that fills my heart with ease? I'll tell you now. It's from the cow...this lovely creamy cheese. (OReilly)







• "Crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery Butterfinger."

  (advertising slogan for Butterfinger candy bar)

It is defined as "when several utterances (i.e., words) end in a similar fashion." The word, therefore, is larger than rhyme, but similar to it.

repetition of sound: alliteration repetition of a beginning consonant sound; assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds; consonance: the repetition of consonant sounds

Langston Hughes

Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Cha Cha Cha Changes with cheese, please, give it a squeeze...

So, so, very slimy, not sweet, sensually complete

A lust a trust I must repeat

I'm not complete, I can't go a week

without it to eat, my treat

need I repeat?

choice, cheddar, actual cheese.

ORiRi

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/d/david+bowie/changes_20036790.html

lyrics to Changes David Bowie

Parts by Tedd Arnold.

"I just don't know what's going on

Or why it has to be.

But every day it's something worse.

What's happening to me?

I think it was three days ago

I first became aware--

That in my comb were caught a couple

Pieces of my hair.

I stared at them, amazed, and more

Than just a bit appalled

To think that I was only five

And starting to go bald!"

allusion:

a casual reference to someone or something in history or literature that creates a mental picture. An allusion is like a hyperlink. Embedded in the poem is a link to another entire literary work, with all its meaning and insight. Here are more literary allusions: http://www.worsleyschool.net/socialarts/allusion/page

illusion: something unreal that one thinks is real (don't confuse)

"Siren Song"

by Margaret Atwood

This is the one song everyone

would like to learn:

the song

that is irresistible:

the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons

even though they see the beached skulls

the song nobody knows

because anyone who has heard it

is dead, and the others can't remember

Shall I tell you the secret

and if I do, will you get me

out of this bird suit?

I don't enjoy it here

squatting on this island

looking picturesque and mythical

with these two feathery maniacs,

I don't enjoy singing

this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you ,to you, only to you.

Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!

Only you, only you can,

you are unique

At last. Alas

it is a boring song

but it works every time.

analogy or extended metaphor:

Both are comparisons. An analogy is more of an argument; in an analogy one is arguing that two things are the same, like comparing the Iraq War to the Vietnam War. An extended metaphor is a bit less argumentative, it just shows how things are related. The two terms are often casually used interchangeably.

FOG

Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Nothing Gold Can Stay
by
Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

caesura:

the pausing or stopping within a line of poetry caused by needed punctuation.

The punctuation within the lines (in this case, all commas) are the caesura, not the punctuation at the ends of the lines.

Miss Spider's Wedding by David Kirk

"They talked of all their dreams and hopes,

Of art and nature, love and fate.

They peered through toy kaleidoscopes

And murmured thoughts I shan't relate.

Then Holley held Miss Spider's hand...

I'll say no more, you understand.

For private moments between spiders

Should not be witnessed by outsiders."

I'M NOBODY! WHO ARE YOU?

Emily Dickenson

I'm nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd advertise -- you know!

How dreary to be somebody!

How public like a frog

To tell one's name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

enjambement:

the continuation of thought from one line of poetry to the next without punctuation needed at the end of the previous line(s).

Trees by Joyce Kilmer I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the sweet earth's flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

hyperbole:

extreme exaggeration for effect.

Hyperbole of My Dog
Little Girl is my dog. She sleeps like a log. She has a huge mouth, And eats like a hog In her excitement Her tail is a whip times ten. When she sees food Hers eyes start to spin.

metaphor:

the comparison of two unlike things by saying one is the other.

The Soul Selects Her Own Society

Emily Dickenson

The Soul selects her own Society —

Then — shuts the Door —

To her divine Majority —

Present no more —

Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing —

At her low Gate —

Unmoved — an Emperor be kneeling

Upon her Mat —

I've known her — from an ample nation —

Choose One —

Then — close the Valves of her attention —

Like Stone —

THE BLUES

By Sierra Ceballos, age 8.

When you fall off a cliff and you get hit by a buffalo,

that's the blues.

When your chicken gets hit by a car and you're not that smart,

that's the blues.

When you fall in your chair and you lose all your hair and you lose your underwear,

that's the blues.

When you hit your head and your mom sends you to bed,

that's the blues.

metonymy:

onomatopoeia

oxymoron:

personification:

the giving of human traits to non-human things incapable of having those traits.

MASK FLING your red scarf faster and faster, dancer. It is summer and the sun loves a million green leaves, masses of green. Your red scarf flashes across them calling and a-calling. The silk and flare of it is a great soprano leading a chorus Carried along in a rouse of voices reaching for the heart of the world. Your toes are singing to meet the song of your arms: Let the red scarf go swifter. Summer and the sun command you.

symbol:

Other terms (not included in project or test):

elegy: a poem of lament (extreme sorrow, such as caused by death)

free verse: a poem without either a rhyme or a rhythm scheme, although rhyme may be used, just without a pattern.

blank verse: un-rhymed lines of iambic pentameter (ten syllables with all even numbered syllables accented)

imagery: the use of words to create a mental picture

mood: the emotional effect of a poem or a story

Understanding and using these devices and terms can help improve and strengthen poetry. Imagery is essential for vivid poetry, and devices help develop imagery.

The speaker: The speaker provides structure and uniformity to a poem. In this case the speakers point of view is first person point of view:

AZTEC MASK

I WANTED a man's face looking into the jaws and throat
of life
With something proud on his face, so proud no smash
of the jaws,
No gulp of the throat leaves the face in the end
With anything else than the old proud look:
Even to the finish, dumped in the dust,
Lost among the used-up cinders,
This face, men would say, is a flash,
Is laid on bones taken from the ribs of the earth,
Ready for the hammers of changing, changing years,
Ready for the sleeping, sleeping years of silence.
Ready for the dust and fire and wind.
I wanted this face and I saw it today in an Aztec mask.
A cry out of storm and dark, a red yell and a purple prayer,
A beaten shape of ashes
waiting the sunrise or night,
something or nothing,
proud-mouthed,
proud-eyed gambler.

Structure: The structure of the poems, changes its meaning.

Hiding in the Mask

By Ellen Bauer

(Dear reader:
This is a poem for two voices.
It is meant to be read with one voice reading the left side,
the other voice reading the right.
Whenever two sentences or words are on the same horizontal  level,
they are meant to be read at the same time.
When there is a blank on one side, that reader is quiet while the
other side reads, until there are words again.)

The masks we wear Hiding Ritual flames Eyes, in masks Are the only part That lives. Masks of Death Life Rain Summer Joy Fear Weeping Beneath the mask. Hiding Of the worshipped Bringing out Our hidden one. Some wear them From shame. Some wear them During joy, Celebration. But our masks, Bringing up Ancient Are ours. The masks we wear.

The masks we wear What? Reflecting in our eyes. Eyes, in masks Of our faces That lives. Life Death Summer Rain Fear Joy Hiding tears. Weeping Love, Of the worshipped Being. Bringing out Our soul. From shame. An ancient vow. During joy, A wedding Deep with mystery, Ancient Rituals, Are ours. The masks we wear.