STRUCTURAL DEVICES
Poets write something fanciful by using
1. Contract: compare one thing with another so that differences are made clear. (a black oak tree covered by snow)
2. Illustration: to make clear by giving an example or a vivid description. (by using a lot of other poetic devices)
3. Repetition: the fact of being repeated for some purposes.
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
IMAGERY
Imagery, by definition, is sensual. In everyday language, “image” means pictures. In poetics, “image” means a record of a sense impression; this means all of the 5 senses. Poetic language can be very rich when it appeals directly to the senses. It can give simple sense images, and it can give complex, psychological impressions. Sometimes several of the senses are evoked simultaneously.
Sense imagery appeals to the 5 senses, which are:
Sight = Visual images
Taste = Gustatory images
Smell = Olfactory images
Sound = Auditory images
Touch = Tactile images
Consider the following examples:
Visual
On Daddy, Daddy!
Look at the moon
Shining in the mud puddle!
Gustatory
By the west window
in the kitchen
I serve lemon tea
in a China pot
Eating slices of apple.
Olfactory
Is the scent of cinnamon
in her perfume?
--or in the tea
that she is serving me?
Auditory
Cowbell
going under water –
“ding, dong,
dronnnggghhh.”
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Figurative language is the use of language to create connotative meaning, the meaning that goes beyond the literal level.
Consider the following example:
A: The Stove is hot.
B: Tata Young is hot.
Which sentence has denotative meaning? Which one has connotative meaning? Why?
SIMILE
A simile is a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things using the words “like”, “as”, “similar to”, “resemble”, “”as if”, “as though”, etc. It says something is like something else. We usually use similes to portrait clear, vivid images. The things that are being compared in a simile are basically not alike, but they do share some characteristics. So, to say that something is “steady as a rock”, “built like a fire truck”, “saint-like”, or “my love is like a red red rose.” Is to use similes
METAPHOR
A metaphor is a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things that does not use the words “like” or “as”. So to say that someone “is a rock of dependability”, “is a fire truck”, “is an angel”, “You are my sunshine”, or “You are a bomb” is to speak in metaphor.
By omitting the use of such connectives, the poet often gains a more powerful effect but the reader has to be more attentive in reading because there are no more indications to help him recognize a metaphor. The gap between the things compared is virtually closed. Instead of saying, “All the world’s like a stage”, we say “All the world’s a stage”, or “Life’s a short summer, man a flower.”
PERSONIFICATION
Personification consists in giving the attributes of human being (human form, character, sensibilities, intelligence, or emotions) to an animal, an object, or an idea. It is really a subtype of metaphor, an implied comparison in which the figurative term of the analogy is always a human being.
Most poems about nature contain incidental personifications. Wordworth describes a field of daffodils, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. Keats describes autumn as a harvester “sitting careless on a granary floor” or “on a half reaped furrow sound asleep”.
Discuss the following most commonly seen personifications.
The smiling sun
The wise stars
The angry sea
Fugitive time
Stern duty
Relentless winter
Death, be not proud
SYMBOL
A symbol is an object, word, or action, representing an ambiguous number of items and ideas beyond itself. A symbol never stands for just one simple thing. The meanings of a symbol are always bottomless. Rather than signifying one thing, a symbol generates a complex of associations that only grows larger the closer we look.
Here are some examples of symbols:
A dove : peace
A goat : lust
The lion : strength and courage
The bulldog : tenacity
The rose : beauty, love
The lily : purity
The Stars and Stripes : America its states
The Cross : Christianity
The swastika (or crooked Cross) : Nazi Germany and Fascism
What about “A white rose
With a flush of crimson
At its petal tips.”?
O’Reilly
HYPERBOLE
Hyperbole or Overstatement is extravagant exaggeration – but exaggeration in the service of truth. It is used for emphasis and is not to be taken literally. Hyperbole can be applied either for serious or comic effects.
“If I told you once, I’ve told you a million times.”
“That’s got to be the worst movie ever made.”
“This job is torture.”
It was so hot we fried.
I haven’t seen you for ages.
As old as the hills
This chair weighs a ton.
A thousand thanks
Your new hat looks simply divine.
