FIGURES OF

SPEECH
1. A good figure of speech
is generally brief . If it is
too long, the reader gets
fatigued following the
image and the clearness is
impaired.
2. Freshness is
another quality of a
good figure of speech.
It must be original
and spontaneous,
never forced or trite.
3. Good figures have a
likeness and an unlikeness
to the original idea, but
the likeness must be more
striking than the
unlikeness so that the
likeness strikes us before
the unlikeness.
4. The last and
most important
requirement of
literary figures is
appropriateness
and harmony of
effect.
CLASSIFICATION
OF
FIGURES
OF SPEECH
1. A simile is an expressed
comparison between unlike
things that have a common
quality. This figure of speech
is generally identified by the
use of as or like.
Example: The little stars, like little
children,
went first to bed.

Far in the distance the

river
gleamed as a flashing sword of
2. A metaphor is an implied
comparison between things essentially
different but having some common
quality. The metaphor is a very popular
figure of speech. It is so powerful in its
appeal that figurative language is
generally called metaphorical
language.

Example :
The cataracts blow their trumpets from
the
white snow-flakes.
Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered
with snow- flakes.
3. An epithet is a word ,generally an
adjective , used not to qualify or to give
information , but to point out and
impart strength or ornament to diction.

Example :
Alexander the Great; Aristides the Just;
Richard the Lion Hearted.

Blue-eyed day, throned on his diamond car.

4. Personification is a figure
of speech that ascribes
intelligence or feeling to
abstract ideas or inanimate
things.
Example:
The hoary colleges look down
On careless boys at play.

When the sweet wind did gently kiss

the trees
And they did make no noise.
5. An apostrophe is a figure of
speech in which the dead are
addressed as if living; the absent as
if present, and inanimate objects
and abstract ideas as if they were
persons.
Example:
Milton, thou should be
living at this hour!
O world !I cannot hold
thee close enough.
6. An allegory is an
extended metaphor, in
which concrete objects are
made to represent things
spiritual in order to
present high truths with
vividness and power. An
allegory is an extended
metaphor.
 THANK YOU
FOR LISTENING

GODBLESS!

PREPARED BY: Haziel A. Eramis