Elements

Elements of
of Poetry
Poetry
 Definition of Poetry
• Literature in verse form (a
controlled arrangement of lines
and stanzas)

• Uses language to express layers

of meaning
 Literary Elements
• Figurative language

– Language that is used

imaginatively rather than
literally to express
ideas/feelings
 Examples:
• Simile: uses “like” or “as” to
compare 2 essentially unlike
things

• Ex./She runs like the wind.

 Metaphor
• Compares 2 like things describing
one as if it were the other

• ex./ My brother’s room is a

pigpen.
 Personification
• A figure of speech in which human
qualities are given to a non-human
subject

• Ex./ The feather tickled my face.

 Imagery
• Descriptive language that
creates vivid impressions.

• Uses sensory language; appeals to

the 5 senses
 Musical qualities
• Poets often use sound devices to
achieve a musical quality

• They do this by the language

that they use
 Rhythm
• Pattern created by stressed and
unstressed syllables

• Ordered pattern of rhythm is called

meter
 Rhyme
• Repetition of identical sounds in
the last syllables of words

• Pattern of rhyme at end of lines

in a poem is called rhyme scheme
 Alliteration
• Initial rhyme

• Repetition of first consonant

• Ex./the light lemon lollipop

 Assonance
• Vowel rhyme

• Repetition of vowel sounds in nearby

words

• Ex./ date and fade

 Consonance
• Repetition of consonants within
nearby words in which the
separating vowels differ

• Ex./ milk and walk