What are the main poetic devices which should be covered in an essay?
It would be helpful if I could have a look at the actual poems, because they will only employ certain techniques – but here are some ways of looking at in poetry in general: Rhythm of poetry is very important – how many syllables are there per line, where are the stresses – read aloud to get a good idea of how the poem sounds. The tehnical terms are: spondee – two stressed syllables together, trochee – dum dee (stressed, unstressed), iamb -dee dum (unstressed, stressed), anapaest (unstressed, unstressed, stressed), dactyl (stressed, unstressed, unstressed). Then there are terms for the length of the poetic line – hexameter (6 feet), pentameter (5 feet), tetrameter (4 feet) – 1 foot is two stresses. One of the most common forms is iambic pentameter dee DUM dee DUM dee DUM dee DUM dee DUM. As well as this, the caesura – a pause in the middle of a line often pulls the reader up short. Watch out for punctuation in the middle of a line – it can be used, for example to juxtapose two differen
