Poetic ElementsPoetry Unit

Learning Targets for Literature

Key Ideas and DetailsDetermine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

Craft and StructureDetermine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone).

Integration of Knowledge and IdeasAnalyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment

Alliteration

• The repetition of sounds at the beginning of words

• Example: “Babbling, bumbling, baboons”

Assonance

• Repeating internal vowel sounds in nearby words that do not end the same.

• Example: “All the night tide”

Connotation

• Associations and implications that go beyond the literal meaning of a word and the associations that people make with it.

• Example: The word “drugs” has a negative connotation, though some drugs can be useful to improve health.

Consonance

• A common type of near rhyme that consists of identical consonant sounds preceded by different vowel sounds.

• Example: My home is the same wherever I roam.

Denotation

• The dictionary meaning of a word. A word’s literal meaning.

• Example: Denotation – the dictionary definition of a word.

Diction• A writer’s choice of words, phrases, and figurative language,

which combine to help create meaning.

• Poetic diction: The way poets sometimes employ an elevated diction that deviates significantly from common speech and writing of their time.

Extended Metaphor

• A comparison of two unlike things without comparing words that continues throughout several lines of a work.

Figurative Language

• Ways of using language that deviate from the literal, denotative meanings of words in order to suggest additional meanings or effects. Saying one thing in terms of something else.

• Examples: Metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole

Hyperbole

• A boldly exaggerated statement that adds emphasis without intending to be literally true.

• Example: He ate everything in the house.

Imagery

• A word, phrase, or figure of speech that addresses the senses, suggesting mental pictures of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings or actions.

• Example: The green, lush, rolling hills smelled of lavender on the spring morning.

Metaphor

• A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, without using words such as ‘like’ or ‘as’.

• Example: “Juliet is the sun.”

Meter

• A rhythmic pattern of stresses occurs in a poem. These are determined by type and number of feet in a line of verse.

• Types: Dimeter, Trimeter, Tetrameter, Pentameter, Hexameter, Heptameter, Octameter

Onomatopoeia

• A word that resembles the sound it denotes.

• Examples: Buzz, clang, click

Personification

• A form of metaphor in which human characteristics are attributed to nonhuman things.

• Example: The dancing trees swayed.

Refrain

• A phrase, line, or stanza repeated throughout a work.

• Example: In music, this is the chorus

Repetition

• The use of words or phrases that occur more than once in a work.

• Example: He is just perfect, perfect, perfect!

Rhyme

• The repetition of identical or similar concluding syllables in different words, most often at the ends of lines.

• Example: The cat wore a fancy hat.

Rhythm

• A term used to refer to the recurrence of stressed and unstressed sounds in poetry.

• Types: Iamb, trochee, spondee, dactyl, anapest

Simile

• A common figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison between two unlike things using words such as ‘like’ or ‘as’

• Example: “Her hair fell like a cascade of brown waters.”

Stanza

• A group of usually four or more lines that mark specific intervals in a poem.

• Example: Poetry paragraphs

Symbol

• A person, object, image, word, or event that evokes a range of additional meaning beyond and usually more abstract than the literal meaning.

• Example: The flag represents freedom.

Tone

• The author’s implicit attitude toward the reader or the people, places, and events in a work.

Theme

• The central meaning or dominant idea in a literary work.

• Topic + Vivid Verb + Tone = Theme statement

Volta

• A turn in thought (typically in a sonnet) often marked by the words “but” “yet” or “and yet.”