This document defines and provides examples of various poetic devices including alliteration, assonance, consonance, end rhyme, rhyme scheme, internal rhyme, onomatopoeia, repetition, refrain, stanza, quatrain, simile, metaphor, personification, and symbolism. It explains that these devices help create images, rhythm, and meaning in poetry and that understanding them can help comprehend the figurative meanings in poems.

1. Poetic Devices
Taken from
Write Source 2000

2. Elements of Poetry
 Understanding the elements and devices
of poetry will help you better comprehend
the meanings of poems.
 Remember, often in poetry, the meaning
of the words isn’t literal. It’s figurative.

3. Understanding Internalizing
 As you already know, figurative language
and symbolism are very important to
poetry. However, there are other
elements that help create images,
rhythm, and meaning.

4. Alliteration
 The repeating of beginning consonant
sounds
 Ex: “creamy and crunchy”
 Ex: “nodded nearly napping”
–
“The Raven”

5. Assonance
 The repetition of vowel sounds
 Notice the repetition of the long “i” sound in the
following example
 Till the shining scythes went far and wide
And cut it down to dry.
- “The Hayloft” by R.L. Stevenson

6. Consonance
 The repetition of consonant sounds
(differs from alliteration because the
sounds can be anywhere within the word,
not just the beginning)
 The sailor sings of ropes and things
In ships upon the seas.
- “Singing”

7. End Rhyme
 The rhyming of words at the end of two or
more lines of poetry
 She always had to burn a light
Beside her attic bed at night.
- “The Night Light” by Robert Frost

8. Rhyme Scheme
 A pattern of lines that rhyme in poetry
 There are many different common rhyme
schemes: AABB, ABAB, and AAAB (to name a
few)
I shall be telling this with a sigh
somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all difference
- “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
A
B
A
A
B

9. Internal Rhyme
 The rhyming of words within one line of
poetry
 Jack Sprat could eat no fat
 Peter Peter pumpkin eater

10. Onomatopoeia
 The use of a word that sounds like what it
means
 buzz, gunk, gush, swish, zigzag, zip

11. Repetition
 The repeating of a word or phrase to add
rhythm or to emphasize an idea
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door –
- “The Raven” by E.A. Poe

12. Refrain
 Line, lines, or stanza repeated throughout
a poem (like a “chorus” in a song)
 Quoth the raven, “Never more.”
- “The Raven” by E.A. Poe

13. Stanza
 A group of lines within a poem that go
together
 Stanzas may consist of any number of lines,
even only a single line.
 Kindly remember that poems are written in
stanzas, not paragraphs and that they
consist of lines not sentences. *Occasionally
some poems do use sentences.

14. Quatrain
 A four-line stanza
 Common rhyme schemes in quatrains are
AABB, ABAB, and AAAB
 I wish I had no teachers.
That’s what I’d like to see.
I’d do whatever I wanted to,
And nobody’d yell at me.

15. Plus these, which are a review!

16. Simile
 Comparing two unrelated things using
“like” or “as”
 touching the ball like an ancient relic from
Africa . . .
– “The Ball The Rim and Him” by Al Letson

17. Metaphor
 Comparing two unrelated things without
using “like” or “as”
 . . . and then, with a little bit of reluctance he
lets go of this small circular piece of
Olympia, he lets go and falls back to us . . .
- “The Ball The Rim and Him” by Al Letson

18. Personification
 Making an inanimate object seem humanlike
by the description
 Among the neatly labeled keys . . .
is a brass ring of assorted expatriates
called KEYS TO SHANGRI-LA.
Little metal orphans, they have all lost their locks; or rather,
their locks have all lost them . . .
- from “Labeling Keys” by Taylor Mali

19. Symbolism
 When one thing is used to represent
something else, such as an idea, object,
person, concept, theme, relationship, trait,
condition, etc.