Poetic Devices in Class 10 English Communicative Poems

by Meenu Saini | Jul 5, 2023 | General | 0 comments

List of Poetic Devices used in Class 10 English Communicative Poems

Poetic Devices in Class 10 English Communicative Poems – A “poetic device” refers to anything a poet uses to enhance the literal meaning of their poem. Poetic devices are an essential part of English poetry. It is therefore a tool that significantly enhances a poem’s substance, heightens its feel, or provides the essential rhythm. Let’s have a look at the poetic devices which have been used in class 10 English Communicative Poems.

Poem – The Frog and the Nightingale
Poem – Not Marble nor the Gilded Monuments
Poem – Ozymandias
Poem – The rime of the ancient mariner
Poem – Snake

Poem – The Frog and the Nightingale

Literary devices

1. Alliteration –
‘Bingle bog’ – ‘b’ sound repeated
‘crass cacophony’ – ‘c’ sound is repeated
‘his heart’s’ – ‘h’ sound is repeated
‘Next night’ – ‘n’ sound is repeated
‘bad – but’ – ‘b’ sound repeated
‘Now the nightingale’ – ‘n’ sound is repeated
scarf and sash – ‘s’ sound is repeated
‘He began her’ – ‘h’ sound is repeated
‘she was shivering’ – ‘sh’ sound is repeated
‘Toads teals tiddlers’ – ‘t’ sound is repeated
twitched her tail’ – ‘t’ sound is repeated
‘birds and beasts’ – ‘b’ sound is repeated
‘more morose’ – ‘m’ sound is repeated.
‘Brainless bird’ – ‘b’ sound is repeated.
‘subdued and sleep’ – ‘s’ sound is repeated,
‘Mallard and Milady’ – ‘m’ sound is repeated
‘Songs for silver’, ‘second song’ – ‘s’ sound is repeated
‘must make’ – ‘m’ sound is repeated
‘better billings’ – ‘b’ sound is repeated
‘Trembling, terrified’ – ‘t’ sound is repeated
‘tried to teach’, ‘too tense’ – ‘t’ sound is repeated
‘she should’ – ‘sh’ sound is repeated.
night nightingale – ‘n’ sound is repeated.
‘foghorn of the frog’ – ‘f’ sound is repeated
2. Allusion – The nightingale makes a reference to a famous classical composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: “And you are Mozart in disguise / Come to earth before my eyes”. This reference functions to highlight how innocent the nightingale is, that she genuinely believes the frog possesses the same level of musical genius as Mozart.
The poet makes a reference to famous titles – ‘Owl of sandwich’ refers to the Earl of Sandwich, ‘Duck of Kent’ refers to the Duke of Kent, ‘Mallard and Milady Trent’ refer to My Lord and My Lady of Trent. The poet wants to say that a royal crowd had gathered to hear the melodious bird. As the creatures were animals, so the first names have been replaced by such names of animals which create rhyming effect.
3. Anaphora – repetition of ‘far too’ in the start of line 3 and 4
4. Antithesis – ‘dusk’ ‘dawn’, now then, up and down, sweet and bitter, ‘morning’ ‘night’
5. Imagery- ‘Ladies with tiaras glittering In the interval sat twittering’ – The reader experiences visual and aural imagery by imagining the royal audience wearing glittering tiaras can be heard chatting among themselves.
6. Metaphor – a comparison between two things without using like or as. – “This is a fairy tale and you’re Mozart in disguise” The nightingale compares the frog to Mozart, indicating a belief in his musical talent.
7. Onomatopoeia- ‘croaked’ is the sound produced by the frog, ‘Koo-oh-ah! ko-ash! ko-ash’ is the sound produced by the frog and the nightingale, Twittering is the sound produced by the crowd
8. Personification – The frog has been personified – ‘I wield my pen’
9. Repetition – awn and awn and awn, ‘Did you… did you’, ‘ko-ash! Ko-ash’, ‘Day by day’, ‘Night on night’
10. Rhyme scheme-aa bb cc
11. Transferred epithet – ‘And the crass cacophony Blared out from the sumac tree’
the whole admiring bog Stared towards the sumac
12. Visual imagery – The poet constructs an image in the reader’s mind – The sky in moonlit and a nightingale is sitting on a sumac tree, singing a melodious song.
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Poem – Not Marble nor the Gilded Monuments

Literary devices

1. Alliteration – ‘when wasteful wars’ – ‘w’ sound repeated, ‘shall shine’ – ‘sh’ sound repeated
2. Allusion – reference to ‘Mars’ – the God of war and ‘Judgement’ – the day of judgement.
3. Epithet – an adjective or adjectival phrase used to describe a distinctive quality of a person or thing. ‘Sluttish’ describes time, ‘besmeared’ describes statues, ‘wasteful’ describes wars.
4. Imagery – visual imagery is used in ‘unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time’ as the reader can imagine statues which become ruins with the passage of time and ‘When wasteful war shall statues overturn And broils root out the work of masonry’ as the reader can imagine the destruction caused by wars.
5. Personification – ‘Time’ has been called a ‘slut’ and thus, personified. This poetry has been personified when called ‘living record’.
6. Repetition – ‘shall’ and ‘nor’ repeated to create musical effect
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Not Marble Nor the Gilded Monuments Summary, Lesson notes
Not Marble Nor the Gilded Monuments Extra Questions and Answers, NCERT Solutions

