1. SIMILE – METAPHOR – PERSONIFICATION – APOSTROPHE – METONYMY
POETRY
SIMILE – METAPHOR – PERSONIFICATION – APOSTROPHE – METONYMY

2. Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another.
--Robert Frost

3. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE . . . IS UBIQUITOUS!!!
. . . is a process of saying
less than what you mean
more than what you mean
the opposite of what you mean
something other than what you mean
. . . is a way of saying what we want more vividly and forcefully than saying it directly
Figure of speech: any way of saying one thing and meaning another; rhetoricians have classified 250 different figures

4. SIMILE - METAPHOR Comparing things that are essentially unlike
SIMILE: the comparison is expressed by the use of some word or phrase such as like, as, than, similar to, resembles, or seems. The vehicle and the tenor are side by side (and both are explicit)
METAPHOR: the comparison is implied—that is the figurative term is substituted for or identified with the literal term. Either the vehicle or the tenor is not directly stated.

5. The Guitarist Tunes Up
With what attentive courtesy he bent
Over his instrument;
Not as a lordly conqueror who could
Command both wire and wood,
But as a man with a loved woman might,
Inquiring with delight
What slight essential things she had to say
Before they started, he and she, to play.
--Frances Cornford

6. METAPHOR Vehicle and Tenor:
When describing a simile and/or metaphor it is important to identify the vehicle and the tenor.
“Tenor” = the literal subject, the aspect that “holds” meaning.
“Vehicle” = the analogy, the part that “conveys” the comparison.
Example: Jen’s room is a pig sty.
Tenor=room/ Vehicle = sty.

7. It sifts from leaden sieves
It sifts from Leaden Sieves -- It powders all the Wood. It fills with Alabaster Wool The Wrinkles of the Road -- It makes an Even Face Of Mountain, and of Plain -- Unbroken Forehead from the East Unto the East again -- It reaches to the Fence -- It wraps it Rail by Rail Till it is lost in Fleeces -- It deals Celestial Vail To Stump, and Stack -- and Stem -- A Summer's empty Room -- Acres of Joints, where Harvests were, Recordless, but for them-- It Ruffles Wrists of Posts As Ankles of a Queen -- Then stills its Artisans -- like Ghosts -- Denying they have been –
--Emily Dickinson

8. PERSONIFICATION
Giving the attributes of a human being to an animal, object, or a concept
Joy and Temperance
Joy and Temperance Repose
Slam the door on the doctor’s nose.

9. APOSTROPHE
Addressing someone absent or dead or something nonhuman as if that person or thing were present and alive and could reply to what is being said

10. Apostrophe Western Wind Western wind, when wilt thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ! If my lover were in my arms,
And I in my bed again!

11. SYNECDOCHE
SYNECDOCHE: a figure of speech in which a part of something is used to represent the whole. (e.g. long arm of the law)
When creating a synecdoche, you must always use a part that relates directly to the whole. For example:
A fleet of ships = “forty sails” (sails are part of the whole, or ships)
Athlete = “muscles” (athletes have developed muscles)

12. METONYMY
METONYMY: a figure of speech in which one thing is represented by another that is commonly and often physically associated with it.
use of something closely related for the thing actually meant:
The White House issued a statement today.
“White House” is a metonymy for the government.
Notice that this cannot be synecdoche, because “government” is not a part of the term “white house”.

13. CAVEAT
The various figures of speech blend into each other, and it sometimes is difficult to classify a specific example as definitely metaphor or symbol, symbolism or allegory, understatement or irony, irony or paradox. Often a given example may exemplify two or more figures at once (e.g. “wire and wood” in “The Guitarist Tunes Up” =synecdoche and personification). The important consideration in reading poetry is not that we classify figures definitely but that we construe them correctly.

14. PURPOSES FOR FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Affords us imaginative pleasure; imagination = the faculty of mind that proceeds by sudden leaps from one point to another
Brings additional imagery, making the abstract concrete; multiplying the sense appeal
Adding emotional intensity; conveying attitudes along with information
Means of concentration; a way of saying much in brief compass

15. EXAMPLES – literal or figurative?
1. O tenderly the haughty day
Fills his blue urn with fire.
2. It is with words as with sunbeams—the more
they are condensed, the deeper they burn
3. The pen is mightier than the sword
4. The strongest oaths are straw
To the fire i’ the blood.
5. The Cambridge ladies Live in furnished souls
6. Dorothy’s eyes, with their long brown lashes,
looked very much like her mother’s.
7. The tawny-hided desert crouches watching her.
8. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die.
9. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we may die.