Three Poetic Devices
1. Cite three (3) poetic devices you could analyze in an essay. Provide textual support and discuss how these rhetorical strategies affect meaning.
1a. Three poetic devices that I could analyze in an essay are imagery, irony, and symbolism. Imagery essentially is when the poet uses such specific language that it creates images in the readers' heads. These images are what develop a poem to have meaning. For example, in John Keats poem "To Autumn," he uses imagery when it says "Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook/Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;/And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep/Steady thy laden head across a brook;/Or by a cider-press, with patient look,/Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours." By …show more content…
Overall, the meaning of this poem is to show how great autumn is and Keats utilizes imagery perfectly to showcase autumn. Moving on, irony is where an event takes place that would not be expected, which is often quite humorous. In "The History Teacher," Billy Collins has the teacher not teach his students the truth about some historical events in order to "protect his student's innocence." Although, after the many lessons of fake history, the teacher feels proud of himself, and the students go off to recess, where they bully children who are intelligent and frail. The irony of the situation is that these kids had no innocence to be spared at all. The way this irony affects the meaning of the poem is that it demonstrates that what the teacher did is not what should be done, and rather conveys the message of "do not keep the truth from students." Yes, Collins could have broadcasted this message differently, yet decided to utilize irony to create a satire and broadcast the message of what not to do. Finally, symbolism is an object that means something else or something more than it actually is. And if this object is what the poem is about, then symbolism can most definitely affect
1a. Three poetic devices that I could analyze in an essay are imagery, irony, and symbolism. Imagery essentially is when the poet uses such specific language that it creates images in the readers' heads. These images are what develop a poem to have meaning. For example, in John Keats poem "To Autumn," he uses imagery when it says "Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook/Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;/And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep/Steady thy laden head across a brook;/Or by a cider-press, with patient look,/Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours." By …show more content…
Overall, the meaning of this poem is to show how great autumn is and Keats utilizes imagery perfectly to showcase autumn. Moving on, irony is where an event takes place that would not be expected, which is often quite humorous. In "The History Teacher," Billy Collins has the teacher not teach his students the truth about some historical events in order to "protect his student's innocence." Although, after the many lessons of fake history, the teacher feels proud of himself, and the students go off to recess, where they bully children who are intelligent and frail. The irony of the situation is that these kids had no innocence to be spared at all. The way this irony affects the meaning of the poem is that it demonstrates that what the teacher did is not what should be done, and rather conveys the message of "do not keep the truth from students." Yes, Collins could have broadcasted this message differently, yet decided to utilize irony to create a satire and broadcast the message of what not to do. Finally, symbolism is an object that means something else or something more than it actually is. And if this object is what the poem is about, then symbolism can most definitely affect