Frost & Williams: Poetic Devices and Terms

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Enjambment

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Refers to when one line of a poem flows into another without stopping. Example: glazed with rain water.

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Personification

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Literary device that gives human characteristics, thoughts or feelings to an object, animal or concept. Example: He gives his harness bells a shake to ask if there is some mistake.

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Alliteration

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The repetition of sounds, either consonant or vowel sounds, at the beginning of consecutive (side by side) or nearby words. Example: To watch his woods fill up with snow. The 'w' sound is repeated in 'watch' and 'woods'.

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Assonance

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Refers to the repetition of vowel sounds in consecutive and nearby words. The sound may appear in the beginning, middle or end of words, and it creates internal rhyme (rhymes within lines) in the poem. Example: so much depends upon. The short 'u' in 'much' is matched with the short 'u' in 'upon' in the next line.

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Juxtaposition

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Occurs when a writer positions two ideas, concepts or images next to each other for dramatic effect. Example: William Carlos Williams places the two distinct images of a red wheelbarrow and white chickens next to each other in his poem 'The Red Wheelbarrow.'

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Stanzas

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Group of lines that forms the basic organization of the poem. In traditional Latin and Greek poetry, stanzas contained four lines. Modern poetry may contain any number of lines.

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Iamb

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An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Example: above, invite, myself.

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Syllable

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The most basic unit of pronunciation in a word. These are the distinct sounds you make when you say the word.

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Metrical Unit

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A pattern of two or three stressed or unstressed syllables that form the basic unit of poetic rhythm. We refer to this rhythmic pattern as 'feet' in poetry. Example: Frost's poem 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' uses the iamb as the repeating syllable pattern. Each line in the poem contains four iambs (four unstressed followed by stressed syllables).