Elements of Poetry: Sound Devices

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Elements of Poetry Sound Devices
8th Grade English/Language Arts Poetry Unit
Sound Devices - Blume
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What is the role of a sound device in poetry?

• To create harmony or cohesion
• To connect ideas
• To emphasize images/ideas
• To add to the tone or contradict the tone for
  irony
• To highlight a shift and indicate a hint at
  meaning

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Alliteration
The repetition of initial consonant sounds, in
two or more neighboring words or syllables.
The wild and wooly walrus waits and wonders when
we will walk by. Slowly, silently, now the
moon Walks the night in her silver shoon This
way, and that, she peers, and sees Silver fruit
upon silver trees -- from Silver by Walter de la
Mare How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a
woodchuck could chuck wood? (almost ALL tongue
twisters!)
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• Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird,
  the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you
  would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each
  object as if tomorrow your tactile sense would
  fail. Smell the perfume of flowers
• - from Three Days to See by Helen Keller

Alliteration examples
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Assonance
A repetition of vowel sounds within words or
syllables.
Fleet feet sweep by sleeping geese. Free and
easy. Make the grade. The stony walls enclosed
the holy space.
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Assonance examples
Poetry is old, ancient, goes back far. It is
among the oldest of living things. So old it is
that no man knows how and why the first poems
came. --Carl Sandburg, Early Moon
on a proud round cloud in white high night -
E. E. Cummings
I made my way to the lake.
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Consonance

• The repetition of consonant sounds, NOT at the
  beginning of words but within words, before and
  after different vowels
• EX slip-slop, creak-croak, black-block

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Consonance Example

• "At midnight, in the month of June,I stand
  beneath the mystic moon.An opiate vapor, dewy,
  dim,Exhales from out her golden rim,And, softly
  dripping, drop by drop,Upon the quiet mountain
  top,Steals drowsily and musicallyInto the
  universal valley."Edgar Allen Poe, The Sleeper

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Rhythm and Meter

• Rhythm is the sound pattern created by stressed
  and unstressed syllables.
• The pattern can be regular or random.
• Meter is the regular patterns of stresses found
  in many poems and songs..
• Rhythm is often combined with rhyme,
  alliteration, and other poetic devices to add a
  musical quality to the writing.

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Rhythm and Meter continued

• Example
• I think that I shall never see
• a poem lovely as a tree.
• The purple words/syllables are stressed,
  and they have a regular pattern, so this poetic
  line has meter.

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Rhyme

• The repetition of end sounds in words
• End rhymes appear at the end of two or more lines
  of poetry.
• Internal rhymes appear within a single line of
  poetry.
• Slant or near rhyme is a rhyming stretch

Ring around the rosies, A pocket full of posies,
If love is like a bridgeor maybe like a grudge
Abednego was meek and mild he softly spoke, he
sweetly smiled. He never called his playmates
names, and he was good in running games
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Rhyme Scheme

• The pattern of end rhymes (of lines) in a poem.
• Letters are used to identify a poems rhyme
  scheme (a.k.a. rhyme pattern).
• The letter a is placed after the first line and
  all lines that rhyme with the first line.
• The letter b identifies the next line ending with
  a new sound, and all lines that rhyme with it.
• Letters continue to be assigned in sequence to
  lines containing new ending sounds.

a.k.a also known as
This may seem confusing, but it isnt. Really!
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Rhyme Scheme continued

• What is the rhyme scheme of this stanza?
• Whose woods these are I think I know.
• His house is in the village though
• He will not see me stopping here
• To watch his woods fill up with snow.

From Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by
Robert Frost
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Did you get it right? aaba

• Whose woods these are I think I know. a
• His house is in the village though a
• He will not see me stopping here b
• To watch his woods fill up with snow. a

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Cacophony and Euphony

• Cacophony is the clashing of sounds for a harsh
  tone
• Euphony is produced when sounds flow together
  smoothly, like rhyme, creating a gentler tone,
  perhaps whimsical

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Examples of Cacophony and Euphony

• Dry clashed his harness in the icy caves
• And barren chasms, and all to left and right
• The bare black cluff clanged round him, as he
  based
• His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang
• Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels
• And on a sudden, lo! the level lake,
• And the long glories of the winter moon.
• Tennysons Morte DArthur

• As when upon a tranced summer night
• Those green-robed senators of mighty woods
• Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars
• Dream, and so dream all night without a stir.
• Keats Hyperion

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Sibilance

• Alliteration with a soft consonant that creates a
  hissing (sibilant) sound, such as s, sh, z, th,
  f, and soft c.
• EX Suffering through The soiled
  night Sinking into the sand As salty tears
  stream Down sad faces Sniffling
  sickly While still searching For something
  that Is out of sight

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and...
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Onomatopoeia
Words that sound like their meaning --- the
sound they describe.
buzz hiss roar meow woof rumble howl snap
zip zap blip whack crack crash flutter
flap squeak whirr.. pow plop crunch splash
jingle rattle clickety-clack bam!