How Many Poetic Devices Are There?

There are hundreds, possibly even thousands, of different literary devices open to poets. They can be divided into categories—Poetic Form, Poetic Diction, and Poetic Punctuation.

 

Poetic Devices—Form

First, we’ll look at poetic devices relating to form. Poetic form refers to how the poem is structured using stanzas, line length, rhyme, and rhythm. Clever use of poetic form can enhance the meaning or emotion the poet is trying to achieve.

 

What Are the Basic Poetic Devices of Form?

Again, there is a huge variety of formal choices open to a poet, but for this article, we can divide them into three categories: fixed verse, blank verse, and free verse.

 

1: Fixed Verse

Fixed verse poems follow traditional forms, based on formal rhyme schemes and specific patterns of stanza, refrain, and meter. Types of fixed verse include limerick, haiku, ballad, villanelle, sestina, and rondeau. The most used, however, are odes and sonnets.

 

Odes

Odes are short, lyrical poems that are used to express emotions and praise. The Ode originated in ancient Greece as a way of praising an athletic victory but later was adopted by the Romantics to convey emotion through intense or lofty language. Odes vary in style and form but are nearly always formally structured. One of the most famous examples is Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind which is a poem written in iambic pentameter (combining an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable in groups of five.) The poem praises the quality of the wind and is a strong invocation of the poet as a bringer of political change:

 

Sonnets

Perhaps the most famous type of fixed verse, the sonnet uses iambic pentameter in a fourteen-line poem, with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. This fixed rhyme scheme can prompt unconventional phrasing, and gives the sonnet a sense of superiority over conventional speech, whilst at the same time the rhythm of the iambic pentameter keeps it feeling natural.

The sonnet has traditionally been used as a way of declaring love, most famously by Shakespeare in his 154-sonnet sequence that dramatized love, beauty, and the passing of time. Whilst the most famous of these is Sonnet 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”) Sonnet 60, which examines the nature of passing time and its effect on human life, is worth looking at:

 

2: Blank verse

Blank verse poems comprise unrhymed lines that use a regular meter—basically, a non-rhyming iambic pentameter. Blank verse is the most influential of all English poetical forms and has regularly been used by all the great poets throughout the centuries.

Christopher Marlowe used blank verse first, but once again it was Shakespeare who made the form his own. The most famous example in Shakespeare’s work is the “to be or not to be” soliloquy from Hamlet (although in this speech, he doesn’t stick religiously to the ten syllables of iambic pentameter). Notice how the rhythm accentuates the feeling of grandness as all of life and death are considered:

 

3: Free Verse

Free verse poems remove the need for both formal rhyme and formal metric rhythm schemes. This allows the poem to be shaped completely by the poet. Removing this formality often allows the poet a far greater canvas on which to play. A fantastic example of free verse poetry is the short, imagist poem This is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams.

 

Poetic Devices—Diction

“Poetic diction” means the sounds, meanings, and rhythms that make up the language or “operating system” of poetry. These types of devices are what the poet uses to establish the feel and atmosphere of the poem.

 

Poetic Devices of Sound

These are poetic devices that use specific sonic effects to evoke emotions or thoughts, in the readers of the poem. The following examples represent some of the most common sonic literary devices in poetry:

 

Alliteration

Alliteration is when two or more words start with the same consonant sound and are used to emphasize an idea or action and create an emotional response. A snake, slithering slyly, for example, enhances the sense of the snake’s deviousness and danger. Whereas if a poet uses p’s, d’s, or b’s in a row, it gives their poem a strong, booming, drumbeat-like sound: Bore up his branching head: scarce from his mold Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved His vastness Paradise Lost:

The Seventh Book—John Milton

 

Assonance

Whereas alliteration repeats the same consonant sounds at the start of words, assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds (anywhere within the word) on the same or following lines of a poem to give a musical, internal rhyme. The sound will be a vowel sound but doesn’t have to use a vowel, meaning you could rhyme some and mud, for example. William Blake is well known for his use of assonance,

such as the repeating “i” and “y” sound in The Tyger: Tyger, Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy beautiful symmetry.