To wait an eternity
When we use hyperbole, we don’t expect people to take us literally, but we want them to know how strongly we feel. Poetry uses hyperbole to the same end.
UNDERSTATEMENT
It is paradoxical that one can emphasize a truth either by overstating it or by understanding it. Understatement is a contrary figure which deliberately represents something as much less in magnitude or importance than it really is. To understate is to say less than one means.
At time in conversation, we deliberately understate a fact or an emotion to convey ironic emphasis or humor. For example, on a day when e=when everything goes wrong, one might say, “I’ve had better day.” Or, for another example: “Say, how do you feel about that huge raise and promotion you just got?” “I am not displeased.”
An understatement indicates something withheld or unsaid. In the first example above, what is unsaid, though implied, is not only that the speaker has seen better days, but also that this particular day was quite dreadful. In the second example, the speaker isn’t merely “not displeased”, she is also probably thrilled.
One reason that things are left unsaid is for ironic effect, and another reason is that some things, particularly very strong feelings, are often difficult to give words to. It may be easier to only imply whatever the unsaid thing is. Also, at times the implication may be just as descriptive, or even more so, that a straightforward explanation.
PARADOX
A paradox is a self – contradictory and absurd statement that turns out to be some sense at least, actually true and valid.
A paradox is a form of ambiguity that plays on idea and requires the reader participate intellectually in the recreation of literary meaning. Without this active participation, a paradox is simply incomprehensible.
Example of paradox
When the poet uses a “sweet enemy” or a “wicked angel” in this love poem, he is applying a paradox. At first, we may be confused by these self-contradictory words as a “sweet enemy” or a “wicked angel”, but we may except the truth of these paradoxes that the happiness of love can be mixed with this appointment and suffering. In many of the most love poems through the ages, love is paradoxically “bitter sweet”.
“The child is the father of the man”
Wordworth
Cowards die many times before their deaths.
Any game that is worth playing is worth playing badly.
IRONY
Irony is a figure of contrast. It appeals to the reader through some kind of surprise, extravagance, discrepancy, contrast, incongruity, or contradiction. The term irony always implies some sort of discrepancy. There may be a discrepancy between what is said and what is meant (verbal irony), between expectation and fulfillment (irony of situation), or between appearance and reality (dramatic irony). Briefly speaking, irony is something opposite of what it meant. It’s a difference between the way things seem to be and the way they actually are. Here are three types of special forms of irony.
1. Verbal irony refers to a statement that indicates a meaning opposite or contrary to what is actually said. In short, an ironical statement, or verbal irony, says one thing and means the opposite. For example, if you say, “Nice day, isn’t it?” but you mean that the weather is terrible. Or if you say “Thanks a lot”, when someone steps on your foot.
2. Situational irony is ironic when there is a discrepancy between the actual circumstances and those that would seem appropriate, or between what one anticipates what actually comes to pass. For example, when a very poor person wins millions in the lottery or a kind and loving mother of five is unexpectedly killed by a stray bullet from a drive-by shooting. Our normal expectations of success or failure, or of reward or punishment, are upset. Reversal occurs in the whole poem when the expected ending does not appear.
3. Dramatic irony comes when an author has a character on stage or in a poem or a story that tells one thing while the audience knows the actual situation is quite another or quite opposite. Poetry is quite often wrought with an ironic sense of life or a sometimes bitter / cynical feeling that life has turned out differently to what we might have hoped expected.
ONOMATOPOEIA
Onomatopoeia is the formation and use of word to imitate sound that make you think of their meaning, as in, for example, dong, crackle, moo, pop, whizz, whoosh, zoom, buzz, thump, cuckoo, boom, and snap. It is a figure of speech in which sound reflects the sense. It is very common in verse and fairly common in prose and is found in many literatures at all times.
Briefly speaking, onomatopoeia is the use of a word or phrase that imitates or suggests the sound of what it describes. When used in a poem, it is a sound effect that both reinforces the meaning of a poem and adds to its musical quality.
Other examples of words with sounds that suggest their meaning are cluck, sizzle, bang, whinny, clash, lam, crunch, clang, etc.
Example of onomato