Literary Devices
This literary device gives human actions or qualities to something nonhuman, such as trees bowing their heads.
personification
This occurs when a poetic line continues past the end of one verse line and into the next without a natural pause.
enjambment
This rhetorical device asks a question for effect rather than expecting an answer, as in “Who has seen the Wind?”
rhetorical question
“On the Grasshopper and the Cricket” is a sonnet written in this meter.
iambic pentameter
Dr. King’s speech is an example of this art of public speaking.
rhetoric
This device uses words that imitate or recreate real sounds.
onomatopoeia
**Daily Double** This is a pause within a line of poetry.
caesura
This rhetorical technique repeats a word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines, clauses, or sentences.
anaphora
In “Who Has Seen the Wind,” the line “the trees bow down their heads” uses this literary device.
personification
The repeated sections beginning with “I have a dream” and “Let freedom ring” illustrate this rhetorical technique.
anaphora
This sound device repeats initial consonant sounds in a series of words.
alliteration
This type of rhyme occurs between words within a single line of poetry.
internal rhyme
This rhetorical device uses repeated grammatical structures or patterns.
parallelism
In “Foul Shot,” the repeated lines “And then / And then” create this effect throughout the poem.
suspense
**Daily Double**Dr. King’s extended metaphor about freedoms and opportunities denied to African Americans is based on the image of this financial object and location.
check and a bank
**Daily Double**This sound device repeats terminal or internal consonant sounds.
consonance
**Daily Double**This feature of poetry most often directly affects the poem’s mood.
meter
This device places contrasting ideas together, often to emphasize their differences.
antithesis
The theme of “Traveling Through the Dark” suggests that life’s moral dilemmas often require these.
hard decisions
The “I have a dream” and “Let freedom ring” sections demonstrate anaphora and also rely on this broader technique of repeating similar grammatical structures.
parallelism
This sound device repeats similar vowel sounds in a series of words and differs from alliteration because it focuses on vowel sounds.
assonance
**Daily Double**This pair of rhyme terms describes words that have similar but slightly mismatched sounds and words that are spelled alike but pronounced differently.
slant rhyme and eye rhyme
This device reverses the elements of two parallel phrases, clauses, or sentences.
chiasmus
March for a One-Man Band” uses this sound device to help recreate a real situation
onomatopoeia
***If correct can steal points from another team of your choice***Dr. King’s speech uses repeated phrases and contrasting ideas to emphasize the difference between denied freedom and the promise of equality. Name the two rhetorical techniques most closely associated with these effects.
anaphora and antithesis