Shows the essential elements in poetry use. That may affect one's skill in poetry writing, and learn what his/her own features may emphasize.

2. Elements
of
Poetry

3. 1.SENSE
• A word is a sound or a combination of sounds
which refers to or means something. A word
may be used in different senses, but for each
sense the word refers to an object, idea,
action or quality. This meaning is called the
DENOTATION of the word. Sometimes a word
may call to mind other allied meanings or
ideas. We call these meanings,
CANNOTATIONS.

4. Example:
Green Leaves and Grass
- Green denotes simply the familiar color of
leaves and grass.
- It connotes “newness”, “freshness” and hope

5. 2. SOUND
Part of the meaning of a poem is carried by
the sound of the words used. As in music, every
word has it’s tone color.
Differences in tone color depend on
differences in the sound of the two letters.
The poet selects his words with the
appropriate tone color in mind to produce his
intended effect.

6. Example:
The poet might explore the possibilities of evoking a
particular mood through a regular repetition of the
same vowel sound(assonance), as in “On thy cold
gray stones, O sea!”(Tennyson) or the same
consonant sound(alliteration), as in “These
ruminants on the run, when they travel,/ travel a
mobile mental mileage metered/ by the depth and
distance of their dreams”
He may also use onomatopoeic words like “plop”,
“bang”, and “splash”.

7. 3. POETRY IS LIKE ORDINARY
SPEECH
When we utter sounds of human speech, they
do not come out in one even flow but varying
pitches, stresses, volumes, and durations. This
variety makes for the rhythm of the language. In
poetry, it used with special intensity to stress
certain moods, feelings, ideas, certain ideas and
attitudes.
To sum up, a poem becomes an effective conveyor
of meaning if its components, substance or sense,
sound, and structure, work together, to make a
whole meaningful entity.

8. Detailed Elements of Poetry the
reader must be familiar with:
a. Voice
b. Diction
c. Imagery

9. a. Voice
- Means the speaker in the poem or persona.
Sometimes the voice in the poem is not that
of a person. It can be the voice of a mountain
or any non-human being. When we read a
poem, we hear the speaker’s voice that
conveys its tone that is implied attitude
toward its subject.
Tone is an abstraction we make from details
and exclusion of other kinds.

10. Kinds of Voice
A. Dramatized Voice- voice that says “I”;
identifies himself
B. Undramatized Voice- is just a voice but does
not identify him.

11. b. Diction
Samuel Taylor Coleridge put it as “the best word
in the best order”. It refers to the author’s
choice and use of words in the poem. To
understand the poem one must know how not
only what the word means but also what they
imply or suggest both denotation and
connotation of words must be considered.
This includes sound, denotation and
connotation.

12. c. Imagery
- refers to the words that are used to describe
things in a poem. It is the element that produces
the effect of vividness, the result of evocation of
mental reproductions, representations or
imitations of sense perceptions.

13. 4. FIGURES OF SPEECH
- Language can be conveniently classified as either literal
or figurative language when we mean something other
than the actual meaning of the words.
- These are expressions or ways of using word in a
nonliteral sense. These are rhetorical devices used by
poets in order to evoke imagery. Rhetoricians have
catalogued more than 250 different figures of speech.
- It is saying less, more, opposite or something else than
what you mean.
- According to R. Frost “A permissible way of saying
something and meaning another”.

14. a. SIMILE- a comparison of two persons or
things which are unlike in most respects uses
like or as to signal the comparison. (Serrano,
1979)
Ex: “The boat, like some full breasted swan…”
b. METAPHOR- an implied comparison between
two persons or things which are unlike in most
respects; does not use like or as.
Ex: “My soul is an enchanted boat”.

15. c. PERSONIFICATION- the transfer of human
characteristics to inanimate objects or abstract
qualities.
Ex: “Where wasteful time debateth with decay”.
d. Hyperbole- a statement greatly exaggerated
for an aesthetic purpose.
e. ONOMATOPEIA- the blending of sounds of
words with their sense.
Ex: “How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle”

16. f. APOSTROPHE- addressing absent person or
ideas directly as if they were present.
Ex: “He’s not a bad singer.”
g. ALLUSION- a reference to something outside
the poem (in history, mythology or another
literary work) which has built-in emotional
association. Ex: “Was this face that launched
thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of
Ilium?”
It refers to the grammatical structure of words in
sentences of longer units throughout the poem.

17. 5. SYMBOLISM
AND ALLEGORY
• Symbolism refers to a symbol of any object or
action that means more than itself, any object
or action that represents something beyond
itself. (Di Yanni,1994)
Ex: The heart shape or rose is a symbol of love.
• Allegory is more or less extended use of
metaphor, symbol or personification for the
purpose of communicating indirectly a hidden
meaning-often a veiled personal identity,
political opinion or religious or oral doctrine.

