Poetic Devices

Glossary of Poetic Devices 

Alliteration - The repetition of initial consonant sounds. 

Eg: Dew drops dancing down 

Assonance - The repetition of vowel sounds 

·      Long vowel sounds will decrease the energy at that point in the poem and make the mood more serious.

·      Higher vowel sounds will increase the energy and lighten the mood.

Figurative Language- Language used in such a way as to force words out of their literal meanings by emphasizing their connotations to bring new insight and feeling to the subject.

Eg: All the world's a stage

Hyperbole- an exaggeration in the service of truth (an overstatement). 

Eg: Ten thousand thousand fruit to touch.

Imagery - Words or phrases that appeal to any sense or any combination of senses.

Juxtaposition  - is the overlapping or mixing of opposite or different situations, characters, settings, moods, or points of view in order to clarify meaning, purpose, or character, or to heighten certain moods, especially humour, horror, and suspense.

Metaphor - A comparison between two objects with the intent of giving clearer meaning to one of them. Often forms of the "to be" verb are used, such as "is" or "was", to make the comparison.

Eg: The stages of love are like stepping stones to death.

Onomatopoeia - The use of words that imitate sound.

Personification - A figure of speech that endows inanimate objects with human traits or abilities.

Eg: the tree watches him sleep; it has tongues talking aloud

Repetition - the repeating of words, phrases, lines, or stanzas.

Rhyme - The similarity of ending sounds existing between two words.

Simile- A figure of speech in which a comparison is expressed by the specific use of a word or phrase such as: like, as, than, seems, as if

Eg:  like an old-stone savage armed

Symbol - a symbol has two levels of meaning, a literal level and a figurative level. Characters, objects, events and settings can all be symbolic in that they represent something else beyond themselves.

Eg: In Robert Frost's poetry- Rose Pogonias, flowers become a symbol for the beloved, his wife Elinor

Source: http://www.kyrene.org/schools/brisas/sunda/poets/poetry2.htm
               http://www.bestlibrary.org/murrayslit/2009/09/poetic-devices.html