Musical Devices in Poetry

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Musical Devices in Poetry

• English 10

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What makes poetry musical?

• Rhyme
• Alliteration
• Consonance
• Assonance
• Onomatopoeia
• Refrain

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What is Rhyme?

• The Repetition of accented vowel sounds and all
  succeeding sounds that appear close together

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An Example

• Come with the rain, O loud Southwester!
• Bring the singer, bring the nester
• Give the buried flower a dream
• Make the settled snowbank steam
• -From To the Thawing Wind
• By Robert Frost

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3 Types of Rhyme

• End Rhyme
• Internal Rhyme
• Approximate Rhyme (also called slant)

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End Rhyme

• The most common form of rhyme
• Places the rhyming sound at the end of a line of
  poetry
• The following lines of poetry by Langston Hughes
  are a good example
• O, God of dust and rainbows, help us see
• That without dust the rainbow would not be

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Internal Rhyme

• Repeats sounds within lines of poetry
• The following line from Edgar Allan Poes The
  Raven is a good example
• Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered
  weak and weary

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Approximate Rhyme

• Very popular with more modern poets
• The final rhyming sounds are close, but not
  exactly the same
• Approximate rhyme is illustrated in these lines
  by Emily Dickinson
• All of evening softly lit
• As an astral hall
• Father, I observed to Heaven,
• You are punctual!

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What is Alliteration?

• The repetition of consonant sounds in a group of
  words close together
• Alliteration comes at the beginning of words
• An easy way to remember alliteration
• Alliteration uses all the letters, except the
  vowels.

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An Example of Alliteration

• This example comes from Ted Hughess poem, The
  Lake
• Snuffles at my feet for what I might drop or kick
  up
• Sucks and slobbers the stones, snorts through its
  lips

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What is Consonance?

• It is the repetition of consonant sounds located
  other than at the beginnings of words.
• Again, The Lake offers a good example
• Snuffles at my feet for what I might drop or kick
  up
• Sucks and slobbers the stones, snorts through its
  lips

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What is Assonance?

• The repetition of vowel sounds close together

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Whats the difference?

• How are rhyme and assonance different?
• Rhyme is the repetition of accented vowel sounds
  AND the sounds that follow them
• Assonance is simply the repetition of vowel
  sounds
• Edgar Allan Poes The Bells provides a good
  example
• From the molten golden notes

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What is Onomatopoeia?

• The use of a word whose sound imitates or
  reinforces its meaning. In other words, it seeks
  to imitate the sound for which it stands.
• Examples in everyday language are words like
  whoosh, tick-tock, zoom, and purr.
• Popcorn is also onomatopoeia because its name
  imitates its action.

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What is Refrain?

• One or more words, phrases, or lines that are
  repeated regularly in a poem, usually at the end
  of a stanza.
• In a song, we often call it the chorus.

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How many can you find?

• We real cool. We
• Left school. We
• Lurk late. We
• Strike straight. We
• Sing sin. We
• Thin gin. We
• Jazz June. We
• Die soon.