Alliteration The effect created when words with the same initial letter (usually consonants) are used in close proximity Examples: “To laugh and love and.

AlliterationThe effect created when words with the same initial letter (usually consonants) are used in close proximity

Examples:“To laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyes.”

“And sails of silk, as soft as milk, and silvern shrouds had she.”

Poetry Unit

Literary Terms and

Examples

9th Grade Language Arts

AssonanceThe effect created when words with the same vowel sound are used in close proximity - but where the consonants in these words are different

Example:“…to need neither to eat nor breathe nor sleep…”

OnomatopoeiaA word that imitates the sound it represents

Examples:“Pitter-patter”WhamBangCrunchBoomPow

Figurative Language Writing or speech that is not meant to

be taken literally Implied or underlying meaning

Example:She is about to kick the bucket.

MetaphorA figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between two unlike things that actually have something in common

Example:“Life is a broken-winged bird”

SimileA figure of speech in which two fundamentally unlike things are explicitly compared, usually in a phrase introduced by like or as

Example:“The forest is spread across the landLike a casually thrown run…”

DenotationThe dictionary definition of a word

Example:Cold- having little or no warmth

ConnotationThe emotional association with a word

Example:Cold- sickness, runny nose, cool temperatures, evil

DictionA writer’s choice of words

Example:Ominous GlowBeaming Light

ToneThe writer’s attitude towards his or her audience and subject

PersonificationGiving human traits (qualities, feelings, action, or characteristics) to non-living objects (things, colors, qualities, or ideas)

Example:“And this same flower that smiles today,Tomorrow will be dying.”--Robert Herrick

SymbolismWhen something represents itself, and something more than itself

Example:American Flag-United States of America-Freedom

Rhyme SchemeA regular pattern of rhyme, one that is consistent throughout the extent of the poem

Rhyme SchemeExample:“If We Must Die”By: Claude McKay

If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!O kinsmen! We must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,And for their thousand blows deal one death blow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

ABABCDCDEFEFGG

Internal Rhyme A word in the middle of a line of poetry

rhymes with the word at the end of the line Two words in mid sentence rhyme

Examples:“A simple chime, that served to time…”

“The times you rhyme inside each lineThe way you play with the things you say…”

CoupletA pair of rhyming lines

Examples:“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wallHumpty Dumpty had a great fall…”

“There was a little hermit crabWho thought his tank was rather drab…”

Iambic Pentameter Follows the “weak STRONG” pattern 5 “weak STRONG” sections per line

To be or not to be that is the ques- -tion

da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum Da

weak STRONG weak STRONG weak STRONG weak STRONG weak STRONG weak

Blank VerseA poem written in unrhymed iambic pentameter

Example:The Ball PoemBy: John Berryman

What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,What, what is he to do? I saw it goMerrily bouncing, down the street, and thenMerrily over-there it is in the water!

Free VerseA poem that does not have a regular rhyme scheme or meter

Example:“Fog”By: Carl Sandburg

The fog comeson little cat feet. It sits lookingover harbor and cityon silent haunchesand then moves on.

Sonnet Must have 14 Lines Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCDEFEFGG

SonnetExample:

“To Fanny”

John Keats (1795-1821)

I cry your mercy–pity–love!–aye, love!

Merciful love that tantalizes not,

One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,

Unmasked, and being seen–without a blot!

O! let me have thee whole,–all–all–be mine!

That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest

Of love, your kiss,–those hands, those eyes divine,

That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,–

Yourself–your soul–in pity give me all.

Withhold no atom’s atom or I die,

Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall,

Forget, in the mist of idle misery,

Life’s purposes,–the palate of my mind

Losing its gist, and my ambition blind!

Haiku Seventeen Syllables

Five Syllables in Line ONE Seven Syllables in Line TWO Five Syllables in Line THREE

HaikuExample:Now the swinging bridgeIs quieted with creepers…Like our tendrilled life. -- Basho

Lyric PoemPoetry that does not tell a story but is aimed at expressing a speaker’s emotions or thoughts

Lyric Poem“How Do I Love Thee?”by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of Being and ideal GraceI love thee to the level of everyday'sMost quiet need, by sun and candle-light.I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.I love thee with the passion put to useIn my old griefs, and with my childhood's faithI love thee with a love I seem to loveWith my lost saints, - I love thee with the breath,Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,I shall but love thee better after death.