The Language of Poetry

A)

Figurative Language

Figurative Language is used whenever you describe something by comparing it with something else.

1-Simile:
A figure of speech in which things are compared using the words like or as Examples: -The surface of the water looked as smooth as glass. -busy as a bee

2- Metaphor:
A figure of speech in which things are compared by stating that one thing is another. The metaphor states a fact or draws a verbal picture by the use of comparison. A simile would say you are like something; a metaphor is more positive - it says you are something. Examples: -The girl was a fish in the water. -The clown was a feather floating away. -The clouds are cotton balls in the sky.

3- Personification:
It is a figure of speech in which objects or animals are given human qualities. Examples: -The sun played peek-a-boo with the clouds. -The flowers danced in the wind. -The Earth coughed and choked in all of the pollution. -The friendly gates welcomed us.

- A smiling moon, a jovial sun

4- Conceit:
It is an extended metaphor with a complex logic that governs an entire poem. By juxtaposing, usurping and manipulating images and ideas in surprising ways, a conceit invites the reader into a more sophisticated understanding of an object of comparison. Extended conceits in English are part of the poetic idiom of Mannerism, during the later sixteenth and early seventeenth century. The Petrarchan conceit, used in love poetry, exploits a particular set of images for comparisons with the despairing lover and his unpitying but idolized mistress. For instance, the lover is a ship on a stormy sea, and his mistress "a cloud of dark disdain"; or else the lady is a sun whose beauty and virtue shine on her lover from a distance.The paradoxical pain and pleasure of lovesickness is often described using oxymoron, for instance uniting peace and war, burning and freezing, and so forth. But images which were novel in the sonnets of Petrarch became clichs in the poetry of later imitators.

5- Pun:
A pun is a figure of speech which consists of a deliberate confusion of similar words or phrases for rhetorical effect, whether humorous or serious. A pun can rely on the assumed equivalency of multiple similar words (homonymy), of different shades of meaning of one word (polysemy), or of a literal meaning with a metaphor. Walter Redfern (in Puns, Blackwell, London, 1984) succinctly said: "To pun is to treat homonyms as synonyms".

6- Hyperbole (or Overstatement):

It is an exaggeration or overstatement. (Opposite of Understatement ) Example: -I'm so hungry I could eat a horse. -He's as big as a house.

7-Irony:
Expression of something which is contrary to the intended meaning; the words say one thing but mean another. The author says one thing and means something else.

Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink ; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.
( The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Coleridge)

8-Antithesis:
It Is Opposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction. Examples: -Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Barry Goldwater -Brutus: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar -The vases of the classical period are but the reflection of classical beauty; the vases of the archaic period are beauty itself."

9-Paradox:
An assertion seemingly opposed to common sense, but that may yet have some truth in it. It is a puzzling self-contradiction. Example: I always lie. If you always lie...you're lying now, which means you are telling the truth, but you can't be, because if you were, you would be telling the truth.

7-Oxymoron:
Oxymoron is putting two contradictory words together. That is to say it is a compact paradox, in which two successive words apparently contradict one another. Examples: -hot ice, cold fire, wise fool, sad joy, eloquent silence, pretty ugly, little giant

11- Symbol:
A figure of speech in which something (object, person, situation or action) means more than what it is. A symbol can be read metaphorically.

B)
1-Rhyme:

Sound Devices

Words that have the same ending sounds .The tiny bird in the tree / Was singing songs just for me

2- Alliteration:
The repetition of the same initial letter, or group of sounds in a series of words. Example: -Polly planted plenty of pretty pansies. -Stan the strong surfer saved several swimmers on Saturday. -Tiny Tommy Thomson takes toy trucks to Timmys on Tuesday. -Robert Frost's "The Death of the Hired Man" begins:

Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step. . . .
The eye immediately sees the alliteration in the "m's" in "Mary sat musing" and the "w's" in "Waiting for Warren. When. . . ." But it is the car that picks up the half-buried in "sounds in" lamp-flame sounds which act like faint and distant rhymes.

- The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees.

3- Consonance:
Repetition of internal or ending consonant sounds of words close together in poetry. Example: I dropped the locket in the thick mud.

4-Assonance:
The repetition of internal vowel sounds of accented syllables or important words.
Examples: I made my way to the lake.

I awoke to black flak.

