Figurative and Literal Language

1. Figurative and Literal Language Literally: words function exactly as defined The car is blue. He caught the football. Figuratively: figure out what it means I’ve got your back.You’re a doll.

2. Alliteration • Repetition of beginning consonant sounds • Example: • Celia stores soda in the cellar. • Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. • The rope was not knotty. • “Up the aisle, the moans and screams merged with the sickening smell of woolen black clothes worn in summer weather and green leaves wilting over yellow flowers.”

3. Allusion Indirect reference to a famous person, place, event, or literary work (i.e. mythological, biblical) Example: I doubt if Phaethon feared more - that time he dropped the sun-reins of his father's chariot and burned the streak of sky we see today – or if poor Icarus did - feeling his sides unfeathering as the wax began to melt, his father shouting: "Wrong, your course is wrong" (Dante’s Inferno-fear of descending into the 8th circle of hell)

4. Assonance • Repetition of vowel sounds within nonrhyming words • Example: • “Only their usual maneuvers, dear” • “Strips of tinfoil winking like people” - The Bee Meeting by Sylvia Plath

5. Ballad Type of narrative poem that tells a story and was originally meant to be sung or recited. Example: Ballad of Birmingham “Mother dear, may I go downtown Instead of out to play, And march the streets of Birmingham In a Freedom March today?” “No, baby, no, you may not go, For the dogs are fierce and wild, And clubs and hoses, guns and jails Aren’t good for a little child.”

6. Blank Verse Unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter Example: But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!

7. Consonance • Repetition of consonant sounds within and at the end of words and phrases • Example: • “Rap rejects my tape deck, ejects projectileWhether Jew or gentile, I rank top percentileMany styles, more powerful than gamma raysMy grammar pays, like Carlos Santana plays.” • (The lines have been taken from the song ‘Zealots ‘by Fugees.)

8. Couplet • A rhymed pair of lines • (End the pattern of a Shakespearean Sonnet) • Example: • From what I’ve tasted of desire • I hold with those who favor fire. • Robert Frost “Fire and Ice”

9. Extended Metaphor Compares two unlikely things at some length and in several ways Example: “Hope is the thing with feathersThat perches in the soul,And sings the tune–without the words,And never stops at all, “And sweetest in the gale is heard;And sore must be the stormThat could abash the little birdThat kept so many warm. “I’ve heard it in the chilliest land,And on the strangest sea;Yet, never, in extremity,It asked a crumb of me.” (Emily Dickinson)

10. Free Verse Poetry that does not have regular patterns of rhyme or rhythm Example: From Walt Whitman’s "Leaves of Grass"All truths wait in all things,They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon.

11. Haiku Japanese poem of 17 syllables (1st line=5 syllables, 2nd line=7 syllables, 3rd line=5 syllables) Example: I walk across sand And find myself blistering In the hot, hot heat Harvest moon— walking around the pond all night long.

12. Hyperbole Truth is exaggerated for emphasis or humorous effect Example: “Well now, one winter it was so cold that all the geese flew backward and all the fish moved south and even the snow turned blue. Late at night, it got so frigid that all spoken words froze solid afore they could be heard. People had to wait until sunup to find out what folks were talking about the night before.” Paul Bunyan “I had to wait in the station for ten days-an eternity.” Heart of Darkness

13. Hyperbole Exaggerating to show strong feeling or effect. Examples I will love you forever. My house is a million miles away. She’d kill me.

14. Iambic Pentameter Pentameter is simply penta, which means 5, meters. So a line of poetry written in pentameter has 5 feet, or 5 sets of stressed and unstressed syllables Example: An iamb consists of two syllables with the stress on the second syllable -- da DUM. Some examples of iambic words are "begin," "forget," and "alone." You say be GIN, for GET and uh LONE. You don't say BE gin, FOR get, and UH lone. If you would put the key inside the lock if YOU | would PUT | the KEY | inSIDE | the LOCK da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM

15. Idiom • A saying that isn’t meant to be taken literally. • Doesn’t “mean” what it says • Don’t be a stick in the mud! • You’re the apple of my eye. • I have an ace up my sleeve.

