Elements, Techniques,

and Literary Devices

in Specific Forms of
Poetry
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Prepared by : Ma’am Judy Anne L. Aguilar

 POETRY
Poetry is a type of literature that conveys
a thought, describes a scene or tells a
story in a concentrated, lyrical
arrangement of words. Poems can be
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structured, with rhyming lines and meter,

the rhythm and emphasis of a line based
on syllabic beats. Poems can also be
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freeform, which follows no formal

structure.
 Prose and Poetry: What’s the
difference?
● We will talk about this first.

● We will talk about this second. c

● We will talk about this last.

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 Prose and Poetry: What’s the
difference?
● We will talk about this first.

● We will talk about this second. c

● We will talk about this last.

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 Poem Analysis
FIRST APPROACHES
● Read the poem.
● Identify the speaker and the situation.
c
● Feel free to read it more than once!
● Read the sentences literally.
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● Use your prose reading skills to clarify what the poem is about.
● Read each line separately, noting unusual words and associations.
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 ● Look up words you are unsure of and struggle with word
associations that may not seem logical to you.
● Note any changes in the form of the poem that might signal
a shift in point of view.
● Study the structure of the poem,
c including its rhyme and
rhythm (if any).
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● Re-read the poem slowly, thinking about what message and

emotion the poem communicates to you.
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 ● Look for poem structure. It has to do with the
overall organization of lines and/or the conventional
patterns of sound.

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 The Elements of
c

Poetry
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 Figurative Language
It refers to language that is not literal: it suggests a
comparison to something else, so that one thing is seen in
terms of another c
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What are the 6 types of figurative language in poetry?

They are: metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole,
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and symbolism.
 Imagery
Elements of a poem that invoke any of the five senses to
create a set of mental images.
● auditory
c
● gustatory
● kinesthetic
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● olfactory
● organic
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● tactile
● visual
 Rhyme
the correspondence of two or more words with similar-
sounding final syllables placed so as to echo one another.
Rhyme is used by poets and occasionally by prose writers to
produce sounds appealing to thec reader's senses and to unify
and establish a poem's stanzaic form.
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In poetry, the most common kind of rhyme is the end

rhyme, which occurs at the end of two or more lines.
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 Rhyme scheme
● A rhyme scheme is the pattern according to
which end rhymes (rhymes located at the end of
lines) are repeated in works
c
poetry. Rhyme schemes
are described using letters of the alphabet, such that
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all the lines in a poem that rhyme with each other

are assigned a letter, beginning with "A."
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 ●I saw a fairy in the wood, A
He was dressed all in green. B
He drew his sword while I
just stood, A
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And realized I'd been seen. B

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c
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c
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c
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 TONE
Tone of a poem is the attitude that the poet
or speaker creates toward the subject of the
c
poem and that we sense joy, sadness, anger,
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frustration, etc. through the poet’s choice of

words.
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 Structure of Poetry
c
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 Lines
Lines are similar to a sentence and
signal a pause in a flow. This also
c

controls the rhythm and the message

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of the poem.
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 Lines
T There are 8
c

lines in this
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poem
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 Stanza
Stanzas are a set of lines grouped
together and separated by a blank
c

space from other stanzas. They are

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the poetic equivalent of a paragraph.

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Stanza

c
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 There are a variety of lengths of stanza and here are some
common specific lengths:
● Couplet (2 lines)
• Tercet (3 lines)
• Quatrain (4 lines) c

• Cinquain (5 lines)
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• Sestet (6 lines) (sometimes it’s called a sixtain)

• Septet (7 lines)
• Octave (8 lines)
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 Free Verse
poems do not follow any rules. Their creation is
completely in the hands of the author. A poem
may or may not havec a specific number of
lines, rhymes scheme and/or metrical pattern,
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but it can still be labelled according to its form

or style.
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 Three most common
types of poems
c

according to form
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 Lyric Poetry
Lyric poetry concerns itself largely with the emotional
life of the poet, that is, it’s written in their voice and
expresses strong thoughts and emotions. There is only
one voice in a lyric poem and c we see the world from
that single perspective. Most modern poetry is lyric
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poetry in that it is personal and introspective.

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 Narrative Poetry
Narrative poetry is concerned with storytelling.
Just as in a prose story, a narrative poem will
most likely follow the conventions of plot
including elements such as conflict, rising
c
action, climax, resolution etc. Again, as in prose
stories, narrative poems will most likely be
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peopled with characters to perform the actions of

the tale.
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 Descriptive Poetry
Descriptive poetry usually employs lots of rich
imagery to describe the world around the poet.
While it most often has a single poetic voice and
strong emotional content, c
descriptive poetry
differs from lyric poetry in that its focus is more
on the externalities of the world, rather than the
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interior life of the poet.

