ELEMENTS OF POETRY

Tone and mood both deal with the emotions centered around a piece of
writing. Though they seem similar and can in fact be related causally,
they are in fact quite different.

Tone is the author’s attitude toward a subject.

Mood is the atmosphere of a piece of writing; it’s the emotions a

selection arouses in a reader.

TONE AND MOOD

FORM AND STRUCTURE
A poem may or may not have a specific number of lines, rhyme scheme and/or metrical
pattern, but it can still be labeled according to its form or style. Here are the three most
common types of poems according to form:

1. Lyric Poetry: It is any poem with one speaker (not necessarily the poet) who
expresses strong thoughts and feelings. Most poems, especially modern ones, are
lyric poems.

2. Narrative Poem: It is a poem that tells a story; its structure resembles the plot line
of a story [i.e. the introduction of conflict and characters, rising action, climax and the
denouement].

3. Descriptive Poem: It is a poem that describes the world that surrounds the
speaker. It uses elaborate imagery and adjectives. While emotional, it is more
"outward-focused" than lyric poetry, which is more personal and introspective.
  Narrative poetry tells a story in verse. Narrative poems often have elements similar to those in
short stories, such as plot and characters.
 Haiku is a three- line Japanese verse form. The first and third lines each have five syllables
and the second line has seven.
 Free Verse poetry is defined by its lack of strict structure. It has no regular meter, rhyme, fixed
line length, or specific stanza pattern
 Lyric poetry expresses the thoughts and feelings of a single speaker, often in highly musical

FORMS 

verse.
Ballad is a songlike poem that tells a story, often dealing with adventure and romance.
Concrete poems are shaped to look like their subjects. The poet arranges the lines to create a

AND
picture on a page.
 Limericks are humorous, rhyming, five- line poems with a specific rhythm pattern and rhyme
scheme.
 Sonnets are fourteen line poems that follow a strict rhyme scheme.

TYPE OF
 Tezra rima is an Italian form of poetry first used by Dante Alighieri. A terza rima consists of
stanzas of three lines (or tercets) usually in iambic pentameter. It follows an interlocking
rhyming scheme, or chain rhyme.
 Diamante is a seven line contrast poem. Its line and shape give the resemblance of a diamond.

POETRY 


Dramatic monologue A poem in which an imagined speaker addresses a silent listener, usually
not the reader.
Epic A long narrative poem in which a heroic protagonist engages in an action of great mythic
or historical significance.
 Ode A formal, often ceremonious lyric poem that addresses and often celebrates a person,
place, thing, or idea.
 Villanelle a pastoral or lyrical poem of nineteen lines, with only two rhymes throughout, and
some lines repeated.
DICTION AND THEME
 Diction: in writing and speech the choice and use of words and phrases the accent,
inflection, intonation, and speech-sound quality manifested by an individual
speaker, usually judged in terms of prevailing standards of acceptability;
enunciation.

 Theme: The message, main point and idea of the poem.

RHYME
 Rhyme is the repetition of similar sounds. In poetry, the most
common kind of rhyme is the end rhyme, which occurs at the end
of two or more lines. It is usually identified with lower case letters,
and a new letter is used to identify each new end sound. Take a
look at the rhyme scheme for the following poem :
I saw a fairy in the wood,
He was dressed all in green.
He drew his sword while I just stood,
And realized I'd been seen.
The rhyme scheme of the poem is abab.
TYPES OF RHYME
End Rhymes
Rhyming of the final words of lines in a poem. The following, for example, is from Seamus Heaney’s “Digging” :

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground

Internal Rhymes
Rhyming of two words within the same line of poetry. The following, for example, is from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” :

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

Slant Rhymes (sometimes called imperfect, partial, near, oblique, off etc.)
Rhyme in which two words share just a vowel sound (assonance – e.g. “heart” and “star”) or in which they share just a consonant sound
(consonance – e.g. “milk” and “walk”). Slant rhyme is a technique perhaps more in tune with the uncertainties of the modern age than strong rhyme.
The following example is also from Seamus Heaney’s “Digging” :

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun

Rich Rhymes
Rhyme using two different words that happen to sound the same (i.e. homonyms) – for example “raise” and “raze”. The following example – a triple
rich rhyme – is from Thomas Hood’s” A First Attempt in Rhyme” :

Partake the fire divine that burns,

In Milton, Pope, and Scottish Burns,
Who sang his native braes and burns.
TYPES OF RHYMES
Eye Rhymes
Rhyme on words that look the same but which are actually pronounced differently – for example “bough” and “rough”. The opening
four lines of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, for example, go :

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Here, “temperate” and “date” look as though they rhyme, but few readers would pronounce “temperate” so that they did. Beware that
pronunciations can drift over time and that rhymes can end up as eye rhymes when they were originally full (and vice versa).

Identical Rhymes
Simply using the same word twice. An example is in (some versions of) Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could not Stop for Death” :

We paused before a House that seemed

A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Ground—

It’s clear there is often a certain amount of overlap between rhyme and other poetical devices such as assonance – subjects to be
covered in future poetry writing tips.
 RHYTHM AND METER
 Rhythm and Meter: the systematic regularity in rhythm; this systematic rhythm (or sound pattern) is usually identified
by examining the type of "foot" and the number of feet.
o Poetic Foot: The traditional line of metered poetry contains a number of rhythmical units, which are called feet.
The feet in a line are distinguished as a recurring pattern of two or three syllables("apple" has 2 syllables,
"banana" has 3 syllables, etc.). The pattern, or foot, is designated according to the number of syllables
contained, and the relationship in each foot between the strong and weak syllables.Thus:

__ = a stressed (or strong, or LOUD) syllable

U = an unstressed (or weak, or quiet) syllable
o In other words, any line of poetry with a systematic rhythm has a certain number of feet, and each foot has two
or three syllables with a constant beat pattern .
a. Iamb (Iambic) - weak syllable followed by strong syllable. [Note that the pattern is sometim es fairly
hard to maintain, as in the third foot.]

b. Trochee (Trochaic): strong syllable followed by a weak syllable.

