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Poetic Devices

Poetic devices are are a form of literary device used in poetry. A poem engages our responsiveness as it is created out of poetic devices composite of: structural, grammatical, rhythmic, metrical, verbal, and visual elements. They are essentially tools that a poet uses to create rhythm, enhance a poem's meaning, or intensify a mood or feeling.

Poetic Diction
Poetic Diction is a style of writing in poetry which encompasses vocabulary, phrasing, and grammatical usage. Along with syntax, poetic diction functions in setting the tone, mood, and atmosphere of a poem to convey the poet's intention.

1. Sound
Words that have a sound like quality and achieves specific effects when hear. These words can strike readers as soothing or dissonant, and also evokes certain thoughts and feelings associated with it.
 * Alliteration –A string of three or four instances of the same consonant sound with no more than one intervening, non-alliterative onset consonant sound. Alliteration is used as a mnemonic device to evoke feelings such as fear and suspense in poetry.
 * Assonance–Repeated vowel sounds in words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines.These vowel sounds are usually accented, or stressed to give a musical quality to the poem. By creating an internal rhyme, this also enhances the pleasure of reading the poem.
 * Consonance–Repeated consonant sounds at the ending of words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines. These should be in sounds that are accented, or stressed, rather than in a vowel.
 * Cacophony–A discordant series of harsh, unpleasant sounds to convey disorder. This is often enhanced by the combined effect of complex meanings and pronunciation. Example: My stick fingers click with a snicker And, chuckling, they knuckle the keys; Light-footed, my steel feelers flicker And pluck from these keys melodies. —“Player Piano,” John Updike
 * Euphony–A series of musically pleasant sounds, conveying a sense of harmony and beauty to the poem.
 * Onomatopoeia–It is used in poetry to create aural effects that mimics the visual being described. A combinations of words are used to create an onomatopoetic effect. It is however not necessary to use words that are onomatopoetic in and of themselves. For example, in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Coleridge uses the phrase “furrow followed free” to mimic the sound of the wake left behind a ship.

2. Rhythm

 * Repetition–Repetition often uses word associations to express the ideas and emotions in an indirect manner, putting emphasis on a point, confirming a fact or an idea, and describing a notion.
 * Rhyme–Rhyme utilises repeating patterns to bring out rhythm or musicality in poems. It is a repetition of similar sounds occurring in lines in a poem which gives the poem a symmetric quality.

3. Meaning
The use of figurative language functions to convey the poet's intended meaning.


 * Allusion–A brief reference to a person, historical event, work of art, or Biblical or mythological situation or character.
 * Analogy–A comparison, usually something unfamiliar with something familiar. Example: The plumbing took a maze of turns where even water got lost.


 * Metaphor–The use of metaphor in poetry is one of the most essential aspects of poetic style. Metaphors are used in poetry to explain and elucidate emotions, feelings, relationships other elements that cannot be described in ordinary language. Poets also use metaphor as a way of explaining or referring to something in a brief but effective way.
 * Symbol–An object, event, animal, or person to which we have attached meaning and significance.
 * Symbolism–Symbolism in poetry is using an object or action that means something more than its literal meaning. When used as a poetic device, symbolism means to imbue objects with a certain meaning that is different from their original meaning or function. It is a representative of other aspects, concepts or traits than those that are visible in the literal translation. Literary devices, such as metaphor, allegory, and allusion, aid in the development of symbolism.
 * Hyperbole–An outrageous exaggeration used for effect.Example: He weighs a ton.
 * Irony–A contradictory statement or situation to reveal a reality different from what appears to be true.Example: Wow, thanks for expensive gift...let’s see: did it come with a Fun Meal or the Burger King equivalent?
 * Imagery–Not simply a visual representation but also part of figurative language to sustain or comprise figures of speech such as the following: My heart opens like a cactus flower. In this simile from Stevie Smith’s ‘Le Désert de l’Amour’ (1938), the image of a cactus flower imbues the poem with layers of conceptual as well as visual weight. In Robert Burns’s poem, ‘To a Louse, on Seeing one on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church’ (1785), the image of the ‘ugly, creepan, blastet wonner’ as it ‘sprawl[s]’ and ‘sprattle[s]’ its way to the ‘very tapmost, towrin height / O’ Miss’s bonnet’ is vital to the poem’s visceral comic edge.
 * Oxymoron–A combination of two words that appear to contradict each other.
 * Paradox–A statement in which a seeming contradiction may reveal an unexpected truth. Example: The hurrier I go the behinder I get.
 * Personification–Attributing human characteristics to an inanimate object, animal, or abstract idea. Example: The days crept by slowly, sorrowfully.
 * Pun–Word play in which words with totally meanings have similar or identical sounds. Example: Like a firefly in the rain, I’m de-lighted.

Poetic Form
Poetic Form is the physical structure of the poem: the length of lines, rhythm, as well as system of rhymes and repetition. The poet's ideas and emotions are reinforced through this structural embodiment.

