Poetry Part 2: Figurative Language

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE  Conveys meanings beyond the literal meanings of the words Literal= Please stop bothering me! Figurative= Take a hike!

IMAGERY  Language in poems that create a mood, arouse the readers’ senses, help to see, hear, feel, smell, and taste the experiences they present Example of Imagery excerpt from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells...

METAPHOR  Direct comparison of two unlike things – says something is something else “All the world’s a stage and we are merely players.” ~William Shakespeare

Extended Metaphor  A metaphor that goes several lines or possibly the whole length of the work.

SIMILE  Uses “like” or “as” to compare two things How dreary to be somebody! How public like a frog, To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog! -Emily Dickenson

Symbolism  The use of one object to represent or suggest another.  Ex: the American flag. It’s literally a piece of cotton, but it represents freedom, democracy, etc.

PERSONIFICATION  Type of figurative language in which animals, inanimate objects, or ideas are given human qualities The ancient car groaned into third gear. The wind sighed through the trees

Paradox  a statement that although seemingly contradictory is actually true. If you get this message, call me; if you don't, then don't worry about it. Nobody goes to that restaurant, it's too crowded.

Oxymoron  Self-contradictory pair of words. Ex: jumbo shrimp bitter sweet accurate estimate a fine mess act naturally

Allusion  figure of speech that makes brief reference to a historical or literary figure, event, or object "The girl's love of sweets was her Achilles heel"

PUN  a “play on words” based on the similarity of sound between two words with different meanings. "I saw a documentary on how ships are kept together. Riveting!“ “Kings worry about a receding heir line.”

Apostrophe  a figure of speech in which the a writer directly addresses an absent person, an inanimate object, an abstract idea, or something non-human as though it were present and capable of responding "Then come, sweet death, and rid me of this grief." (Queen Isabella in Edward II by Christopher Marlowe)

Understatement  a common figure of speech in which the literal sense of what is said falls short of the magnitude of what is being talked about. "Well, that's cast rather a gloom over the evening, hasn't it?“ (Dinner guest, after a visit from the Grim Reaper, in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life)

Hyperbole  Over-exaggeration often used for emphasis

Analogy  a comparison of two things, alike in certain aspects; usually expressed as ____ is to _____ as _____ is to ______ Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.