In his poem “If,” Rudyard Kipling uses many literary devices. Five of them are rhyme, rhythm, anaphora, paradox, personification, and hyperbole.
The poem uses a regular ABAB CDCD rhyme scheme in each stanza. The rhythm is iambic pentameter, meaning one unstressed and one stressed syllable used five times per line.
Most notable is the central device of anaphora, which gives the poem its distinctive structure. Anaphora is a type of repetition in which the same phrase is used repeatedly; Kipling does this with the phrase “If you can.”
Personification is giving abstract concepts or inanimate objects human characteristics. Kipling personifies “Triumph and Disaster” and calls them “impostors,” as well as “Will.” Another example is “unforgiving minute.”
Hyperbole is extreme exaggeration for effect. The penultimate line, “Yours is the Earth,” is hyperbole, given that the boy will not literally have the Earth.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if---
Sunday, January 13, 2019
What are five poetic devices in the poem "If—" by Rudyard Kipling?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What is the theme of the chapter Lead?
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
The statement "Development policy needs to be about poor people, not just poor countries," carries a lot of baggage. Let's dis...
-
"Mistaken Identity" is an amusing anecdote recounted by the famous author Mark Twain about an experience he once had while traveli...
-
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
De Gouges's Declaration of the Rights of Woman was enormously influential. We can see its influences on early English feminist Mary Woll...
-
As if Hamlet were not obsessed enough with death, his uncovering of the skull of Yorick, the court jester from his youth, really sets him of...
-
In both "Volar" and "A Wall of Fire Rising," the characters are impacted by their environments, and this is indeed refle...
No comments:
Post a Comment