 

Consonance

Consonance is a similar device to alliteration and assonance in that it involves the repetition of sounds. But consonance consists of repeating consonant sounds at the end (and sometimes middle) rather than the beginning of words.

Once again, we can look at The Tyger above, but this time considering the repeated “r” sounds in burning, bright, and forests. Similarly, the “t” sound is also repeated throughout, in night, bright, Tyger.

 

Cacophony

Cacophony involves the use of unpleasant, nasty, or harsh sounds (mainly consonants) to give the impression of chaos, disorder, or dread, as in Lewis Carroll’s poem Jabberwocky:

Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The furious Bandersnatch!

 

Euphony

On the other hand, euphony is the repetition of harmonious, musical sounds that are pleasant to read or hear. This is achieved through the use of soft consonant sounds such as m, n, w, r, f, and h and vibrating consonants such as s, sh, and th.

 

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia is a literary and poetic device wherein words are employed to imitate sounds associated with what they describe. Examples include smash, crack, ripple, and jangling.

 

Poetic Devices of Meaning

Poets also have several poetic devices available which allow them to tease out the intended meaning of the poem without having to be too literal.

 

Allusion

Allusion is an indirect reference to a person, place, thing, history, mythology, or work of art, that the poet wants to acknowledge as relevant to the poem’s meaning. TS Eliot’s The Waste Land begins with an allusion (indeed the whole poem is packed with them), announcing “April is the cruelest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land” which alludes to and contrasts the opening of The Canterbury Tales in which the coming of April is a joyous occasion.

 

Conceit

Conceit is an elaborate metaphor that runs throughout the entire poem to compare two things that do not really belong together. In contrast to simple metaphors though, a conceit will be something far more fanciful and unlikely. In To the Harbormaster by Frank O’Hara, for example, the lover is the harbormaster, and the narrator is a metaphysical seafarer, trying to reach his lover.

 

Irony

Irony in poetry refers mainly to ‘dramatic irony’, in which the reader has important knowledge that the characters do not. The most famous example of this is in Romeo and Juliet, in which (spoiler alert), the audience knows Juliet isn’t dead, but can’t do anything about Romeo committing suicide.

 

Metaphor

Metaphor is used in poetry to directly compare people, objects, or ideas. Whereas similes compare using “like” or “as,” metaphors declare that a thing “is” something else—he is the apple of my eye, for example—in order to reach for a deeper understanding of the comparison. In Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, Emily Dickinson compares hope to a bird:

 

Paradox

As a poetic device, paradox refers to a phrase that is self-contradictory but reveals a larger truth. In Julius Caesar, for example, Shakespeare wrote that “Cowards die many times before their deaths / The valiant never taste of death but once.”

 

Personification

Personification is when an inanimate object, animal, or idea is given human characteristics; for example, “the wind whispered through the trees.” Thus in Mirror, Silvia Plath writes from the perspective of the mirror: I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediately.

Rhetorical Question

In poetry and literature, a rhetorical question is a question that is not looking for an answer, but rather is being asked to make a point. In the poem cited earlier, Ode to the West Wind, Shelley asks in the final line:

O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Simile

The simile, like the metaphor, offers another device for comparison. However, a simile is much more blatant and uses like or as to draw the comparison. Robert Frost uses simile in his poem Design:

Symbolism

Poets use symbolism to convey hidden meanings. Places, objects, and actions can all be symbols, with many layers of meaning tied to them. Symbolism adds depth to the literal meaning of the poem. Thus, in The Pasture, by Robert Frost, “to clean the pasture spring” is to push sin away, and “wait to watch the water clear” is to wait until the heart is sin-free: I’m going out to clean the pasture spring; I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may):

I shan’t be gone long.—You come too. The Pasture—Robert Frost Poetic Devices of Rhythm Devices of rhythm are those that give the poem a rhythmic effect and in doing so allow the poet to stress certain elements of meaning and emotion.

