Elements of Poetry: Sound Devices

Elements of Poetry:Sound Devices 8th Grade English/Language Arts – Poetry Unit: Sound Devices - Blume

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

Alliteration Therepetition 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!)

“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. Smellthe perfume of flowers…” - from “Three Days to See” by Helen Keller Alliteration examples

Assonance Arepetition 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.

Assonance examples Poetry is old, ancient, goes back far. It is among the oldest of living things. Soold 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.”

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

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

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.

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”.

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;

Rhyme Scheme • The pattern of end rhymes (of lines) in a poem. • Lettersareused to identify a poem’s rhyme scheme (a.k.a. rhyme pattern). • Theletter ais placed after the first line and all lines that rhyme with the first line. • Theletter 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 isn’t. Really!

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

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

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

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.” Tennyson’s Morte D’Arthur “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

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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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!

Elements of Poetry: Sound Devices