Literary Devices Figurative language and types of poems - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Literary Devices

Figurative language and types of poemsSlide2

Figurative language

A form of language use in which writers and speakers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words.

Examples:

Hyperbole

exaggeration

Simile

metaphorSlide3

Literal language

A form of language in which writers and speakers mean exactly what their words mean.

When you say that is cold you mean it is cold in temperature.

The comedian died on the stage. (literal meaning - he actually died)Slide4

Stanza

A grouping of lines separated from others in a poem.

The stanza is like a prose paragraph. Slide5

Symbol

An object or action in a literary work that means more than itself, that stands for something beyond itself.

A rose, for example, has long been considered a symbol of love and affection. Slide6

Imagery

an author's use of vivid and descriptive language to add depth to their work

.

Examples

He fumed and charged like an angry bull.

He fell down like an old tree falling down in a storm.

He felt like the flowers were waving him a hello.

The eerie silence was shattered by her scream.Slide7

Connotation

a word that goes beyond its dictionary meaning. T

he emotional meaning.Slide8

Denotation

is the literal meaning,

the dictionary meaning of a word. Slide9

Meter

The rhythmical pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse.Slide10

Rhythm

The

audible pattern

of accent or stress in lines of verse. In the following lines from "Same in Blues" by Langston Hughes, the accented words and syllables are underlined:

I

said

to my

ba

by,

Ba

by take it

slow

....

Lu

lu said to

Leo

nard

I

want

a

dia

mond

ring

Another example is Edgar Allen Poe’s the BellsSlide11

Hear the sledges with the bells -

Silver bells! Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!

While the stars that over sprinkle

All the heavens, seem to twinkle

With a crystalline delight;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells -

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

The Bells

in the rhythm of Ms. Jefferis high school choir.Slide12

Rhyme

The matching of final vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words.

The following stanza of "Richard Cory" employs alternate rhyme, with the third line rhyming with the first and the fourth with the second:

Whenever Richard Cory went down

town

,

We people on the pavement looked at him;

He was a gentleman from sole to

crown

Clean favored and imperially slim.

A

rhyme scheme

is usually the pattern of end rhymes in a stanza, with each rhyme encoded by a letter of the alphabet, from

a

onward (ABBA BCCB, for example). Rhymes are classified by the degree of similarity between sounds within words, and by their placement within the lines or stanzas

Slide13

End rhyme

,

the most common type, is the rhyming of the final syllables of a line. See

“Midstairs”

by Virginia Hamilton Adair:

          And here on this turning of the

stair

          Between passion and

doubt,

          I pause and say a double

prayer,

          One for you, and one for you;

          And so they cancel

out.

Slide14

Internal rhyme

is rhyme within a single line of verse When a word from the middle of a line is rhymed with a word at the end of the line.

I had a

cat

who wore a

hat

He looked

cool

but felt the

fool

Edgar Allen Poe ‘

The Raven’

Once upon a midnight

dreary

, while I pondered, weak and

wearySlide15

Allusion

A brief reference to a historical, mythic, or literary person, place, event, or movement.

“I was surprised his nose was not growing like Pinocchio’s.” This refers to the story of Pinocchio, where his nose grew whenever he told a lie. It is from

The Adventures of Pinocchio

, written by Carlo

Collodi

. 

Heading down the rabbit hole is an allusion to Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll Slide16

Alliteration

the deliberate repetition of consonant sounds

Alliteration does not need to be every word in the line nor the same letter. I

k

eep the

c

at in a

c

age.

“We

s

aw the

s

ea

s

ound

s

ing, we heard the

s

alt

s

heet tell,” from Dylan Thomas’s

“Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed.

”

Tongue twisters are alliterated.

Amy Always answers abruptly.Slide17

Consonance

Is a type of alliteration. The repetitive sounds produced by consonants within a sentence or phrase

. It does not have to be at the start of the word

“T was later when the summer went” by Emily Dickson:

‘T was later when the summer went

Than when the cricket 

came

,

And yet we knew that gentle clock

Meant

nought

but going 

home

.

‘T was sooner when the cricket went

Than when the winter 

came

,

Yet that pathetic pendulum

Keeps esoteric 

time

.

The M sound is repeated Slide18

Assonance

The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry or prose.

I r

o

se and t

o

ld him of my w

o

e.”

Whitman's "When I Heard the

Learn'd

Astronomer”

How soon unaccountable

I

became t

i

red and sick,

Till r

i

sing and gl

i

ding out

I

wander'd

off by myself." Slide19

Hyperbole

A figure of speech involving exaggeration.

I am so hungry I could eat a horse.

I have a million things to do.

I had a ton of homework.

I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.Slide20

Personification

A

figure of speech

in which the poet describes, a thing, or a nonhuman form as if it were a person.

