Imagery: language that engages our senses (sight, tough, hearing, smelling, tasting)
Visual imagery
Simile: a comparison of two things using like or as.
The hard gust of wind came brutal like the blow of a fist. (Conrad)
Metaphor: an implied comparison
Modesty is the best dress of a woman. (Pope)
Aural imagery
Alliteration: the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words.
The sun slowly reaches the highest point in its bright blue home. (Moya)
Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds in words.
My stepmom shouted loud as a train.
Consonance: repetition of consonant sounds anywhere in words, not just at the beginning.
Call me Jack, the wacky one.
Onomatopoeia: use of words that sound very much like the noise they name.
Swish those skirts, snap those fingers-
Go ahead, but watch the night go poof.
End Rhyme: use of rhyming words at the end of two or more lines of poetry.
The music’s pumpin’
I start jumpin’
(Maya Liparini)
Internal Rhyme: use of rhyming words within a line of poetry.
Hang tight, then make a right
Apostrophe: addressing a person, thing or quality as if it were present or could hear.
O Wild, West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being! (Shelley)
Hyperbole: the deliberate exaggeration to emphasize an emotional effect.
All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.
Repetition: technique of repeating a word or phrase for rhythm or emphasis.
Rhythm: the way a poem flows from one idea to the next. In free-verse poetry, the rhythm seems
to follow the poet’s natural voice, almost as if he or she were speaking to the reader. In more
traditional poetry, a regular rhythm is established. Notice how the accented syllables in the follow
lines create the poem’s regular rhythm.
Whose wóods these áre I thínk I knów.
His house is ín the ´village though.
(Robert Frost)
Meter: the rhythm created in poetry by the repetition of similar units of sound patterns (stressed
and unstressed syllable combinations)
Dimeter, Trimeter, Tentrameter, Pentameter, Hexameter, Heptameter, Octameter
Iambic Pentameter: A five foot line of iambic meter. This is the most common meter in the English
language.
Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat
(John Milton)