Figurative Language and Poetic Elements

TERM

DEFINITION

EXAMPLE The wild and woolly walrus waits and wonders when we'll walk by. [the following from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge] The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea. [the following from To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, page 8] In this matter we were lucky to have Dill. He played the character parts formerly thrust upon me the ape in Tarzan, Mr. Crabtree in The Rover Boys, Mr. Damon in Tom Swift. Thus we came to know Dill as a pocket Merlin, whose head teemed with eccentric plans, strange longings, and quaint fancies.

Alliteration

The repetition of usually initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables

Allusion

Refers to something with which the reader is likely to be familiar, such as a person, place, or event [the following from Pride by U2 alluding to Martin Luther King, Jr.] from history or literature or some aspect of culture.
Early morning. April four Shot rings out in the Memphis sky Free at last They took your life They could not take your pride

Base and Fade and the words Young and Love are examples of assonance. The lines that follow from Boy at the Window by Richard Wilbur are especially musical because of assonance: Seeing the snowman standing all alone In dusk and cold is more than he can bear. The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare A night of gnashings and enormous moan.

Assonance

Repetition of similar vowel sounds, preceded and followed by different consonants, especially in words that are close together in a poem

Ballad

A song that tells a story; usually tell sensational stories of tragedy or adventure; use simple language and a great deal of repetition and usually See Ballad of Birmingham by Dudley Randall on page 383 have regular rhythm and rhyme schemes, which make them easy to memorize

Clich

A word or phrase that has become overly familiar or commonplace

No pain, no gain Only time will tell Time heals all wounds

Connotation

The feeling suggested by or associated with a word eagle: as opposed to the dictionary definition for the word 1. denotation: a large bird of prey (denotation). 2. connotation: a wild creature; a symbol for the United States
As Imperceptibly as Grief by Emily Dickinson As imperceptibly as Grief The Summer lapsed away Too imperceptible at last To seem like Perfidy A Quietness distilled As Twilight long begun, Or Nature spending with herself Sequestered Afternoon The Dusk drew earlier in The Morning foreign shone A courteous, yet harrowing Grace, As guest, that would be gone And thus, without a Wing Or service of a Keel Our Summer made her light escape Into the Beautiful.

Consonance

The repetition of identical consonant sounds that are preceded by different vowel sounds; also known as half rhyme because it is used in couplets or alternating lines the same way rhyme is used in a rhyme scheme.

Couplet

A style of poetry defined as a complete thought for a dogs collar, by Alexander Pope (Kew is a place in England) written in two lines with rhyming ends. The most popular of the couplets is the heroic couplet. The I am his Highness dog at Kew; heroic couplet consists of two rhyming lines of Pray tell me, Sire, whose dog are you? iambic pentameter usually having a pause in the middle of each line. Couplets work nicely for from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare humor and satire because the punch line comes so quickly. However, they are most often used to Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow express a complete thought. In Shakespeares That I shall say good night till it be morrow. plays an important speech or scene often ends with a couplet. Way of speaking that is characteristic of a particular region or a particular group of people
See To Kill a Mockingbird, Aint I a Woman, and Hope is the Thing with Feathers down-to-earth, simple, or slang diction: House, Home, Digs ornate, official-sounding, or even flowery diction: Domicile, Residence, Abode

Dialect Diction

A writers or speakers choice of words; an element of writing style

Honest Abe Epithet

Adjective or descriptive phrase that is regularly used to characterize a person, place, or thing

America the Beautiful Homers from the Iliad and the Odyssey: wine-dark sea, rosy-fingered dawn, and the gray-eyed goddess Athena

Figurative Language

Language expanded beyond its usual literal meanings; the most common are simile, metaphor, See related examples under: simile, metaphor, personification, and hyperbole personification, and hyperbole
they want me to settle down by Frances Chung they want me to settle down when I have not yet lived mother talking to me in songs of shopping bags and movie star calendars given for free at the grocery store (she wants a grandson) with hopes of mooncakes dragon bracelets and ginger soup they want me to settle down with the nice young man form Brooklyn with the car and college degree but every cockroach that runs across my mind whispers that I havent seen Peking [in this poem: no regular punctuation, no rhymes, no regular rhythm, and a mixture of long and short lines] mile-high ice-cream cones

Free Verse

Poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme, meter, or form

Hyperbole

Big exaggeration, usually with humor

[the following from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 52] With this thought in mind, I made perhaps one step per minute. She sings at the top of her lungs. or His music could wake the dead. [the following from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 51] He sounded fishy to me. [the following from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 51] We strolled silently down the sidewalk, listening to portch swings creaking with the weight of the neighborhood, listening to the soft night-murmers of the grown people on our street. Occasionally we heard Miss Stephanie Crawford laugh.

Idiom

The language peculiar to a group of people; includes common expressions that cannot be understood by their literal meaning Language that appeals to the five senses; Images help to re-create experiences vividly and add to a readers enjoyment of what is described.