5-Onomatopoeia:
Words that sound like the objects or actions they refer to. It is the use of a word to describe or imitate a natural sound or the sound made by an object or an action. Example: -snap, crackle , pop, click -A pesky mosquito buzzed around my head.

6- Euphony:
Euphony refers to the smooth pleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds. Mellifluous sounds: /l/ , /m/. /n/, /r/, /s/, /v/, /wh/, /th/ Example: So smooth, so sweet, so silv'ry is thy voice Melting melodious words to Lutes of Amber.

7- Cacophony:
Cacophony refers to the harsh, discordant unpleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds. Harsher sounds and explosives are generally sharper in effect: /b/, /p/, /k/, /g/, /d/, /t/

8- Long Vowels:
Long vowels such as those in fate, reed, rime, coat, dune Example: All day the fleeing crows croak hoarsely over the snow.

9-Short Vowels:
Short vowels as in fat, red, rim, cot, foot, dun. Example: Bombs, drums, guns, bastions, batteries, bayonets, bullets,Hard words, which stick in the soft Muses' gullets.

Imagery
Imagery may be defined as the representation through language of sense experience. Poetry indirectly appeals to our senses through imagery. Imagery is more incidental to a poem than metaphors, symbols and theme and they are often confused. Nevertheless, an image should conjure up something more than the mere mentioning of the object or situation. A mistake often made is to take every image as though it were a symbol or metaphor. Frost called that "pressing the poem too hard." Starting with the examples below, see how many you can find in each poem. There are 7 different kinds of imagery: Visual imagery - something seen in the mind's eye Examples: After Apple-Picking - magnified apples appear and disappear...every fleck of russet showing clear Once by the Pacific - the clouds were low and hairy...like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes. Birches - the iced branches shed "crystal shells" October - Enchant the land with amethyst Good Hours - the cottages up to their shining eyes in snow Auditory imagery - represents a sound (Go back to table) Examples: After Apple-Picking - the rumbling .. of load on load of apples coming in. Mowing - the scythe whispering to the ground The Runaway - the miniature thunder... the clatter of stone An Old Man's Winter Night - the roar of trees, the crack of branches, beating on a box Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - the sweep of easy wind and downy flake Olfactory imagery - a smell Examples: After Apple-Picking - Essence of winter sleep in on the night, the scent of apples Note: just the mention of "the scent of apples" does not make it an image, but when connected to "essence of winter sleep" the scent gains vividness. To Earthward - musk from hidden grapevine springs Out, Out - the sticks of wood "sweet scented stuff"

Unharvested - A scent of ripeness from over a wall...smelling the sweetness in no theft. To a Young Wretch - the boy takes the tree and heads home, "smelling green" Gustatory imagery - a taste Examples: After Apple-Picking - although not specifically mentioned, the taste of the apples is implied To Earthward - I craved strong sweets ...now no joy but lacks salt Blueberries - the blueberries as big as your thumb...with the flavor of soot A Record Stride - the walking boots that taste of Atlantic and Pacific salt The Exposed Nest - A haying machine passes over a bird nest without "tasting flesh" Tactile imagery - touch, for example hardness, softness, wetness, heat, cold ... (table) Examples: After Apple-Picking - the fruit to "Cherish in hand" Moon Compasses - "So love will take between the hands a face.." The Death of the Hired Man - Mary touches the harplike morning-glory strings and plays some tenderness. The Witch of Coos - the bed linens might just as well be ice and the clothes snow On Going Unnoticed - You grasp the bark by a rugged pleat,/ And look up small from the forest's feet. Organic imagery - internal sensation: hunger, thirst, fatigue, fear Examples: After Apple-Picking - My instep arch not only keeps the ache, It keeps the pressure of a ladder round Storm Fear - My heart owns a doubt, It costs no inward struggle not to go Birches - It's when I'm weary of considerations/ And life is too much like a pathless wood, etc The White-Tailed Hornet - "To stab me in the sneeze-nerve of a nostril" Spring Pools - the trees drinking up the pools and along with it, the flowers Kinesthetic imagery - movement or tension ....(table) Examples: After Apple-Picking - "I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend." Bereft - Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,/ Blindly struck at my knee and missed. Ghost House - the black bats tumble and dart A Late Walk - the whir of sober birds, is sadder than any words

Once by the Pacific: "Shattered water ...Great waves looked over others coming in,"