CLASSICAL POETRY

ASSIGNMENT # 2

SUBMITTED TO: MAM TAYYABA

SUBMITTED BY: NABILA JAVED

1603
BS ENGLISH (IV)

06/11/16
 IMPORTANCE OF SIMILES
Definition:
A simile is a figure of speech that uses the words "like" or "as" to compare two
unlike objects and show a common quality between them. A simile is different from
a simple comparison in that it usually compares two different things. For example,
“She looks like you” is a comparison but not a simile. On the other hand, “She
smiles like the sun” is a simile, as it compares a woman with something of a
different kind- the sun.

The Importance of Using Similes:

Similes are an important tool that make language more creative, descriptive, and
entertaining. The mind thinks in images and associations, so similes are used to
make stronger and more effective descriptions than if only adjectives or literal
descriptions were used; they can stir up associated emotions, create new
connections in the mind, and emphasize certain characteristics. Similes are almost
essential to creative expression from everyday speech to poetry.

The purpose of the simile is to give information about one object that is unknown
by the reader by comparing it to something with which the reader is familiar. For
example, the simile, "Debbie is slow as a snail," gives the reader information about
Debbie's slowness by comparing her to a snail, which is an animal known to be slow.

Generally, a writer uses similes to enable the reader to imagine in his mind what the
writer is saying. This is why a writer compares one thing to another with which the
reader is familiar. If the speaker compares his love to a red rose that has just
bloomed, we are all familiar with a rose, so we are able to better understand the
comparison and this lets us comprehend the speaker's feelings.

Authors use these language devices in many types of writing, but are especially
effective in poetry and fiction, and they often serve to help the reader understand a
character, object or point of view by comparing those subjects to something the
audience already understands.

Add Flavor to Writing

To make a poem more interesting is perhaps the most prominent reason for using
similes and metaphors. Think of a poem as food -- if there were no spices or variety
of ingredients, the food would taste bland. Adding similes and metaphors, however,
gives your “food” some flavor.

For a Laugh

Metaphors and similes can also be funny. For example, if you write, “He was as
useful as an unsharpened pencil,” you imply that the person you’re talking about is
not actually very helpful. This simile adds humor to your subject and could grab your
reader’s interest.

Economy of Expression

Poems tend to express a subject or feeling in few words, many fewer than you
would use in a short story or novel. According to the Purdue Online Writing Lab,
metaphors and similes “give maximum meaning with a minimum of words.” For
example, if all you write is a simile, such as, “My body felt like molasses,” the reader
can infer the speaker feels tired or sluggish, or the audience can make other
assumptions based on this short statement that might take many paragraphs to
adequately describe otherwise.

On Your Toes

Metaphors and similes might also make the reader do some work -- they encourage
the audience to use their imagination or even interpret words in their own way.
Since metaphors and similes show rather than tell, they invite a reader to paint
pictures in his mind . For example, instead of saying, “My love is pretty,” poet Robert
Burns says, “O my Luve is like the melody/That’s sweetly played in tune.” The
audience cannot read the simile literally, but rather they must think about what the
poet means, and different readers could come up with various interpretations.

No Other Choice

Sometimes poets must use similes and metaphors because there are no other ways
to express what they want to say. Or what you want to say may have been said the
same way over and over, so poets must be creative to find new ways of saying the
same thing.

TYPES OF SIMILES

Similes can be either explicit or implicit depending on the way the simile is phrased.

Explicit Simile:

An explicit simile is a simile in which the characteristic that is being compared

between the two objects is stated. The previous example, "Debbie is slow as a
snail," is an explicit simile because it indicates what characteristic of Debbie and the
snail are shared.

Implicit Simile:

An implicit simile is a simile in which the reader must infer what is being compared.
For example, if the sentence read, "Debbie is like a snail," it is up to the reader to
determine what is meant. Is the writer trying to say that Debbie is slow? Or is the
writing meaning that Debbie is slimy? Both of these characteristics are common to
snails and could possibly provide information that pertains to Debbie, but without
any other context, it is impossible to know what meaning the author intended.

Examples of Similes in Literature

Example #1

For an example of simile in prose, read this excerpt from George Orwell’s novel
1984:

He sat as still as a mouse, in the futile hope that whoever it was might go away after
a single attempt. But no, the knocking was repeated. The worst thing of all would be
to delay. His heart was thumping like a drum, but his face, from long habit, was
probably expressionless.

This passage uses two similes: “as still as a mouse” and “thumping like a drum.”
Comparing the fearful man to a mouse emphasizes both his stillness and his
helplessness. Comparing a heartbeat to a drumbeat emphasizes its pounding due to
fear. Similes create a much more evocative passage than literal alternatives such as
“He was afraid” and “His heart beat hard.”

Example#2

For a poetic example of simile, read an excerpt from Christina Rossetti’s poem “A
Birthday”:

“My heart is like a singing bird

Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;

My heart is like an apple-tree

Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;

My heart is like a rainbow shell

That paddles in a halcyon sea;

My heart is gladder than all these

Because my love is come to me.

Rossetti uses simile three times in this section of the poem: her heart is “like a
singing bird,” “like an apple-tree,” and “like a rainbow shell.” Rossetti compares the
heart to a joyful bird in a full nest, an apple tree full of fruit, and a beautiful shell in a
peaceful sea in order to poetically describe its joy, fullness, and peacefulness.

EPIC SIMILES IN PARADISE LOST BOOK 1

Definition:
Epic simile is an elaborate comparison that travels beyond the point of comparison
and gives a complete poetic picture of some scene or incident suggested to the
mind of the poet. They are used for illustration and ornamentation. They add dignity
to the style. Such long-tailed similes stand by itself illuminating and beautifying
much more than the ordinary narrative.