Imagery

[from I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth] I gazed and gazed but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. When I Heard the Learnd Astronomer by Walt Whitman

Inversion

Placing a sentence element out of its normal position; Poets use inversion to emphasize, to create a certain mood, and to alter the rhythm of certain lines.

Lyric

A poem that directly expresses the speakers thoughts and emotions in a musical way; The point of view is usually first person. Marked by imagination, melody, and emotion, a lyric creates for the reader a single unified impression.

When I heard the learnd astronomer When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wanderd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and form time to time, Lookd up in perfect silence at the stars.

Metaphor

Comparing two things by using one kind of object I'm drowning in money. or using in place of another to suggest the likeness between them. She was a butterfly, flitting from conversation to conversation around the bustling party.
Harlem by Langston Hughes (words that suggest sorrow death, decomposition) What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Mood

The feeling created by a poem or story; Writers use carefully chosen words, phrases, and images to create mood.

Or does it explode?

Narrative Onomatopoeia

A narrative poem tells a story about anything.

See Casey at the Bat by Ernest L. Thayer See American Hero by Essex Hemphill

Naming a thing or an action by imitating the sound buzz, hiss, roar, woof associated with it
April Rain Song by Langston Hughes Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby. The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk. The rain makes running pools in the gutter. The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night And I love the rain.

Personification

Giving an animal, object, or idea human qualities such as the ability to love, sing, cry, feel, talk, and make decisions

Pun

Play on the multiple meanings of a word or on two words that sound alike but have different meanings

What has four wheels and flies? Answer: A garbage truck. see Romeo and Juliet when the servants talk as well as Mercutio and Romeo Somone by Walter de la Mara Someone came knocking At my Wee, small door; Someone came knocking; Im sure sure sure; I listened, I opened, I looked to left and right, But nought there was a-stirring In the still, dark night; Only the busy beetle Tap-tapping in the wall, Only from the forest The screech owls call, Only the cricket whistling While the dewdrops fall. So I know not who came knocking, At all, at all, at all. See the following poems: Casey at the Bat, Harlem, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, She Walks in Beauty, and The Road Not Taken from journals

Repetition

The use more than once of any element of language a sound, word, phrase, or sentence

Rhyme/ Rhyme sound; A rhyme scheme is the pattern of the end Scheme

The repetition of words that have the same ending rhyme in a poem

from Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun by Walt Whitman Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling, Give me juicy autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard, Give me a field where the unmowed grass grows, Give me an arbor, give me the trellised grape, Give me fresh corn and wheat, give me serene-moving animals teaching content, Give me nights perfectly quiet as on high plateaus west of the Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars

Rhythm

The musical quality created by a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables; the most obvious kind of rhythm is produced by meter, but writers can also create rhythm by using rhymes, by repeating words and phrases, and even by repeating whole lines or sentences

Simile

A figure of speech comparing two unlike things that is often introduced by like or as

The sun is like a yellow ball of fire in the sky.

I Never Saw a Moor by Emily Dickinson (uses two stanzas, each expressing one unit of thought) I never saw a Moor I never saw the Sea Yet know I how the Heather looks And what a Billow be. I never spoke with God Nor visited in Heaven yet certain am I of the spot As if the Checks were given. (checks: slips of paper that railway conductors gave to passengers after collecting their ticket)

Stanza

An arrangement of two or more lines of poetry into regular patterns of length, rhythm, and often rhyme scheme; Stanzas often indicate separate thoughts and are separated form one another by spaces; somewhat like paragraphs in prose; Italian for stopping place

Piazza Piece by: John Crowe Ransom -- I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying To make you hear. Your ears are soft and small And listen to an old man not at all; They want the young mens whispering and sighing. But see the roses on your trellis dying And hear the spectral singing of the moon For I must have my lovely lady soon. I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying. -- I am a lady young in beauty waiting Until my truelove comes, and then we kiss. But what gray man among the vines is this Whose words are dry and faint as in a dream? Back from my trellis, sir, before I scream! I am a lady young in beauty waiting. from The Weary Blues by: Langston Hughes Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play. Down on Lenox Avenue the other night By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light He did a lazy sway . . . He did a lazy sway . . . To the tune o' those Weary Blues. With his ebony hands on each ivory key He made that poor piano moan with melody. O Blues! Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool. Sweet Blues! TONE: The speaker admires the piano player. He has great respect for the mans talent, and the words Sweet Blues suggest that he likes the music. So you could describe the tone in this piece as respectful, or appreciative and enthusiastic.

Symbol

Something concrete that stands for something else, such as an idea or an emotion; An object or idea that represents a character or something else; the symbolic object or idea helps the reader to better understand the character or idea

Tone

The attitude the writer or the speaker takes toward the audience, the subject, or a character