Poetic Devices and Figurative Language 1. Hyperbole A hyperbole is a type of figurative language.

It is often confused with a simile or a metaphor because it often compares two objects. The difference is a hyperbole is an exaggeration. For example: His feet were as big as a barge. It looks like a simile. It is comparing foot size to the size of a barge. Everyone knows that a barge is approximately 700 feet long. Imagine getting a pair of shoes that big! Definition: Hyperbole is a figure of speech which is an exaggeration. Persons often use expressions such as "I nearly died laughing," "I was hopping mad," and "I tried a thousand times." Such statements are not literally true, but people make them to sound impressive or to emphasize something, such as a feeling, effort, or reaction. 2. Pun A pun is a play on words. A pun is defined by Webster as "the humorous use of a word, or of words which are formed or sounded alike but have different meanings, in such a way as to play on two or more of the possible applications; a play on words." There are different types of puns. Some examples of puns are: I work as a baker because I knead dough. The cosmetic student was sick on the day of the final exam. Now she has to take a make up exam. 3. Idioms An idiom is an expression that has a meaning apart from the meanings of its individual words. For example: Its raining cats and dogs. Its literal meaning suggests that cats and dogs are falling from the sky. We interpret it to mean that it is raining hard. Unlike proverbs and similies, idioms have no fixed form and come in all sizes, shapes, and colors. American English abounds with colorful idioms. New ones are added each day. An idiom usually originates with a specific group - television, sailors, housewives, teachers, poets, or politicians - then spreads to more general use by others. 4. Alliteration Alliteration is the repetition of the initial consonant. There should be at least two repetitions in a row. For example: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. The first letter, p, is a consonant. It is repeated many times. (If you use a syllable rather than a consonant, it is assonance.) 5. Onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia is the imitation of natural sounds in word form. These words help us form mental pictures about the things, people, or places that are described. Sometimes the word names a thing or action by copying the sound like Bong! Hiss! Buzz! For example: A pesky mosquito buzzed around my head. 6. Imagery Imagery involves one or more of your five senses (hearing, taste, touch, smell, sight). An author uses a word or phrase to stimulate your memory of those senses. These memories can be positive or negative which will contribute to the mood of a poem. Imagery is the use of vivid description, usually rich in sensory words, to create pictures, or images, in the reader's mind.

7. Personification Personification is a figure of speech in which objects are given human qualities. For example: The sun played peek-a-boo with the clouds. 8. Metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech in which things are compared by stating that one thing is another. For example: The clouds are cotton balls in the sky. 9. Simile A simile is a figure of speech in which things are compared using the words like or as. For example: The surface of the water looked as smooth as glass. 10. Assonance Assonance is repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences, and together with alliteration and consonance serves as one of the building blocks of verse. For example, in the phrase "Do you like blue?", the "oo" (ou/ue) sound is repeated within the sentence and is assonant (from Wikipedia) Assonance is more a feature of verse than prose. Assonance in Prose: Prose writers sometimes repeat vowel sounds to reinforce the meaning of the words. It also helps to create moods. Here, the long o sounds mysterious. Poetry is old, ancient, goes back far. It is among the oldest of living things. So old it is that no man knows how and why the first poems came. --Carl Sandburg, Early Moon Assonance in Poetry: In poetry, too, assonance stresses words and moods. And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride. --Edgar Allan Poe, "Annabel Lee"

Exercises: Find the examples of assonance in the following selections. Slow things are beautiful: The closing of the day, The pause of the wave That curves downward to spray. --Elizabeth Coatsworth, "Swift Things are Beautiful" 11. Consonance Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds, but not vowels, as in assonance. Examples: lady lounges lazily; dark deep dread crept in

12. Rhyme Rhyme is the similarity in sound of the ends of words: the last stressed syllable and the following unstressed syllables (if any). Rhyme is usually a structuring device in verse. Of course, not all poetry rhymes: classical Greek and Latin poetry never rhyme, for instance. When rhyming verses are arranged into stanzas, we can identify the rhyme scheme by assigning letters each rhyme, beginning with a and proceeding through the alphabet. Couplets, for instance such as Pope's: 'Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill Appear in writing, or in judging ill; But of the two, much greater is th' offence To tire the patience, than mislead the sense rhyme "aa bb," -- "a" represents the -ill sound, "b" represents the -ence sound. 13. Humor Humour or humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. Many theories exist about what humour is and what social function it serves. People of most ages and cultures respond to humour. The majority of people are able to be amused, to laugh or smile at something funny, and thus they are considered to have a "sense of humour" (Wikipedia) 14. Meter The recurrence of a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. 15. Stanza a grouping of two or more lines of a poem in terms of length, metrical form, or rhyme scheme.