One literary device Burns makes heavy use of in this poem is anaphora. Anaphora occurs when the words at the beginning of a line are repeated. In "A Red, Red Rose," this happens, for example, in the first and third lines when the speaker says:
O my Luve's like ...
O my Luve's like ...
He then likens his love to both a rose and a melody. Anaphora occurs again when the speaker repeats:
Till a' the seas gang dry
All the "ands" that begin lines are also examples of anaphora, and you will find more instances of anaphora as you examine the poem. Anaphora creates a sense of rhythm and emphasis.
The speaker also uses the literary device of apostrophe, which is to directly address an object or absent person. In this case, he addresses his true love. The apostrophe becomes particularly clear in the final stanza:
And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve! /And fare-thee-weel, a while! /And I will come again, my Luve, /Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile!
The speaker employs hyperbole or exaggeration in the final line of the poem when he writes that he will return to his love even if he has to travel 10,000 miles. He knows he won't have to journey anywhere near that distance, but the hyperbole emphasizes how much he loves his beloved and the lengths he is willing to go to be with her. You will find other instances of hyperbole as you read the verses.
The poet also uses Scottish dialect or vernacular, which lends a personal, informal feeling to the poem and stresses the intimacy between the speaker and his beloved. Examples of dialect are "bonnie lass" for beautiful girl and "gang" for going.
It sounds as if you are having some difficulty understanding the meaning of the term "literary devices." These are basically ways of organizing language beyond what is necessary to create meaning. Thus devices like meter, rhyme, repetition of sounds, figures of speech, and non-literal uses of words are all "literary devices." Literary critics usually divide these into "figures of sound" and "figures of thought."
In terms of sound, first you could look at meter. The poem consists of four-line stanzas, with the first and third lines written in iambic tetrameter and the second and fourth in iambic trimeter. The stanzas are rhymed ABCB. This scheme, known as "ballad meter," identifies the poem as belonging to the literary genre of the ballad. We also can see examples of alliteration, or repetition of consonant sounds in "red, red rose."
In terms of figures of thought, Burns uses "simile" or explicit comparison in the initial stanza when he compares the woman to a rose and to a melody. He also uses "hyperbole" or exaggeration in describing how much he loves his beloved.
For such a short poem, Burns certainly packs a lot of literary devices. First, Burns uses a simile to compare his love to a flower--"Oh, my Luve's LIKE a red, red rose..." Secondly, his love is symbolized by that...
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rose, and by repeating the color "red", he is how beautiful, how pure his love is. He uses another simile in the third line to once again compare his love to something beautiful; this time, he compares his love to a beautiful song--"My Luve's like a melodie..." Burns wrote in a lyric style, meaning this poem often reads like a song would--hence, the repetition of some key phrases. There is also obvious alliteration with the "r" sounds--"...ared, red rose..." The use of alliteration also furthers the sing-song musicality of the poem.
What are the literary devices in "A Red, Red Rose" by Robert Burns?
Many similes are used in Robert Burns' poem "A Red, Red Rose". The first one, the title, compares love to a rose. It is an obvious comparison to the beauty and delicacy of the flower. The second simile is "My love is like a melody that's sweetly sung in tune". Here Burns compares love to a song that contains no discord. It is also important to deconstruct that he does not say "harmony". He uses the word "melody" which insinuates to primary attraction of the song, so to say. The melody is what the listener pays the most attention to and recognizes more easily. There are a couple to get you started. Try looking for more similes and metaphors in the poem.
What literary devices does Robert Burns use in his poem "A Red, Red Rose"?
Robert Burns manages quite a bit of technique in this short little poem! To start, he uses the stock simile of a rose to represent love. Roses are special and beautiful, just as true love it. He states that the rose is "newly sprung in June." This is using the year of life metaphor to suggest the newness of the love as it appears in the newest part of the year which was born/reborn in spring and shows some young maturity in June. He then uses another simile to compare his love to song that is "sweetly played in tune." That is a very pleasant sound image, as opposed to sound that would be described as harsh or discordant.
In the next two stanzas he explains that he will love his dear one until "the seas gang dry," until "the rocks melt wi' the sun" and until "the sands o' life shall run." These kinds of hyperbole, or overstatements are typical in love poetry. He can't literally love her that long, but he only means that he will love her forever.
In the final stanza he is bidding her farewell which then seems to be the purpose of the poem. He is assuring his true love how much he loves her even though they will be parted for some time. He again uses hyperbole to say that they will be united again, even though a seemingly insurmountable number of miles may separate them.
The poem also uses a predominate iambic meter with alternating lines of tetrameter and trimeter. This means that the predominate meter is unstressed syllable / stressed syllable with that pattern occurring 4 times in the first and 3rd lines and that pattern occurring 3 times in the 2nd and 4th lines. The short lines emphasize the sing-songy quality of the poem and the abcb rhyme scheme also enhanses that.
What literary devices does Robert Burns use in his poem "A Red, Red Rose"?
The first stanza makes use of the simile in which he compares his "luve" to a red rose. The simile is evident in the first two lines: "O my Luve's like a red, red rose,/That's newly sprung in June;" He uses a second simile in that same stanza (the first stanza) to compare his love to a sweet sounding melody when he says: "O my Luve's like the melodie,/That's sweetly play'd in tune."
In the second stanza, Burns makes use of assonance -- the repetition of the vowel sound in the beginning or ending of words. This is evident in the first line of this stanza: "As fair art thou, my bonie lass." The "a" sound in "fair" and "lass" are repetitious. He also uses repetition in the last line of the second stanza and the first line of the third stanza: "Till a' the seas gang dry./Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear." The third stanza also makes use of personification in the last line which states: "While the sands o' life shall run."
The final stanza uses repetition in the first three lines which all begin with the same word -- "And". He also makes use of alliteration in the final line with the repetition of the "t" sound: "Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile."