Literature Terms Sonic and Rhythmic Devices, Structure

AP Literature

from Perrine’s Literature Structure, Sound & Sense, 10th ed., Discovering Literature, and Sparkcharts

What is poetry?

Poetry is a literary form characterized by a strong sense of rhythm and meter and an emphasis on the interaction between sound and sense.

The study of the elements of poetry is called prosody.

“Poetry is as universal as language and almost as ancient. The most primitive peoples have used it, and the most civilized have cultivated it.”

What makes poetry so appealing?

Simple enjoyment It is regarded as giving value to the fully realized life—

something central to existence. Something that, without which, we are spiritually

impoverished

What is poetry?

“Poetry might be defined as a kind of language that says more and says it more intensely than does ordinary language.”

It “exists to communicate significant experience—significant because it is concentrated and organized.”

What is poetry?

“Poetry makes a greater use of the “music” of language than does language that is not poetry.

The poet, unlike the person who uses language to convey only information, chooses words for sound as well as for meaning, and uses the sound as a means of reinforcing meaning.”

Literary Term: Sonic Devices

“Poets may repeat any unit of sound from the smallest to the largest. They may repeat individual vowel and consonant sounds, whole syllables, words, phrases, lines or groups of lines.”(alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme)

Sonic Devices

The repetition of sound serves several purposes:

1. It is pleasing to the ear2. It emphasizes the words in

which the repetition occurs3. It gives structure to the

poem

Sonic Devices

Alliteration: Repetition at close intervals of the initial consonant

sounds of accented syllables or important words:

“descending dew drops” “luscious lemons”“Inebriate of Air-am I”

Sonic Devices

Alliteration: Is based on the sounds of letters, rather than the spelling of words:

“keen” and “car” alliterate; but “car” and “cite” do not

Used sparingly, it can intensify ideas by emphasizing key words.

Sonic DevicesThe Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;Close to the sun in lonely lands,Ringed with the azure world, he stands.The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;He watches from his mountain walls,And like a thunderbolt he falls.-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sonic Devices

Suicide’s Note

The calm,Cool face of the riverAsked me for a kiss.

-Langston Hughes

Sonic DevicesAssonance:The repetition of similar vowel sounds in

a sequence of nearby words that do not end the same

“hat…ran…amber” “asleep under a tree”“mad as a hatter” “each evening”“time out of mind”“free and easy”“slapdash”

Sonic Devices

Consonance Repetition of consonant sound in any position A common type of near rhyme that consists of identical

consonant sounds preceded by different vowel sounds“home…same” “worth…breath”

Sonic Devices

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,That struts and frets his hour upon the stageAnd then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.”

Sonic Devices

Euphony: “good sound” Refers to language that is smooth and musically pleasant

to the ear “Many consider “cellar door” one of the most

euphonious phrases in English.”

Sonic Devices

Cacophony: harsh sounds The clash of discordant sounds within a sentence or

phrase. A familiar feature of tongue twisters but can also be

used to poetic effect. It is language that is discordant and difficult to

pronounce.

Sonic Devices

Cacophony:“Player Piano”

“never my numb plunker fumbles.”-John Updike

Sonic Devices

Onomatopoeia The use of a word that resembles the sound it denotes. Words like buzz, rattle, bang, and sizzle all reflect

onomatopoeia