Poem – Ozymandias

Literary Devices

1. Alliteration: cold command, survive stamped, boundless bare, sands stretch.
2. Consonance: ‘s’ and ‘t’ sounds are repeated-
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
3. Enjambment
4. Hyperbole: king of kings
5. Irony – Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains.
6. Oxymoron – apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction – collosal wreck
7. Rhyme scheme: ababacdc efegeg
8. Synecdoche: The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed (a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole)
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Ozymandias Summary, Lesson notes
Ozymandias Extra Questions and Answers, NCERT Solutions

Poem – The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Literary devices

1. Alliteration – Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the lighthouse top (‘b’ sound is repeated)
work ‘em woe (‘w’ sound is repeated)
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free (‘f’ sound is repeated)
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew
The furrow followed free
2. Imagery – hot and copper sky (the sky is imagined as a piece of copper), bloody Sun
3. Irony – Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink (although they were surrounded by water, they did not have a drop of water to drink)
4. Metaphor – All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody sun, at noon, (The sky’s colour has been indirectly compared to the colour of copper. The Sun has been indirectly compared to blood)
5. Onomayoopoeia – The ice ‘cracked and growled,
and roared and howled’
6. Personification – The sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he (The Sun has been personified when addressed as ‘he’)
And now the storm-blast came,
and he was tyrannous and strong: (The storm blast has been personified when addressed as ‘he’)
out of the sea came he (Sun has been personified by addressing it as ‘he’)
The death-fires danced at night; (Fire has been personified when said that it danced)
7. Personification and hyperbole – With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea! (the consequence of their action of speaking has been exaggerated)
Still treads the shadow of his foe (The storm has been shown as a person with a lot of powers which have been exaggerated)
8. Repetition – The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around (The word ‘ice’ has been repeated to lay emphasis)
Day after day, day after day (to lay emphasis)
9. Rhyme scheme – ab cb.
10. Simile- The Wedding-Guest stood still, And listens like a three years’ child:
The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she (The bride is compared to a red rose)
Nor dim nor red, like God’s own head (The Sun has been compared to the halo surrounding God)
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean. (the ship and the sea have been compared to those in a painting)
like a witch’s oils (The sea is dramatically compared to the witch burning oils)
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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Summary, Lesson notes
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Extra Questions and Answers, NCERT Solutions
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Important Character Sketches

Poem – Snake

Literary devices

1. Alliteration – ‘strange-scented shade’ – ‘s’ sound is repeated
‘burning bowels’ – ‘b’ sound repeated
‘brown slackness soft-bellied’ – ‘b’ and ‘s’ sound is repeated
‘flickered his two-forked tongue’ – ‘f’ and ‘t’ sound repeated
‘peaceful, pacified’ – ‘p’ sound repeated
‘broken bank’ – ‘b’ sound repeated
‘he put his head’ – ‘h’ sound is repeated
‘lick his lips’ – ‘l’ sound repeated
‘dark door’ – ‘d’ sound is repeated
‘lords Of life’ – ‘l’ sound repeated.
2. Allusion – reference to the albatross from the poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’.
3. Anaphora – ‘and’ repeated at the beginning of lines 3 and 4
‘and’ repeated at the beginning of lines
‘and as he’ repeated at the beginning of lines
‘I’ repeated in the beginning of lines
4. Epithet – ‘strange-scented shade’ – the adjective – ‘strange – scented’ is used with ‘shade’ but it refers to the carob tree.
5. Onomatopoeia – ‘clatter’ is the sound produced by the log hitting the wall.
6. Personification – ‘he seemed to me again like a king’ – the snake has been personified as it is addressed as ‘he’.
7. Repetition – ‘On a hot, hot day’ – ‘hot’ is repeated to lay emphasis
‘must’ is repeated to emphasize that it was mandatory for him to wait for his turn.
‘afraid’ repeated to lay emphasis.
‘black’ black’ to show emphasis
‘slowly’ has been repeated
‘a sort of’ repeated
8. Simile – ‘He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do’ – the snake has been compared to cattle.
‘I like a second comer’ – poet is compared to a person who is second in position.
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
‘looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do’ – snake is compared to cattle
‘he had come like a guest’ – the poet compares the snake to a guest.
‘his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken’ – ‘h’ and ‘d’ sound repeated
‘lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken’ – snake is compared to a drunk person
‘his tongue like a forked night’ – The snake’s forked black coloured tongue is compared to the black night
‘Writhed like lightning’ – the snake’s movement has been compared to lightning
‘he seemed to me again like a king’ – the snake has been compared to a king.
9. Visual imagery – ‘Etna smoking’ and ‘burning bowels of the Earth’ create visual imagery in the mind of the reader.

Snake Summary, Lesson notes
Snake Extra Questions and Answers, NCERT Solutions
Snake Important Character Sketches

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