REVIEW OF FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

SIMILE• A comparison of two things using “like,

as than,” or “resembles.”

“She is as beautiful as a sunrise.”

METAPHOR

• A direct comparison of two unlike things

• “All the world’s a stage, and we are merely players.”

- William Shakespeare

ONOMATOPOEIA

• Words that imitate the sound they are naming

BUZZ

PERSONIFICATION

• An animal given human-like qualities or an object given life-like qualities.

from “Ninki”by Shirley Jackson

“Ninki was by this time irritated beyond belief by the general air of incompetence exhibited in the kitchen, and she went into the living room and got Shax, who is extraordinarily lazy and never catches his own chipmunks, but who is, at least, a cat, and preferable, Ninki saw clearly, to a man with a gun.

ALLITERATION

• Consonant sounds repeated at the beginnings of words

If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?

IMAGERY

• Language that appeals to the senses.

• Most images are visual, but they can also appeal to the senses of sound, touch, taste, or smell.

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather . . .

from “Those Winter Sundays”

SYMBOLISM

• When a person, place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself also represents, or stands for, something else.

= Innocence

= Peace QuickTime™ and a

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Hyperbole

• Exaggeration often used for emphasis.Sarah Cynthia Sylvia StoutWould not take the garbage out!And so it piled up to the ceilings:Coffee grounds, potato peelings,Brown bananas, rotten peas,Chunks of sour cottage cheese.It filled the can, it covered the floor,It cracked the window, it blocked the door -Shel Silverstein

Allusion

• Allusion comes from the verb “allude” which means “to refer to”

• An allusion is a reference to something famous.

A tunnel walled and overlaid

With dazzling crystal: we had read

Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave,

And to our own his name we gave.

From “Snowbound”John Greenleaf Whittier

OXYMORON

• figure of speech in which two terms appear to contradict each other.

deafening silence

"I must be cruel only to be kind” -HAMLET

POETRY TERMS

POETRY FORM

• LINE - a group of words together on one line of the poem

• STANZA - a group of lines arranged together

• COUPLET- a two line stanza

A word is dead When it is said,

Some say.

I say it just Begins to live

That day.

RHYME

• Words sound alike because they share the same ending vowel and consonant sounds.

• (A word always rhymes with itself.)

LAMP STAMP

Share the short “a” vowel sound

Share the combined “mp” consonant sound

REFRAIN

• a repeated part of a poem, particularly when it comes either at the end of a stanza or between two stanzas

“Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’”

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BLANK VERSE

• Unrhymed iambic pentameter

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of recorded time;And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

-Shakespeare’s Macbeth

SOME TYPES OF POETRY

NARRATIVE POEMS

• A poem that tells a story.

• Generally longer than the lyric styles of poetry b/c the poet needs to establish characters and a plot.

Examples of Narrative Poems:

“The Lady of Shiloh”

“The Raven”

“Casey at the Bat”

BALLAD

• Narrative poem (often sad) usually written in four-line stanzas to be sung often employing repetition of a refrain

• Rhyme scheme: ABCB DEFE GHIH etc.

Examples in Text:“Get Up and Bar the Door”“Barbara Allan”

BALLAD from “Bold Robin Hood,” Bold Robin Hood ranged the forest all round,

   The forest all round rang'd he, And there did he meet with a gay lady,    Come weeping along the highway.

Oh why do you weep my gay lady?    Why do you weep for gold or for fee? Oh why do you weep for anything else,    That was taken from any body.

I do not weep for gold, she said,    Nor do I weep for any fee, Nor do I weep for any thing else,    That was stolen from any body.

Then why do you weep? said jolly Robin,    I pray thee come tell unto me, Why do I weep? for my three sons,    For they're all condemned to die.

LYRIC

• Written from singular point of view

• Expresses observations & feelings

• Does not tell a story and is often musical

• 2 types of lyric poetry: elegy & sonnet

ELEGY Solemn & formal lyric about death which may mourn a

particular person or reflect on a serious or tragic theme like the passing away of youth, beauty, or a way of life.

Example in Text:Thomas Gray’s“Elegy written in a Country Courtyard”

ENGLISH SONNETA fourteen line poem with a

specific rhyme scheme.

The first 12 lines set up a situation, and the ending

couplet resolves or comments upon it

The rhyme scheme is

abab cdcd efef gg

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate.Rough winds do shake the darling buds of

May,And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed.

But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his

shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.