Epic simile, in simple words, is an extended simile, in some cases running to fifteen
or twenty lines, in which the comparisons made, are elaborated in considerable
detail. It is a common feature of epic poetry, but is found in other kinds as well.

Epic similes are also given the name of Homeric similes because Homer elaborated
his similes in such a way that a particular kind of dignity and beauty was created in
his poetry and since then it became the tradition of epic poetry.

SIMILES WITH REFERENCES

1st Simile: Satan Portrayed

“Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge

As whom the fables name of monstrous size,

Titanian, or Earth-born, that warred on Jove,

Briareos or Typhon, whom the den

By ancient Tarsus held…….”(l.196-200)

In this first simile, Milton compares the huge bulk of Satan with that of the
monstrous size of the mythical Titans or giants who are fabled to be of the greatest
in size ever born and the physically huge precursors of the Greek and Roman gods
who actually went to war with their children, gods such as Zeus (also, Jove), over
control of earth and mankind. Milton's readers would understand the war between
Zeus and his fellow gods and the Titans as analogous to the war between Satan and
God.

2nd Simile: Comparison Of Satan To Laviathan

“….that sea-beast
 Leviathan, which God of all his works

Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream.

Him, haply, slumbering on the Norway foam,

The pilot of some small night-foundered skif

Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,

With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,

Moors by his side under the lee, while night

Invests the sea, and wished morn delays…”(I.200-208)

In this simile he compares the huge form of Satan sprawling on the lake of fire to the
fabled sea-beast called Leviathan. It was a kind of big whale of such great size that
when it came to the surface, it occupied many miles and mistaken by seamen as an
island in mid-ocean, they anchored in its side and found shelter till morning. In this
simile though the dominant impression is size but the other impressions are also
produced. The Leviathan is dangerous and tricky so is Satan.

3rd Simile: Depiction Of Satan’s Shield

As Satan moves out of the lake of fire, his shield, hung on his shoulders, is described
in epic terms:
" ……his ponderous shield
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast; the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose Orb
Through Optic Glass. . . ."
This simile is particularly important because it emphasizes the large scale of
everybody and everything in the poem: just as Satan himself is so large that he
covers "many a rood" (a rood is equal to about 7 yards), his shield must also be
equally large to protect his body and is therefore compared to the moon.
Immediately onwards Milton digresses by referring to Galileo viewing the moon
through his telescope. This reference to Galileo though not related to the Original
object of analogy, serves to add – a super terrestrial dimension to the poem.

4th Simile: Rebel Angels Comparison To Cloud Of Locusts

One of the important similes establishes the magnitude of Satan's fallen angels:

“As when the potent Rod

Of Amram's Son [Moses]. . .

up call'd a pitchy cloud

Of Locusts, warping on the Eastern Wind. . .

So numberless were those bad Angels seen

Hovering on wing under the Cope of Hell” (ll.339-345)

Here, Milton establishes not only the size (numberless) of Satan's army of fallen
angels but also compares them to the locusts, called up by Moses in order to get the
Pharoah to release the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. This comparison is
significant because the locusts are the messengers of disasters and their association
with the angel serves to suggest the evil nature of the fallen angel.

5th Simile: Comparison Of Fallen Angels To Barbarian Multitudes

“A multitude, like which the populous North

Poured never from her frozen loins, to pass

Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons

Came likea deluge on the South,…..”

In this passage, another simile compares the fallen angels to the barbarian hordes
who came from northern Europe to terrorize the cultivated societies of southern
Europe, another comparison that would resonate negatively with an audience in the
mid-seventeenth century.
6th Simile: Angels Compared To Autumn Leaves

“His legions, Angel forms, who lay entranced,

Thick as autumnal leaves that straw the brooks

In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades

High over-arched embower;”

With a view to give us an idea of the countless hosts of fallen angels, Milton
compares their dense masses to the autumnal leaves in Vallombrosa in Italy. In
autumn all deciduous trees shed their leaves and the forest would be thickly
carpeted with them. This reference of fallen leaves is very appropriate since it
suggests and reinforces the fallen nature and diminished glory of the angels in hell.

7TH Simile: Comparison Of Fallen Angels To Bees:

“……As bees
In springtime, when the sun with Taurus rides.
Pour forth their populous youth above the hire
In clusters;”

At the close of Book I, in anticipation of the council in Hell, the fallen angels are
compared to bees (Virgil's figure) as they go about their state affairs. The reference
to their "Straw-built Citadel," however, undercuts with a stroke all favorable
connotations of the simile, emphasizing instead their false illusion.

8th Simile: Reduction In Size Of Fallen Angels To Dwarfs, Pygmies And Elves:

In the lines immediately following, the reduction in size, is continued as they are
compared to dwarfs, pygmies, and "Faery Elves."
“…..,they but now who seemed
In bigness to surpass Earth’s giant sons,
Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room
Throng numberless, like that pygmean race
Beyond the Indian mount; or faery elves,…”
In the meantime, the "Seraphic Lords," possessing the same quality of being as
these diminished angels, in
"secret conclave sat
A thousand Demi-Gods on golden seats,"

ready to begin their great consultation on how they could avenge themselves
on God. Before the council ever begins, then, Milton has planted
the impressions of change and instability, of foolishness, pomposity, vain pride—a
sense of the desperate keeping up of mere outer show. As is typical of many of
Milton's figures, the modifying effect of the simile extends both backwards and
forwards.

Conclusion:
Milton’s similes serve to suggest dipper realities and do not merely exist as
grand images and rich decorative embellishments. Altogether, Milton’s similes
testify to the wide range of his knowledge, observation, memory and classical
scholarship and familiarity with the course of ancient histories. These add to the
pomp and magnificence of his narrative, breaking into them pleasantly and
preventing us from feeling a sense of monotony.