POETIC DEVICES: FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE - TERMS TO KNOW
1. hyperbole
2. alliteration
3. simile
4. antithesis
5. repetition
6. meter
7. foreshadowing
8. metaphor
9. personification
10. assonance
11. rhyme
12. symbol
13. imagery
14. irony
15. foot
16. iamb
17. dactyl
18. anapest
19. trochee
20. form
21. consonance
22. rhyme scheme
23. verse
24. couplet
25. sestet
26. octave
27. quatrain
28. oxymoron
29. ballad
30. lyric
31. sonnet
32. ode
33. elegy
34. free verse
35. blank verse
36. acrostic
37. approximate rhyme
38. analogy
39. refrain
40. apostrophe
41. haiku
42. limerick
43. internal rhyme
44. palindrome
45. apostrophe
46. metonymy
47. spondee
48. synecdoche
49. euphony
50. cacophony
51. epitaph
52. enjambment
53. caesura
*****Use http://www.dmturner.org/English/Poetry/elements.htm for definitions and examples or use your Literature book.
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*********Name__________________________________ Date___________________ Block _______________________
Write the poetic device represented by each line.
1. …ere the Pruning Knife of Time cut him down…
2. …the mossy marbles vest on the lips that he pressed…
3. …and was cheek was like a rose in the snow…
4. …and I will live thee my dear ‘til all the seas go dry…
5. …and if I live to be the last leaf upon the tree in the spring…
6. The artic trails have their secret tales that would make you blood run cold.
7. We shall step upon white down, upon silver fleece…
8. And he wore a smile you could see a mile…
9. O world, I cannot hold thee close enough…
10. The steeples swam in amethyst…
11. The night has a thousand eyes…
12. Home is the hunter, home from the hill
13. I’ll love you til roses are robin’s egg blue…
14. Birds are flowers flying.
15. The trees danced in the breeze
16. In a summer season where soft was sunlight…
17. Autumn lowers her magic wand…
18. The shadows on the sun drenched sand shift…
19. And my fingertips turned into stone
20. White frame houses stuck like oyster shells on a hill of rock…
21. Does it matter losing your sight? There’s such a splendid work for the blind…
22. Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State
23. The blazing brightness of her beauties beam…
24. The angry cop,breathing fire, approached us.
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND A POEM
Read the poem twice.
1. Who is the speaker? Is the poet speaking for him or herself or speaking in the role of another person or possibly an animal or thing?
2. What does the language of the poem reveal about the speaker? Is it formal, informal, colloquial? Why?
3. . Determine the primary audience. Who is the speaker addressing?
4. . What is the tone (mood)? Does the tone remain constant or does it change? How does that change in tone contribute to the overall meaning?
5. What is the subject? How does the speaker feel about it? Write down the words the poet uses to express these feelings.
6. Briefly paraphrase the poem (rewrite in your own words).
7. What is the time setting - hour of day, season, present, past, or future era?
8. What is the place setting-outdoors or indoors, rural or urban, state, nation?
9. What images are created by the poem (what do you "see")? Write down the words that help create the images.
10. Are there words that evoke sensations: sound, touch, smell, taste, hunger, thirst, etc.? Write those words.
11. What words or allusions are new or puzzling to you? Write words you don't understand. Define or explain these words as they are used in the poem. Consider the effects. 12. What is the poet's purpose? What feeling or insight is he or she expressing?
13. What words are used in surprising and imaginative ways? What are their connotations (abstract meanings)?
14. Is there any unusual order of words in a sentence? What would be the usual order?
15. What figurative language is used? What things are being compared, personified, or symbolized? What is the effect of each figure of speech? Note any metaphors or similes.
16. What is the sound pattern of the poem? Does the poet use devices such as onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance and parallelism. How are these devices used in the creation of meaning?
17. What is the structure of the poem? How many lines are in a stanza? What is the rhyme scheme, if any? Is there a refrain? How does the structure add to the meaning?
18. What is the shape of the poem on the page? Has the poet chosen an unusual shape? If so, why?
19. Is the poetry lyric, narrative, dramatic, or a combination? How do you know?
20. What does your experience with the poem mean to you? How do you feel about it? What did you learn from it?
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*Read the following poem. In a brief paragraph, summarize the meaning of the poem. Be sure to use an effective topic sentence in your paragraph. Write on your paper.
Needed: Men and Women of Character
- Source Unknown
The world needs men and women. . .
who cannot be bought;
whose word is their bond;
who put character above wealth;
who possess opinions and a strong will;
who are larger than their vocations;
who do not hesitate to take risks;
who will not lose their individuality in a crowd;
who will be as honest in small affairs as in greater;
who will make no compromise with wrong;
whose ambitions are not confined to their
own selfish desires;
who will not say they do it "because
everybody else does it;
who are true to their friends through good and bad,
in adversity as well as in prosperity;
who do not believe that shrewdness, cunning, and hardheadedness are the best qualities for winning success;
who are not ashamed or afraid to stand for the truth when it is unpopular;
who can say "no" with emphasis, although all the rest of the world says "yes."
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**Quiz on Poetry Elements/Figurative Language
Name_____________
Date______________
A…Write the letter of the poetic element that is best illustrated by each numbered statement or line(s) of poetry below. Letters MAY be used twice.
A. simile B. metaphor
C. personification D. symbol
E. alliteration F. rhyme
G. onomatopoeia H. hyperbole
1._____”The Night stared solemly at me!”
2._____”Be glad the nose is on your face,
not pasted on some other place…”
3._____Speak gently, Spring, and make no sudden sound…”
4._____The leaves on the trees are like lace.
5.______Petals of flowers danced across the lawn in the wind.
6.______”Winter is a white bear
with diamonds on her tongue.”
7.______”Let the rain kiss you.”
8.______In panic, she ran faster than a speeding bullet.
9.______”Over the cobbles he clattered and clanged…”
10._____He knelt at her feet and handed her a rose.
B…In the spaces provided, write the rhyme scheme of the following lines of poetry:
____I wandered lonely as a cloud
____ That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
____When all at once I saw a crowd,
____ A host, of golden daffodils;
____Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
____Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
17. Write an example of a simile in the above stanza.
18. Write an example of personification in the above stanza.
19. The word o’er means_____________
20. The word vales means ______________
Write the letter of the type of poem illustrated by each poem.
A. free verse B. limerick C. haiku
D. elegy E. lyric poetry
21.______There once was a panda named Lu
Who always ate crunchy bamboo.
He ate all day long,
Till he looked like King Kong.
Now the zoo doesn’t know what to do.
-Sara Diot
22._____In the pond in the park
all things are doubled:
Long buildings hang and
wriggle gently. Chimneys
are bent legs bouncing
on clouds below. A flag
wags like a fishhook
down there in the sky.
-May Swenson
23.___My love is like a red red rose
That’s newly sprung in June:
My love is like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.
-Robert Burns
She Dwelt Upon the Untrodden Ways
24._____She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:
A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
---Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!
-William Wordsworth
25.______Within plum orchard
sturdy oak takes no notice
of flowering blooms.
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***Read the following poem. In a brief paragraph, summarize the meaning of the poem. Then, write the poetry elements that you find in the poem. Include the rhyme scheme and rhythm. Be sure to use an effective topic sentence in your paragraph. Write on your paper.
WHEN YOU ARE OLD
W.B.Yeats (1865-1939)
When you are old and grey and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book;
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
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