LINEATION
 Lineation: an arrangement of lines in poetry. The relationship
between the poetic line (including its length and positioning and
how it fits into other lines) and the content of a poem.
 Stanza: Stanzas are a series of lines grouped together and separated by an
empty line from other stanzas. They are the equivalent of a paragraph in an
essay. One way to identify a stanza is to count the number of lines. Thus:
o couplet (2 lines)
o tercet (3 lines)
o quatrain (4 lines)
o cinquain (5 lines)
o sestet (6 lines) (sometimes it's called a sexain)
o septet (7 lines)
o octave (8 lines)
 Allegory is a symbolism device where the meaning of a greater, often abstract, concept is
conveyed with the aid of a more corporeal object or idea being used as an example. Usually a
rhetoric device, an allegory suggests a meaning via metaphoric examples.
Allusion is a figure of speech whereby the author refers to a subject matter such as a place,
event, or literary work by way of a passing reference. It is up to the reader to make a connection
to the subject being mentioned.
Anastrophe is a form of literary device wherein the order of the noun and the adjective in the
sentence is exchanged. In standard parlance and writing the adjective comes before the noun but
when one is employing an anastrophe the noun is followed by the adjective. This reversed order
creates a dramatic impact and lends weight to the description offered by the adjective.
Antithesis is used when the writer employs two sentences of contrasting meanings in close
proximity to one another. Whether they are words or phrases of the same sentence, an antithesis
is used to create a stark contrast using two divergent elements that come together to create one
uniform whole. An antithesis plays on the complementary property of opposites to create one
vivid picture. The purpose of using an antithesis in literature is to create a balance between
opposite qualities and lend a greater insight into the subject.

LITERARY DEVICES
 Apostrophe is a figure of speech in which a speaker directly addresses
someone (or something) that is not present or cannot respond in reality. The
entity being addressed can be an absent, dead, or imaginary person, but it can
also be an inanimate object (like stars or the ocean), an abstract idea (like love
or fate), or a being (such as a Muse or god).
Caesura This literary device involves creating a fracture of sorts within a
sentence where the two separate parts are distinguishable from one another yet
intrinsically linked to one another. The purpose of using a caesura is to create a
dramatic pause, which has a strong impact. The pause helps to add an
emotional, often theatrical touch to the sentence and conveys a depth of
sentiment in a short phrase.
Enjambment is the continuation of a sentence or clause across a line break
without any terminating punctuation mark, such as a comma or period.

LITERARY DEVICES
 Euphemism is used to refer to the literary practice of using a comparatively
milder or less abrasive form of a negative description instead of its original,
unsympathetic form. This device is used when writing about matters such as
sex, violence, death, crimes and things "embarrassing". The purpose of
euphemisms is to substitute unpleasant and severe words with more genteel
ones in order to mask the harshness.. The use of euphemisms is sometimes
manipulated to lend a touch of exaggeration or irony in satirical writing.
Juxtaposition is a literary device wherein the author places a person, concept,
place, idea or theme parallel to another. The purpose of juxtaposing two
directly or indirectly related entities close together in literature is to highlight
the contrast between the two and compare them. This literary device is usually
used for etching out a character in detail, creating suspense or lending a
rhetorical effect.

LITERARY DEVICES
 Litotes are figures of rhetoric speech that use an understated statement of an affirmative by
using a negative description. Rarely talked about, but commonly used in modern day
conversations, litotes are a discreet way of saying something unpleasant without directly using
negativity. Sometimes called an ironical understatement and/or an avoidance of a truth which
can be either positive or negative. Common examples: “I'm not feeling bad,” or “he's definitely
not a rocket scientist.” The actual meanings are: “I am feeling well,” and “he is not smart.”
Litotes were used frequently in Old English Poetry and Literature, and can be found in the
English, Russian, German, Dutch and French languages.
Malapropism in literature refers to the practice of misusing words by substituting words with
similar sounding words that have different, often unconnected meanings, and thus creating a
situation of confusion, misunderstanding and amusement. Malapropism is used to convey that
the speaker or character is flustered, bothered, unaware or confused and as a result cannot
employ proper diction. A trick to using malapropism is to ensure that the two words (the
original and the substitute) sound similar enough for the reader to catch onto the intended
switch and find humor in the result.

LITERARY DEVICES
 Metonymy in literature refers to the practice of not using the formal word for an
object or subject and instead referring to it by using another word that is intricately
linked to the formal name or word. It is the practice of substituting the main word
with a word that is closely linked to it.
Satire in literature refers to the practice of making fun of a human weakness or
character flaw. The use of satire is often inclusive of a need or decision of correcting
or bettering the character that is on the receiving end of the satire. In general, even
though satire might be humorous and may “make fun”, its purpose is not to entertain
and amuse but actually to derive a reaction of contempt from the reader.
Synecdoche is a literary device that uses a part of something to refer to the whole or
vice versa. It is somewhat rhetorical in nature, where the entire object is represented
by way of a fraction of it or a fraction of the object is symbolized by the whole.

LITERARY DEVICES