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Literary Devices In Poetry

Decent Essays

When someone is feeling lonely, someone else might be feeling pain, another may be falling in love for the first time. As humans we go through different stages in life in which we perceive different emotions. A poet’s main goal is to evoke these emotions through their words and techniques. Many poets unconsciously create a sense of musicality, especially when rhyme and meter are used to evoke the emotions the authors are trying to produce. Even when the poems are not related with the same emotions, the techniques used to convey the emotions alter the tone of each poem to its fullest. Maya Angelou, Linda Pastan, and William Blake are all authors of different backgrounds and time periods, but they focus on enhancing the feeling of nostalgia for the reader through their works of art. The rhyme and meter in “Africa” by Maya Angelou, “To a Daughter leaving Home” by Linda Pastan, and “Introduction” to Songs of Innocence” by William Blake, evoke a sense of nostalgia through the use of syllables, bringing the tones of romance, pain, and loneliness together. For instance, the poem “Africa” uses rhyme and meter to evoke nostalgia as the stressed and unstressed syllables help the reader understand the pain the country of Africa underwent. Maya personifies the country of Africa through the imagery of human features made by nature. As Africa is compared to a human, it is displayed that she suffers due to the pain that her people are suffering, turning the tone melancholic. The

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