An example: "The yellow leaves

flaunted

their color gaily in the breeze." Wordsworth's "I wandered lonely as a cloud" includes personification.

The movie cars and planes use personification Slide21

Irony

A contrast between what is said and what is meant or a contrast between what happens and what is expected to happen in life and in literature.

‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ by Coleridge

“Water, water, everywhere,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink.”Slide22

Onomatopoeia

The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe.

Buzz

Crack

choo-choo

hiss

Most often refers to words and groups of words, such as Tennyson's description of the "murmur of innumerable bees," which attempts to capture the sound of a swarm of bees buzzing.Slide23

Metaphor

A comparison between essentially unlike things without an explicitly comparative word such as

like

or

as

.

An example is "My love is a red, red rose,”Slide24

Oxymoron

A

figure of speech

that brings together contradictory words for effect.

jumbo shrimp

deafening silenceSlide25

Simile

A comparison made with “as,” “like,” or “than.”

In “

A Red, Red Rose

,”

Robert Burns declares:

                   O my Love

is like

a red, red rose

                   That’s newly sprung in June;

                   O my Love

is like

the melody

                   That’s sweetly played in tune.

Love is being compared to a rose and a melody.Slide26

Pun

is a form of word play that suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect.

I went to a seafood disco last week....and

pulled a mussel.

I work as a baker because

I knead dough

Sir Lancelot once had a very bad dream about his horse. It was a

knight mare.Slide27

Palindrome

A word, phrase, or sentence that reads the same backward and forward.

civic

Level

A man, a plan, a canal—Panama

The reversal can be word by word as well

as in fall leaves when leaves fall. Slide28

Couplet

A pair of rhymed lines that may or may not constitute a separate

stanza

in a poem.

Shakespeare's sonnets end in rhymed couplets, as in "For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings / That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”Slide29

Forms of poetrySlide30

Haiku

A Japanese verse form of three

unrhyming

lines in five, seven, and five syllables. It creates a single, memorable image, as in these lines by

Kobayashi Issa

, translated by Jane

Hirshfield

:

        On a branch

        floating downriver

        a cricket, singing.

(In translating from Japanese to English,

Hirshfield

compresses the number of syllables.) Slide31

Limerick

A humorous poem of five lines rhyming AABBA.

A Clumsy Young Fellow Named Tim

There once was a fellow named Tim (A)

whose dad never taught him to swim. (A)

He fell off a dock (B)

and sunk like a rock. (B)

And that was the end of him. (A) Slide32

Lyric poem

A type of poem characterized by the expression of feeling.

The anonymous "Western Wind”

Western wind, when will thou blow,

The small rain down can rain?

Christ, if my love were in my arms

And I in my bed again!

It expresses the feeling of the wind.Slide33

Ode

A long, stately poem in

stanzas

of varied length,

meter

, and form. Usually a serious poem on an exalted subject.

Horace's "

Eheu

fugaces

,"

but sometimes a more lighthearted work, such as Neruda's "Ode to My Socks."

Slide34

Parody

A humorous, mocking imitation of a literary work, sometimes sarcastic, but often playful and even respectful in its playful imitation.Slide35

Quatrain

A four-line

stanza,

rhyming in a pattern - like ABAC, ABCB, ABBA, AABA

-AABA, the stanza of Robert Frost’s

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

Whose woods these are I think I know.

A

His house is in the village though;

A

He will not see me stopping here

B

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

ASlide36

Elegy

A

lyric poem

that laments the dead. Slide37

Epic

A long

narrative poem

that records the adventures of a hero. Epics typically chronicle the origins of a civilization and embody its central values.Slide38

Free verse

non rhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech. A regular pattern of sound or rhythm may emerge in free-verse lines, but the poet does not plan it in their composition. Slide39

Blank verse

A unrhymed line of poetry or proseSlide40

Ballad

A popular narrative song passed down orally. In the English tradition, it usually follows a form of rhymed (

abcb

)

quatrains

alternating four-stress and three-stress lines. Folk (or traditional) ballads are anonymous and recount tragic, comic, or heroic stories with emphasis on a central dramatic event.Slide41

Concrete poetry

Verse that emphasizes physical elements, such as a typeface that creates a visual image of the topic. Slide42

Sonnet

A 14-line poem with a variable rhyme scheme

originating in Italy and then to England in the 16th century. Literally a “little song,” the sonnet traditionally reflects upon a single sentiment, with a clarification or “turn” of thought in its concluding lines.

The Shakespearean or English sonnet is arranged as three

quatrains

and a final

couplet

, rhyming

abab

cdcd

efef

gg

. The

Petrarchan

or Italian sonnet divides into two parts: an eight-line octave and a six-line sestet, rhyming

abba

abba

cde

cde

or

abba

abba

cd

cd

cd

.Slide43

Tone

The implied attitude of a writer toward the subject and characters of a work.