 

Caesura

Caesura means a break or pause in the verse to allow one phrase to finish and another to begin. This can be used both to allow a natural flow to the poem or alternatively, to add dramatic pauses, show contrast, and create drama and tension.

For example, Emily Dickinson’s poem I’m Nobody! Who Are You? uses caesura in the following places: I’m nobody! || Who are you? Are you nobody too? Then there’s a pair of us || Don’t tell! They’d banish us, || – you know!

 

Enjambment

Enjambment is the continuation of a phrase or sentence beyond the poetic line break and sometimes beyond the couplet or stanza, without the pause that you would expect from a full stop or other punctuation. It encourages the reader to keep reading, whilst controlling the rhythm and flow of their reading. This is best exemplified in Between Walls by William Carlos Williams, in which the whole poem consists of a single sentence split into 10 enjambed lines:

The back wings Of the Hospital where Nothing Will grow lie Cinders In which shine The broken Pieces of a green Bottle

 

Meter

The meter is the rhythm of the poem itself, measured in the length and number of ‘feet’ in each line. The most widely recognized of these is the iambic pentameter—which we discussed in the section on sonnet—a form that replicates and amplifies the rhythm of natural speech and gives a regular, heartbeat-like feel to the verse.

The pattern of iambic pentameter—five feet, each containing a stressed and unstressed syllable—goes like this: Shall I |comp ARE |thee TO | a SUM| mers DAY? As well as the iamb, other meters include the anapest (unstressed, unstressed, stressed), the trochee (stressed, unstressed), and the dactyl (stressed, unstressed, unstressed).

 

Rhyme

Rhyme is the most obvious of poetic devices, using repeating patterns of similar sounds, to create musicality and rhythm and give the poem symmetry. One of the most common rhymes is the couplet, which is two lines that rhyme together. The following example is a simple two-line poem called The Cow by Ogden Nash: The cow is of the bovine ilk; One end is moo, the other, is milk. Whilst this end rhyme form is the most well-known, many poets also utilize internal rhymes. So, in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge writes: In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud Whiles all the night through fog-smoke white

 

Repetition

The repetition of certain words or phrases is a method of indirectly stressing emotions or ideas and reinforcing the central point of the poem. Repetition can be used with words, phrases, lines, and even full verses. One of the most famous poems of the 20th century, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas, repeats two lines throughout the poem. Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at the close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.

 

Poetic Devices—Punctuation

Whereas in normal writing, punctuation has a utilitarian purpose, in poetry, it can be used as a tool of expression or artistic choice.

 

Apostrophe

In poetry, the term apostrophe doesn’t refer to the same type of punctuation as you would expect, rather it is a poetic device to show that the speaker is addressing someone who is not present in the poem. An apostrophe is usually invoked using the letter O as a punctuation mark, indicating someone is being addressed. Thus in To Morning, Blake addresses the morning star, as the huntress Diana: O holy virgin! clad in purest white, Unlock heaven’s golden gates, and issue forth.

 

Comma

In poetry, commas show a pause and a separation of elements as well as allowing you to remove “and” from a line. In In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII Tennyson uses commas in multiple ways: Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

 

Exclamation Mark

Poets use exclamation marks to express exhilaration, excitement, joy, surprise, or to add emphasis. As an example, Emily Dickinson’s use of exclamation marks, along with dashes, was essential to her style—that of a young, energetic poet, brimming with life: Wild nights – Wild nights! Were I with thee Wild nights should be Our luxury! Futile – the winds – To a Heart in Port – Done with the Compass – Done with the Chart! Rowing in Eden – Ah – the Sea! Might I but moor – tonight – In thee!