1. Fixed verse
A poem which follows a set pattern of meter, rhyme scheme, stanza form, and refrain.


 * Ballad–A narrative poem written as a series of quatrains in which lines of iambic tetrameter alternate with iambic trimeter. Typically adopts a xaxa, xbxb rhyme scheme with frequent use of repetition and refrain. It is written in a straight-forward manner, with little detail, but always with graphic simplicity and force. Most ballads are lyrical and is used to convey a wide range of subjects frequently associated with folklore or popular legends.
 * Haiku–A Japanese form of poetry strongly that is deeply influenced by Zen Buddhism. It consists of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. The elusive flavour of its form lies more in its touch and tone rather than in its syllabic structure. A haiku is commonly associated with a brief description of nature to convey implicit insights or an essence of a moment. It also typically contains either a direct or oblique reference to a season.
 * Limerick– popularised by Edward Lear in his Book of Nonsense published in 1846, it is generally considered the only fixed form of English origin. A light or humorous form of five chiefly anapestic verses with a rhyme scheme ofaabba. Modern limericks generally use the final line for clever witticisms and word play and their content frequently tends toward the ribald and off-color,
 * Lyric–derived from the Greek word lyre, lyric poetry was originally designed to be sung. It is the most frequently used modern form, including all poems in which the speaker’s ardent expression of an emotional element predominates. Ranging from complex thoughts to simple wit, lyric poetry often evokes in the readers a recollection of similar emotional experiences.
 * Ode–Several stanzaic forms that are more complex than the lyric. It is embedded with intricate rhyme schemes and irregular number of lines of considerable length. Written with a rich and intense expression, it is structured to deliver an elevated thought to praise a person or object. “Ode to a Nightingale” is an example.
 * Rondeau–A fixed form used in light or witty verses, usually consisting of fifteen octo- or decasyllabic lines in three stanzas, with only two rhymes used throughout. A word or words from the first part of the first line are used as a (usually unrhymed) refrain ending the second and third stanzas, so the rhyme scheme is aabba aabR aabbaRa
 * Villanelle–A poem consisting of two rhymes within five 3-line stanzas followed by a quatrain. The villanelle conveys a pleasant impression of simple spontaneity, as in Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “The House on the Hill.”
 * Sonnet–A fourteen line poem in iambic pentameter with a prescribed rhyme scheme. Traditionally used to convey the idea of love. Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence, for example, seeks to discover new ways of imagining love. In Shakespeare’s sonnet 130, he describes the lady’s beauty skilfully and playfully such that every image of beauty it sets up is immediately refuted to mock conventional Renaissance ideas of female beauty.

2. Blank verse
Also known as “un-rhymed iambic pentameter.” It is an unrhymed verse written in iambic pentameter. In poetry, it has a consistent meter with 10 syllables in each line (pentameter); where, unstressed syllables are followed by stressed syllables, five of which are stressed but do not rhyme.


 * Trochee–A trochee is a two-syllable metrical pattern in poetry in which a stressed syllable is followed by an unstressed syllable.
 * Iamb–A two-syllable metrical pattern in poetry in which one unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable.
 * Anapaest–A three-syllable metrical pattern in poetry in which two unstressed syllables are followed by a stressed syllable.
 * Dactyl–A three-syllable metrical pattern in poetry in which a stressed syllable is followed by two unstressed syllables.
 * Spondee–A beat in a poetic line that consists of two accented syllables. is a poetic device that is not as common as other metrical feet, like iamb and trochee. We rarely find poems written in spondee alone; however, poets use spondee by combining other metrical feet.

3. Free Verse
A poetic form free from limitations of regular metric rhythm, and fixed rhyme schemes. The lack of regularity and conventional rhyme schemes allows the poet to shape to the poem freely. Such irregularity and lack of refrain also evoke a sense of artistic expression.

Examples of free verse includes A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman.

Punctuation
Punctuations as Poetic Devices

Punctuation is an object of interpretation in poetry; it is semantic. In poetry, they act as non-verbal tools of poetic expression. A form of artistic choice, the poet's choice of punctuation is central to our understanding of poetic meaning because of its ability to influence prosody. The unorthodox use of punctuation also increases the expressive complexity of poems, or may be used to align the poetic metres. Non-standard punctuation can be used to stress the meaning of words differently, or for dramatic effect while a lack of punctuation allows the reader to interpret the sequence of words in various ways. End-stopping is when there is punctuation—of any kind—at the end of a line and is accompanied by a strong pause. The occasional end-stopped line can have a final or formal feeling while many in a row can be used to evoke a jerky cadence. On the contrary, the lack of punctuation can mean the poem is a "stream of consciousness" such as Maya Angelou’s I know why the caged bird sings.


 * Question marks–In poetry, they used to show a contemplative pause.
 * Exclamation marks–Indicate surprise, joy, strong emotions the poet is trying to emphasise of convey.
 * Ellipses–Leaving out part of a sentence or an event by substituting it with ellipses is a stylistic element. It represents an omission of words which helps in advancing the story.
 * Parentheses–It is technically used to separate and subordinate parts of a prose sentence. In poetry, a parentheses draws attention to what is encased within them. Cummings’s poem, “somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond” provides an example of parentheses used as intimacy creators. “… your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose… (i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.
 * Enjambment–A lack of punctuation. It can be defined as a thought or sense, phrase, or clause in a line of poetry that does not come to an end at the line break, but moves on to the following line. Poets may lead their readers to think of an idea, then move on the next line, giving an idea that conflicts with it. Conversely, it may also be employed to reinforce a main idea by eradicating the use of semi-colons, periods, or commas. Enjambment is also employed to achieve a fast pace or rhythm.