Poetic Devices In The Highwayman

Have you ever realized how much poetic devices have changed the way a poem is written? Well, many poems contain this. Once you have read a poem, you would usually go back and look through it right? Well, once you have done that a few times, you will begin to notice poetic devices such as, metaphors, similes, alliteration, repetition, imagery, and more. As you read a poem, you find all these things to make the poem better. For example, in the story The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes, the poetic devices make the biggest difference whether the poem is boring, or downright good! This poem I mentioned is about a robber that has fallen in love with this women, but is having some complications doing so, a man named Tim has something to say about his …show more content…
As The Highwayman and the Landlord’s daughter fall in love, Tim is planning to tell the Redcoats of a little secret The Highwayman has, and that is to go out and plan a major scheme to steal jewels and such. But once the Redcoats find out, they get to the Landlord’s daughter’s house and she is tied up. She wants to send her lover a message, and then tragically shoots HERSELF in order to get the attention of The Highwayman. Once he hears the shot, he rides away and will find out in the morning. Once he finds her body there the next morning he is upset, and then he himself is shot down and killed. Now based on the poetic devices of this story, I would easily rate this story high up there. The story is full of similes, metaphors, alliteration, imagery, rhyming, and …show more content…
Imagery plays a HUGE part of a story or poem. If you don’t have it, your poem is simply bad and boring! The Highwayman is covered with imagery. Every stanza out of all 17 of them you can feel and see the story this poem is telling. For example in stanza 1, “The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees. The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor. And the highwayman came riding--Riding--riding-- The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.” You can easily picture or image that stanza as a man riding up to an inn door! Most of this poem, you can easily get a picture in your mind of the event that is happening during that part of the poem. If many of these parts did not have imagery, or such, the poem would become very boring and vague! Poems with many poetic devices become very interesting, and then people are stuck to that poem much longer. And that’s why this poem has a high