Poetry and language devices

1. Performer Heritage
Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,
Margaret Layton © 2016
Poetry
and language devices

2. Poetry and language devices
Performer Heritage
1. Linguistic images
• A poem conveys its meaning through words
chosen and arranged in images.
the denotation
(dictionary definition)
• Three elements characterise each word:
the connotation
(the associations and feelings
evoked in the reader’s mind)
the sound

3. Poetry and language devices
Performer Heritage
2. Comparisons
• Poets use comparisons to make their
descriptions more vivid or precise.
• When you analyse a poem, you should ask yourself:
- What things are being compared?
- How are they similar?
- How is the comparison achieved?
- What does the comparison convey?
- How does the comparison relate to the whole poem?

4. Poetry and language devices
• A simile is a comparison between two things, which
is made explicit through the use of the following words:
Performer Heritage
3. Simile
• A simile is usually more striking if it compares
two essentially unlike things.
‘than’ or
‘like’ ‘as’ ‘resembles’

5. Poetry and language devices
Performer Heritage
3. Simile
• Example:
And though so much distinguished, he was wise
And in his bearing modest as a maid
(G. Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales)
• The functions of a simile are:
- to convey a more vivid idea of the scene or object;
- to make the meaning easier to understand;
- to introduce an element of surprise;
- to create an emotional response in the reader.

6. Poetry and language devices
Performer Heritage
4. Metaphor
• While a simile establishes a comparison between two
separate things, a metaphor describes something as
if it were something else.
• It is a means of comparison between two things that
are basically dissimilar without connective words
such as ‘like’ or ‘as’.

7. Poetry and language devices
Performer Heritage
4. Metaphor
• The elements of a metaphor are:
the tenor
(the subject of the metaphor)
the vehicle
(what the subject is compared to)
• The analogy between them, the ideas they share,
are called:
common ground

8. Poetry and language devices
Performer Heritage
4. Metaphor
• Example:
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
(W. Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5)
• This scheme can also be applied to the simile. Simile
and metaphor have more or less the same functions
even if the latter has a stronger emotional impact.
tenor
Life
vehicle
walking shadow
common ground
impalpability

9. Poetry and language devices
Performer Heritage
5. Personification
• Personification is another form of imagery which
attributes the characteristics of a living being
to abstract things or to inanimate objects.
• Personification can be recognised by the use of the
capital letter (Zephyrus), of possessive adjective (his)
and verbs referring to human actions (exhales).
• In the following lines the poet Chaucer speaks about
the spring wind:
When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath
Exhales an air in every grove and heath
(G. Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales)

10. Poetry and language devices
Performer Heritage
6. Symbol
A symbol is any thing, person, place or action that
• has a literal meaning;
• stands for something else, such as a quality,
an attitude, a belief or a value.

11. Poetry and language devices
Performer Heritage
6. Symbol
• Most symbols are shared by the members of the same
cultural community and are therefore easy to
understand.
• Examples:
• There are symbols, however, which are the individual
creation of a poet. In order to understand them, it will be
necessary to study and analyse not only the context of the
poem, but also the writer’s work and background.
symbol of love and beauty;
symbol of death;
symbols of youth and old
age.
a rose
a skull
spring and winter

12. Poetry and language devices
Performer Heritage
7. Allegory
• Allegory combines a number of different symbols into a
totality, often a story.
• For example, in The Canterbury Tales:
the pilgrimage to
Canterbury = allegory of the journey
towards the celestial city

13. Poetry and language devices
• Examples:
Performer Heritage
8. Oxymoron
• Oxymoron is the combination of two usually
contradictory things which is sometimes used
to express extreme feelings.
Dear enemy
Sweet sorrow

14. Poetry and language devices
Performer Heritage
9. Hyperbole
• Hyperbole means exaggeration of a quantity,
a quality or a concept.
• It is often used in everyday language:
I have told you a thousand
times.

15. Poetry and language devices
Performer Heritage
10. Litotes
• Litotes is the contrary of hyperbole, a rhetorical
understatement in which the negative of the opposite
meaning is used.
• Example:
=
You will find him not ill-disposed
He will be favourably disposed.

16. Poetry and language devices
Performer Heritage
11. The language
of sense impressions
• The poet often employs words and expressions
which generate visual, auditory, olfactory or
tactile images.
• In other words, the poet uses the language of
sense impressions, which includes nouns,
adjectives and verbs.
• Finding the words referring to the five senses –
sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch – in a poem is
important to recreate the poet’s physical experience
and to understand its contribution to the meaning of
the poem.