Figurative Language Vocabulary List 1

Alliteration The repetition of initial sounds in successive or closely associated words

Alliteration Apt alliteration’s artful aid is often an occasional element in prose. “The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, the furrow followed free.” – Coleridge “The moan of doves in immemorial elms, and murmuring of innumerable bees.” –Tennyson

Conceit An outlandish comparison/metaphor (brief metaphor or entire poem) Petrarchan: Subject is compared extensively/elaborately to an object Metaphysical: Complex, startling, highly intellectual

Conceit Robert Burns compares his love to a rose Shakespeare compares someone to a summer’s day Donne compares his relationship to a woman with the woman’s relationship to a flea Donne compares his relationship with a woman to a compass

Extended metaphor A metaphor that runs throughout a poem

Extended Metaphor The bonsai tree in the attractive pot could have grown eighty feet tall on the side of a mountain till split by lightning. But a gardener carefully pruned it. It is nine inches high. Every day as he whittles back the branches the gardener croons, It is your nature to be small and cozy, domestic and weak; how lucky, little tree, to have a pot to grow in. With living creatures one must begin very early to dwarf their growth: the bound feet, the crippled brain, the hair in curlers, the hands you love to touch.

Figurative language Writing that embodies one or more figures of speech

Figures of speech Intentional departure from the normal meaning of words in order to achieve a certain effect

Imagery Sensory language

Imagery “Unloved, that beech will gather brown/ and many a rose carnation feed/ with summer spice the humming air.” – Tennyson “A sea the purple of the peacock’s neck is/paled to greenish azure.” – Moore

A note on writing about imagery Never just say, “The writer uses imagery.” Describe the imagery - biblical, nautical, seasonal, animal, visual, etc. For example, “In the poem “Living in Sin,” Adrienne Rich uses domestic imagery…” If you say, “The author uses imagery to paint a picture in the reader’s mind,” I will stuff you and sell you on Ebay.

Metaphor The comparison of one thing to another without the use of like or as

Metaphor “Hope is the thing with feathers/ that perches in the soul.” – Dickinson “It is the east and Juliet is the sun.” – Shakespeare It’s raining cats and dogs That’s my old flame

Metonymy One word or phrase being substituted for another closely related object

Metonymy Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; Wordsworth uses an alter to stand for religion, a sword to stand for the military, and a pen to stand for literature

Onomatopoeia The use of words whose pronunciation suggests its meaning

Onomatopoeia Bang Hiss Crash Buzz

Personification Giving human qualities to non- human things Anthropomorphism – specifically referring to giving animals human qualities

Personification “Poetic justice with her lifted scale” – Pope “Full many a glorious morning I have seen/flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eyes/kissing with golden face the meadows green.” - Shakespeare

Simile A direct comparison of two things using like or as

Simile “My love is like a red, red rose” – Burns “A poem should be palpable and mute as a globed fruit.” – MacLeish

Symbolism Using something to signify or represent something else

Symbolism Lion – bravery Circle – everlasting Water – rebirth

Synecdoche A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part

Synecdoche “With all its muddy feet that press the coffee stands” - Eliot Gray beard – old man Wheels – a car Threads - clothing

Synesthesia Describing one sense in terms of another

Synesthesia “Tasting of flora and the country green” – Keats “With blue uncertain stumbling buzz” - Dickinson