Poetic devices

thumb|Pearl, miniature from Pearl Manuscript|Cotton Nero A.x. The dreamer stands on the other side of the stream from the Pearl-maiden. Pearl is one of the greatest allegories from the [[High Middle Ages.]] As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory throughout history in all forms of art to illustrate or convey complex ideas and concepts in ways that are comprehensible or striking to its viewers, readers

thumb|right|A sign in a shop window proclaims these silent clocks make "No Tic Tac", in imitation of the sound of a clock.

thumb|Via et veritas et vita|Via Veritas Vita (lat. "The path and the truth and the life", from Gospel of John 14:6). [[Motto of the University of Glasgow.]]

Improvisation or improvization (often shortened to improv) is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of improvisation can apply to many different faculties across all artistic, scientific, physical, cognitive, academic, and non-academic disciplines; see Applied improvisation.

Assonance is the repetition of identical or similar phonemes in words or syllables that occur close together, either in terms of their vowel phonemes (e.g., lean green meat) or their consonant phonemes (e.g., Kip keeps capes ). However, in American usage, assonance exclusively refers to this phenomenon when affecting vowels, whereas, when affecting consonants, it is generally called consonance. The two types are often combined, as between the words six and switch, which contain the same vowel and similar consonants. If there is repetition of the same vowel or some similar vowels in literary wo

rhetoric

Epistrophe (, "return") is the repetition of the same word or words at the end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences. It is also known as epiphora and occasionally as antistrophe. It is a figure of speech and the counterpart of anaphora. It is an extremely emphatic device because of the emphasis placed on the last word in a phrase or sentence.

In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run together by the omission of a final sound. An example is the elision of word-final /t/ in English if it is preceded and followed by a consonant: "first light" is often pronounced "firs' light" (). Many other terms are used to refer to specific cases where sounds are omitted.

thumb|Detail of the Old English manuscript of the poem [[Beowulf, showing the words (), meaning .]]

In poetry, enjambment (; from the French enjamber) is incomplete syntax at the end of a line; the meaning 'runs over' or 'steps over' from one poetic line to the next, without punctuation. Lines without enjambment are end-stopped. The origin of the word is credited to the French word enjamber, which means 'to straddle or encroach'.

figure of speech

A tautogram (Greek: tauto gramma, "same letter") is a text in which all words start with the same letter.

concepts in poetic meter

In linguistics, synaeresis (; also spelled syneresis) is a phonological process of sound change in which two adjacent vowels within a word are combined into a single syllable.

Adynaton (; plural adynata) is a figure of speech in the form of hyperbole taken to such extreme lengths as to insinuate a complete impossibility:

Tmesis is either the dividing of a word into two parts, with another word inserted between those parts, thus forming a compound word, or, in a broader sense, a set phrase, such as a phrasal verb, with one or more words interpolated within, thus creating a separate phrase.

Anastrophe (from the , anastrophē, "a turning back or about") is a figure of speech in which the normal word order of the subject, the verb, and the object is changed.

form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal structuring device

method used to convey a fictional narrative

In Welsh-language poetry, cynghanedd (, literally "concinnity" or "harmony") is the concept of sound-arrangement within one line, using stress, alliteration and rhyme. The various forms of cynghanedd show up in the definitions of all formal Welsh verse forms, such as the awdl and cerdd dafod. Though of ancient origin, cynghanedd and variations of it are still used today by many Welsh-language poets. A number of poets have experimented with using cynghanedd in English-language verse, for instance Gerard Manley Hopkins. Some of Dylan Thomas's work is also influenced by cynghanedd.

stylistic literary device identified by the repetition of identical or similar consonants in neighbouring words whose vowel sounds are different

poetic device; use of an alien metric foot in a line of otherwise regular metrical pattern

Epanodos is a figure of speech used when the same word or two similar words are repeated within a passage of text.

Ferskeytt (literally 'four-cornered') is an Icelandic stanzaic poetic form. It is a kind of quatrain, and probably first attested in fourteenth-century rímur such as Ólafs ríma Haraldssonar. It remains one of the dominant metrical forms in Icelandic versifying to this day.

type of poetry created by taking words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages from other sources and reframing them