UNDERSTANDING POETRY

POETIC TERMS AND DEVICES

RHYME Rhyme is the similarity in the end-

sounds of words. There are two main types of rhyme –end-rhyme and internal rhyme.

‘Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meetShe passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet’

‘On the outer Barcoo, where the churches are few’

RHYTHM Rhythm refers to the beat or pattern of

stresses that occurs in poetry (and music).

‘On the outer Barcoo, where the churches are fewAnd men of religion are scantyOn a road never cross’d ‘cept by folk that are lostOne Michael Magee had a shanty’

‘She walks in beauty like the night’

METRE The two common forms of metre in

poetry are the unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (iambic metre) and stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable (trochaic metre)

‘O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright’ ‘Double, double, toil and trouble’

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.’

ALLITERATION Alliteration is the repetition of the same

consonant sounds at the beginning of words.

‘blind, blunt, bullet-heads’ ‘five miles meandering with mazy motion’

ONOMATOPOEIA Onomatopoeia is the use of words that

resemble the sounds they are describing.

‘bang’ ‘fizz’ ‘shriek’

ASSONANCE Assonance is the repetition of identical

vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds.

‘sun and hut’

FIGURES OF SPEECH

To make their images come alive, poets use all kinds of word patterns that are called figures of speech. Some of the most common ones are the simile, the metaphor, personification, hyperbole and symbolism.

SIMILE A simile makes a comparison between

two unlike things, using the words ‘like’ ‘as’ and ‘than.’

‘He ran like the wind’ ‘I am as warm as toast’ ‘Her kisses were sweeter than wine’

METAPHOR The metaphor takes us one step further

than the simile. Instead of asking us to picture one thing as being like another, we are asked to picture one thing as being another.

‘The hose is like a green snake on the lawn’ ‘The hose is a green snake on the lawn’

PERSONIFICATION Personification is a special kind of

metaphor in which human characteristics are given to non-human things.

‘Blow wind, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!’

HYPERBOLE The hyperbole is a figure of speech that

uses deliberate exaggeration for emphasis.

‘Wild horses wouldn’t drag me away.’

SYMBOLISM A symbol is an object used to stand for

one or more abstract ideas e.g. The dove symbolises peace, the skull and crossbones symbolises evil. In poetry, symbols are used to increase our awareness or deepen our understanding.