Poetic Devices: Sound Devices: Tayeb A. Abdullah

Poetic Devices:
Sound Devices
Tayeb A. Abdullah
Definition of Poetic Devices
• Poetic devices are tools that a poet can use to create

rhythm, enhance a poem's meaning, or bring about
certain mood or feeling. These devices help make the
poem and join it together.
• Poetic devices are used by the writer to express meaning

and to create the form and the melody of the lines in the
poem.
Form, Content and Diction
• Form of the poem refers to a poem's physical structure;

basically, what the poem looks like and how it sounds. It
includes the poem's type, stanza structure, line lengths,
rhyme and rhythm.
• Content is the idea and subject of the poem.
• Together, content and form make meaning, which is the
message the poet gives to the reader.
• Diction is the author’s choice and the use of words.
Types of Poetic Devices
• There are usually two types of poetic devices:
• Poetic devices that are used to express meanings (figures

of speech/ content)
• Poetic devices that are used to create the form of the
poem or the melody of the lines
Types of Poetic Devices
Poetic Devices
Related to Related to
Content: Figures Form: Sound
of Speech Devices
Some Poetic Devices Related to Form
(Sound Devices)
• Alliteration
• Assonance
• Consonance
• Onomatopoeia
• Refrain
• Rhyme
• Rhythm
Alliteration
• Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds at the
beginning of the words.
• E.g.:
• “From the field of his fame fresh and gory”
• “And their sentinel stars set their watch in the sky”

Assonance
• Assonance is the repetition of similar vowel sounds in nearby words in a line
of a poem.
• E.g.:
• Thou still unravished bride of quietness
Thou foster child of silent and slow time
• The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:

The Lotos blows by every winding creek:
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.
Consonance
• Consonance is the repetition of two or more consonants but with a
change in the intervening vowel, like “live” and “love”, and “lean”
and “alone”.
• E.g.:
• "Out of this house"—said rider to reader,
"Yours never will"—said farer to fearer,
"They're looking for you"—said hearer to horror,
As he left them there, as he left them there.
Onomatopoeia
• Onomatopoeia is using words that imitate sounds, like

pop, crackle, creak, rattle, swoosh, splash, squash and
fizzle.
• E.g.:
“The Bells” by Edgar Allen Poe
• Hear the loud alarum bells,
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune…
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows
Refrain
• Refrain is the repetition of a word, a line or a group of

lines that are repeated at regular intervals, usually at the
end of a stanza.
• E.g.:
“Little Lamb” by William Blake
• Little Lamb who made thee Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Dost thou know who made thee Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
Gave thee life & bid thee feed. He is called by thy name,
By the stream & o'er the mead; For he calls himself a Lamb:
Gave thee clothing of delight, He is meek & he is mild,
Softest clothing wooly bright; He became a little child:
Gave thee such a tender voice, I a child & thou a lamb,
Making all the vales rejoice! We are called by his name.
Little Lamb who made thee Little Lamb God bless thee.
Dost thou know who made thee Little Lamb God bless thee.
Rhyme
• Rhyme is using words which have similar sounds, usually
at the end of the lines of a poem.
• E.g.:
• Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Rhythm
• It is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in
poetry. It is the movement of sound in a line of poem.
• E.g.:
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
• Questions and Comments???

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Poetic Devices:

• Poetic devices are tools that a poet can use to create

• Poetic devices are used by the writer to express meaning

• Form of the poem refers to a poem's physical structure;

• There are usually two types of poetic devices:

• Poetic devices that are used to express meanings (figures

• “And their sentinel stars set their watch in the sky”

• The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:

• Onomatopoeia is using words that imitate sounds, like

• Refrain is the repetition of a word, a line or a group of

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