Poetic Terms and Devices Though the literary genre of poetry, in many cases, does draw on various of the eight major literary devices we have already studied, that is not always the case, because many of those devices occur only in works which tell stories--"story" defined as a serious of events which are causally related.  Most poems do not tell stories.  So to study such poems, a different, more suitable set of poetic devices is needed.  This link presents the student with those poetic devices. CONDENSED LANGUAGE – means that poetry packs more meaning into fewer words.  It does this using figures of speech.  Examples:  symbolism, irony, metaphor, simile. STANZA – a poem’s equivalent of a paragraph.  Is easily spotted by an extra space between one line and the next.  Typical stanza lengths are the COUPLET, which is two lines long, and the QUATRAIN, which is four lines long. CLOSED FORM POETRY / OPEN FORM POETRY – Closed form poetry uses either rhyme or rhythm or both.  Open form poetry uses neither.  RHYME is defined as similar sounds at the end of a line of poetry.  The sounds form a repeating pattern, such as A, B, A, B, A, B or A, B, B, A, or A, A, B, B, and so forth, where A and A represent the first similar sound, B represents the next similar sound, etc.  RHYTHM is defined as repeating patterns of accented (stressed) and non-accented (non-stressed) syllables in lines of poetry.  Closed form poetry is the older form, going back thousands of years.  Open form poetry has only been used for several hundred years.  Most currently published poems are open form. FORMAL STRUCTURE – The fundamental form or structure of a poem.  In both drama and fiction, the formal structure is NARRATIVE.  A poem may have a narrative formal structure, but then again it may not.  If a poem is a narrative, it will tell about a series of events.  A narrative poem can be interpreted using all the same devices of fiction and drama.  A poem may also be an INTERNAL MONOLOGUE, where the speaker of the poem is debating some single event’s meaning, or some issue.  It’s like a recording of a person thinking out loud.  In this sort of poetry, we may see inner conflict and sometimes even character change, but usually other devices than those of fiction must be used for interpretation (devices like imagery, metaphor, simile). IMAGERY – an important device for poetic interpretation, especially when the poem is not a narrative poem.  Imagery is based on our five senses:  images of sight, of sound, of touch, of smell, and of taste.  Visual imagery is the most common.  Images always contribute to a poem’s meaning, and are an excellent starting point for interpretation.  Sometimes they simply are used to set a certain TONE OR MOOD, which in turn, when considered in light of the poem’s topic or issue, suggests a theme.  More often, images are used to build figurative language, supplying the reader with the poem’s SYMBOLS or with METAPHORS OR SIMILES. SIMILE – A comparison using “like” or “as” or similar wording.  Always look for the two specific things being compared.  Then look for the specific qualities of the two things which are used to compare them.  Often these qualities will be images of some kind, drawing on sight, or sound, or touch, etc.  Usually these qualities will “fit” one of the two terms (the things being compared) in a commonsense or everyday way, while the same qualities are not usually used to describe the other term.  The point of the simile is to get you to consider what these qualities might mean when applied to the second term in unlikely ways.  EXAMPLE:  “My love is like a rose.”  The terms are love and rose.  The qualities are left unmentioned, but  you can think of all the common qualities of a rose:  pretty, soft to the touch, fragrant, implies newness, springtime, happiness, rebirth, etc.  The real point of the simile is to get us to apply these qualities to love, in order to better define love, the more human-related of the two terms.  Roses are also thorny—is love thorny?  How?  Not literally, but figuratively speaking, yes, it can be. METAPHOR – Similar to a simile, but lacking the key words of “like” or “as.”  The absence of these key words of comparison frequently makes it harder to spot the presence of the metaphor, and to figure out which two things are being compared.  Often, the second term isn’t even mentioned directly, but is merely implied.  But remember, a metaphor always compares two terms.  A good sign that you are in the presence of a metaphor is if a poem says something that makes no literal sense.  A COMMON EXAMPLE:  “She treated me coldly.”  This is so common that you probably don’t think of it as a metaphor, but it is.  The literal image is one of touch (the way literal coldness makes the skin feel).  This image is used as a metaphor, where the two terms are literal coldness of temperature and “coldness” or unfriendliness of mood.  So she made me feel isolated, not cozy, alone, vulnerable, exposed.  A LESS COMMON EXAMPLE, from “The Carpenter”:  “I can still hear his hammer singin ten-penny times…”  Hammers don’t sing, so this must be a metaphor.  The two terms are the sound of a hammer and singing, with the imagery being compared being that of sound. “Ten-penny times” draws on the name of a certain size nail (a ten-penny nail), and to anyone familiar with the sound of a nail being hammered, it calls forth the way the sound of the nail vibrating, when struck, gets higher pitched the further it is driven into the wood.  Then there is a pause, then the sound begins again, low-pitched (with another nail), then climbs again with a regular rhythm as the carpenter works rhythmically.  The overall effect is truly much like music. Singing is usually a thing people do when they are happy, so this quality becomes attached to the act of hammering, too, and in this case is probably the main point made by the metaphor:  this man enjoys his work. ALLITERATION – the repetition of consonant sounds, as in man, mean, matter; sound, soft, sorry; rapid, ripple, ripped.  Alliteration is sometimes used simply to add a pleasant sound to a poem meant to be read aloud.  This use is generally not worth analyzing because it adds nothing to theme.  But more significantly, alliteration can be used to set or change the mood of a poem.  It can do this because some sounds seem more aggressive or active than others.  For example, an “L” sound strikes most readers as relaxing and calming, even if they do not consciously think of this.  On the other hand, the hard emphasis of a “P” or a “T” sound is sharper, and sets a mood which is more tense or at least more active.  An “S” sound may help create a tense mood in another way, because that sound is often associated with a growl or hiss. ASSONANCE – like alliteration, but the repetition of vowel sounds instead of consonant sounds.  Assonance works just like alliteration does, to build a certain mood, and often is used in combination with alliteration to do so. ALLUSION – A poem “alludes” to something beyond itself which the poet assumes is fairly common knowledge.  To allude to something means to refer to it.  This allusion or reference can then draw on the mood or meaning of the thing alluded to.  Common allusions in literature (not just poetry) are to famous works of literature (Milton’s Paradise Lost), to the Bible (often symbolically, as with the cross or the serpent), to Greek or other mythology (Hercules, Zeus, Athena), or to common wisdom (“Resist the temptation to take the easy path.”) PERSONIFICATION – When a non-living thing in a poem is given the qualities of a living entity.  Example:  death in “Death Be Not Proud.”  The interesting thing here is that once personified, then this thing, whatever it is, is subject to the full spectrum of human qualities, behaviors, and consequences (death can now die).

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