What is the difference between poetic devices and literary devices?

The difference between poetic devices and literary devices lies in where they are most commonly used.

• Literary devices refer to the full range of techniques writers use across all kinds of texts, including novels, essays, speeches, and poems.
• Poetic devices, on the other hand, focus on techniques that are especially tied to poetry and its formal features, such as sound patterns, line breaks, and rhythm.

For instance, devices like metaphor or symbolism appear in many forms of writing, while devices like meter or rhyme are discussed mainly as poetic devices.

Unsure whether a technique is a poetic or literary device in a specific text? QuillBot’s AI Chat can help you analyze examples, compare uses, and clarify how a device works in context.