18. 6. GRAMMAR
This refers to the word order in poetry may be
lengthy and complicated with subjects and
predicates following inverted order.
• Syntax- it is the order of words in the sentence,
phrase or clause. It comes from a Greek word
meaning to “arrange together”.
Ex: “Full many a gem of purest ray serene.
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear.”
Means: The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean caves
bear many lustrous gems.

19. 7. SOUND AND RHYME
• Sound- in a poem has something to do with its
rhyme as well as two figures of speech earlier
mentioned, alliteration and assonance.
• Rhyme- it is the most familiar element of
poetry which can be defined as the matching
of final vowel and consonant sounds in two or
more words. (Di Yanni, 1994)
- it is the repetition of stressed vowel
sound and its succeeding sound.

20. Different Types of Rhyme
a. Perfect or Exact Rhyme
-it occurs when differing consonant sounds are
followed by identical stressed vowel sounds.
Ex: Foe-foe
b. Half-rhyme
-only the final consonant sounds of rhyming words are
identical; the stressed vowel sounds as well as the initial
consonant sounds differ.
Ex: Soul-oil, mirth-fourth
c. Eye-rhyme
-doesn’t really rhyme, it merely looks rhyme.
Ex: Cough-bough

21. d. Rime riche
Words that sound exactly the same but
have different spellings and meanings.
Ex: Knight-night.
e. Historical Rhyme- rhyme that was perfect
when the poem was written but because of
changes in pronunciation, is no longer so.
f. Masculine Rhyme- the final syllabled are
stressed and after their differing consonant
sounds are identical I sounds.
Ex: stark-mark, support-retort

22. g. Feminine Rhyme- stressed rhyming syllables are
followed by identical stressed syllables.
Ex: revival-arrival
g. Triple Rhyme- a kind of feminine rhyme in which
identical unstressed syllables.
Ex: machinery- scenery
h. End Rhyme- corresponding sounds occur at the
end of line.
i. Internal Rhyme- corresponding sounds occur
within the lines.
j. Beginning Rhyme- the first word or syllable
rhymes in two or more.

23. 8. RHYTHM
AND METER
• RHYTHM- is a pattern of sounds a sounds
arranged in a particular way. It also refers to the
regular recurrence of the accent or stress in a
poem or a song. It is the pulse or beat we feel in a
phrase of music or a line of poetry.
Poets rely heavily on rhythm to express and
convey feeling.
Ex: “The Rising Sun” by John Donne
Busy old FOOL, unruly SUN
WHY DOST THOU THUS
Through WINdows, and through
CURtains CALL on US

24. • METER- defined as the number of stressed and
unstressed syllables in one poetic foot. It is a
count of the stresses we feel in the poem’s
rhythm.
Foot – it is the unit of poetic meter in English by
convention. It could be: iambic, trochaic, anapaestic
or dactylic.
Iambic Line- it is composed primarily of iambs.
An iamb- is an unaccented syllable followed by an
accented one.
Ex: “pre-VENT”
Trochaic Line- it is an accented syllable followed
by an accented one.
Ex: FOOT-ball

25.  We can represent an accent syllable followed by one by a
TUM and the unaccepted one by a TA.
Because the iambic and the trochaic feet contain two
syllables per foot, they are called ‘duple’ or double meters
that can be distinguished from a triple meters, like the
anapestic and the dactylic.
 Anapestic Line- accent is on the last syllable. It consist of
‘ta-ta-tum’ as in com-pre-HEND
 Dactylic Line- accent is on the first syllable. It is composed
of ‘tum-ta-ta’ like DAN-ge-rous.
If the foot is made up of two accented syllabes together or a
‘tum-tum’ it is called a spondee or the spondaic meter.
Duple-Meters: two syllables per foot: iambic and trochaic

26. Triple Meters: three syllables per foot: anapestic
and dactylic. Number of foot per line
 One foot- Monometer
Two foot- Dimeter
Three foot- Trimeter
Four foot- Tetrameter
Five foot- Pentameter
Six foot- Hexameter
Seven foot- Heptameter
Eight foot- octameter

27. 9. FORM STRUCTURE
- it is the way the poem goes together in terms
of its component; physical appearance; genre
(structure); what words used (form)
10. SETTING
- It answers the question what, when or where.
It may or may not be represented in the poem.
11. THEME
- it is commonly known as the message or the
underlying philosophy conveyed in a poem. It is
an abstraction or generalization drawn from the
details of a literary work.

28. It also refers to the idea or intellectually
apprehensible meaning inherent and implicit in a
piece of literary work. (Di Yanni, 1994)
Purpose: to work toward understanding a poem’s
significance- what it says, implies and what it
means.
12. TONE
- it is the attitude of the writer towards his subjects
or audience; it is the emotional meaning of the
work; it is the mood it creates on the reader.
13. PATTERN-
it is the entire combination of rhythm, rhyme,
meter and other devices to create a distinctive flow.
Ex: Sonnet