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 I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth
"I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. c

Continuous as the stars that shine

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And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
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Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance."
 SUBTYPES OF
POETRY
c
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 Forms of Sonnet
Petrarchan sonnets are fourteen lines long,
the first eight lines rhyme
c
ABBAABBA,
and the final six lines may rhyme
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CDCDCD or CDECDE (among other

examples). These poems also use iambic
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pentameter.
 O joyous, blossoming, ever-blessed flowers!
’Mid which my pensive queen her footstep sets;
O plain, that hold’st her words for amulets
And keep’st her footsteps in thy leafy bowers!
O trees, with earliest green of springtime hours,
And all spring’s pale and tender violets!
O grove, so dark the proud sun only letsc
His blithe rays gild the outskirts of thy towers!
O pleasant country-side! O limpid stream,
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That mirrorest her sweet face, her eyes so clear,

And of their living light canst catch the beam!
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I envy thee her presence pure and dear.

There is no rock so senseless but I deem
It burns with passion that to mine is near.
 Shakespearean
●Comprises 3 quatrains of 4 lines each
●Ends with a rhyming couplet which
forms a conclusion
c

● The rhyme scheme is: ABAB, CDCD,

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EFEF, GG
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 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
c
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
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Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
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So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
 Haiku
Haiku is a disciplined form of poetry that
has its origins in 17th-century Japanese
poetry. Usually, it is concerned
c
with nature
and natural phenomena such as the seasons,
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weather etc. They are often quite meditative

in tone.
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 Haiku
●written in three-line stanzas
●1st line contains 5 syllables
c

●2nd line contains 7 syllables

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● 3rd line contains 5 syllables

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c
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 ● Stark, the branches wait,
not dead, but in quiet song.
Blossom's kiss to come.
● A songbird in flight,
soft wind curling from its
c
wings.
Orange blossoms open.
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● On the horizon,
storm clouds prepare their blessing.
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A leaf turns upward.

 Elegy
Elegies are a type of poem that don’t really come
with specific structural requirements but still
constitute a recognisablec
form of poetry. What
makes an elegy an elegy is its subject, that is,
death. Elegies are poems of lamentation – the
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word elegy itself comes from the Greek

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word elegeia which means to ‘lament’.

 Elegy
● A poem of reflection on death, or on someone who
has died
● Usually comes in three parts
c expressing loss:
○ grief
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○ praise for the deceased

○ consolation
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 Limerick
Favorites of school children everywhere, the
most defining characteristic of limericks are
c
their renowned humor. Given their well-
deserved reputation for being funny and, on
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occasion, crude, it’s easy to overlook the

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fact that beneath the laughs lie quite a

tightly structured verse form.
 Limerick
● 5 lines in total
● Distinct verbal rhythm
● 2 longer lines of usually
c
between 7 to 10 syllables
● 2 shorter lines of usually between 5 to 7 syllables
● 1 closing line containing the ‘punchline’
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● Rhyme scheme is AABBA

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 Ballad
Ballads are a type of narrative poetry that has close
ties to musical forms. Ballads written as poetry can
often easily be adapted as song lyrics. While ballads
don’t have tight formal constrictions
c
like some other
forms of poetry, there are enough in the way of
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distinguishable features to identify it as a form.

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 Ballad
● Tells a story, often using simple language
● Often romantic, adventurous, or humorous
c
● Arranged in groups of 4 lines or quatrains
● Often uses alternating 4 and 3 beat lines
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● Rhyme scheme is usually ABAB or ABCB

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 Ode
Another poetry form that traces its origins to
Ancient Greece, odes were originally
intended to be sung. cNowadays, though no
longer sung, the term ode still refers to a
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type of lyrical poem that addresses and often

praises a certain person, thing, or event .
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 Ode
● The author addresses a person, thing,
or event
● Usually has a solemn,
c
serious tone
● Explores universal elements of the
theme
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● Powerful emotional element, often

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involving catharsis
 Epic
These are long narrative poems that recount
heroic tales, usually focused on a legendary
or mythical figure. c Think of works of
literature on a grand scale such as The
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Odyssey, The Cattle Raid of Cooley,

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or Beowulf.
 Epic
● Employs an objective and omniscient narrator
● Written in an elevated style
● Recounts heroic events
c

● Grand in scale
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 Villanelle
● A fixed lyrical form of poetry composed of nineteen lines that follows a
certain set pattern or rhyme schemes
● First five stanzas of the villanelle are made of tercets
● Final stanza is made up of quatrain c
● The first line of the first stanza is repeated at the last line of the second and
fourth stanzas, while the third line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line
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of the third and fifth stanzas. These two lines (which serve as the refrain of
the villanelle)
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● aba aba aba aba aba abaa

Thank you!
c
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 Reference:
Elements of Poetry: A Complete Guide for Students adn
Teachers (literacyideas.com) c
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