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What are the poetic devices used in the poem A Legend of the Northland?

What are the poetic devices used in the poem A Legend of the Northland?

2 Answers

  1. Following are the literary devices/figures of speech used in the poem A Legend of the Northland:

    1. Simile: It is a poetic device which involves the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind using “as” or “like”. In this poem, we find a lot of example of simile. e.g. “the children look like bear’s cubs”, “baked it thin as a wafer”, “you shall build as the birds do”, “Black as a coal in the flame”.
    2. Alliteration: It is the repetition of the same sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words. e.g. “That they cannot sleep them through”, “To the sledges, when it snows”, “In their funny, furry clothes”, “They tell them a curious story”, “yet you may learn a lesson”, ” If I tell the tale to you” etc.
    3. Enjambment: It is the continuation of a line after the line breaks. In this poem, several sentences continue to next lines. e.g. “Once, when the good Saint Peter Lived in the world below, And walked about it, preaching, Just as he did, you know, He came to the door of a cottage, In travelling round the earth, Where a little woman was making cakes, And baking them on the hearth“.
    4.  Repetition: It is the repetition of a word or phrase of poetic effect. e.g. “Away, away in the Northland”, “And rolled and rolled it flat;”, “By boring, and boring, and boring,” etc.

    Read summary of this poem.

    1. Then she took a tiny scrap of dough,
    2. And rolled and rolled it flat;
    3. And baked it thin as wafer-
    4. But she couldn’t part with that.

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