How Eugene Field Uses Literary Terms in "The Duel"
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H7HelV4WQ4Y/T_Z1Pof9qbI/AAAAAAAAAb4/bruWeazvwi0/s320/duel.jpg
Original Illustrations by Mary Ellsworth, ©1941 by THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY, AKRON OH & NEW YORK
Original Illustrations by Mary Ellsworth, ©1941 by THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY, AKRON OH & NEW YORK
- The poem has four STANZAS.
- Each stanza has nine LINES. Nine lines is kind of weird; most of the time poems have lines in groups of fours or twos.
- The RHYME SCHEME is a, a, b, b, c, c, a, c, c. That means that the first, second and seventh lines rhyme. The seventh line rhyming with the first two is odd and makes the "flow" jerky since the reader expects an even number of lines.
- Field PERSONIFIES a clock and a plate as able to tell a story. In addition, the clock uses its "hands" to cover its "face".
- The poem interacts with the audience with RHETORICAL QUESTIONS like "What do you think?"
- The poem is unusual because it doesn't have any SIMILIES.
- "Bow-wow-wow" and "Mee-ow" are ONOMATOPOEIA. The way "Mee-ow" is spelled with extra letter emphasizes how the calico cat probably said it.