16. Imagery Descriptive words or phrases that appeal to the 5 senses Example: The gushing brook stole its way down the lush green mountains, dotted with tiny flowers in a riot of colors and trees coming alive with gaily chirping birds.

17. Irony • What is real is the opposite of what is expected or what it seems • Example: • Verbal Irony: Saying one thing and meaning the opposite (SARCASM)-”Wow! I am about to burn up out here!” (when it’s blizzard)

18. Irony Continued • Situational Irony: What the reader and character expects to happen versus what actually exists or happens • Example:

19. Irony Continued • Dramatic Irony: The reader knows something that the character does not • Example:

20. Lyric Poetry Poems that express the thoughts and feelings and are musical and emotional (i.e. sonnets, odes) Example: SONNET 18 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: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st 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.

21. Metaphor • A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things that may have something in common (characteristics) • Example: • That assignment was a breeze. • Her voice is music to my ears.

22. Metaphor (cont’d) A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things that may have something in common (characteristics) SONNET 18 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: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st 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.

23. Meter • Regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem. Each unit of meter is known as a foot. • Example: • "Come live with me and be my love." • but SOFT / what LIGHT / through YON / der WIN / dow BREAKS

24. Narrative Poem Tells a story or recounts events—has elements of plot, character, theme, setting Example: Into our town the Hangman came. Smelling of gold and blood and flame and he paced our bricks with a diffident air and built his frame on the courthouse square The scaffold stood by the courthouse side, Only as wide as the door was wide; A frame as tall, or little more, Than the capping sill of the courthouse door

25. Ode A complex lyric poem that develops a serious and dignified theme. Odes appeal to both the imagination and intellect. Many celebrate events or praise people or elements of nature. Example: Ode To Autumn by John Keats Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees,  Until they think warm days will never cease,  For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

26. Onomatopoeia • A word that “makes” a sound • SPLAT • PING • SLAM • POP • POW

27. Oxymoron • Brings together two contradictory terms • Example: • Open secret; Seriously funny; Awfully pretty; Original copies • “Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate! • O anything, of nothing first create! • O heavy lightness! Serious vanity! • Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! • Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health! • Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! • This love feel I, that feel no love in this. • Dost thou not laugh?”

28. Paradox • A contradictory or silly statement that may suggest an important truth • Example: • Your enemy’s friend is your enemy. • I am nobody. • Truth is honey which is bitter. • “I can resist anything but temptation.” Oscar Wilde • “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”. (Animal Farm)

29. Oxymoron v. Paradox A paradox may consist of a sentence or even a group of sentences. An oxymoron, on the other hand, is a combination of two contradictory or opposite words. A paradox seems contradictory to the general truth but it does contain an implied truth. An oxymoron, however, may produce a dramatic effect but does not make a sense.

30. Parallelism • Use of similar grammatical constructions to express ideas that are related or equal in importance-adds balance and rhythm • Example: • Easy come, easy go; Like father, like son; Whether in class, at work or at home, Shauna was always busy. • “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” (A Tale of Two Cities)

31. Personification • Giving human traits to objects or ideas • Example: • Look at my car. She is a beauty, isn’t it so? • The wind whispered through dry grass. • The flowers danced in the gentle breeze. • Time and tide waits for none. • The fire swallowed the entire forest. • “The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night” (Romeo and Juliet)

32. Proverb • A figurative saying in which a bit of “wisdom” is given. • An apple a day keeps the doctor away • The early bird catches the worm

33. Pun • A joke that comes from a play on words • Example: • A horse is a very stable animal; An elephant’s opinion carries a lot of weight • Romeo: “Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes with nimble soles; I have a soul of lead” (Romeo and Juliet) • Mercutio (when he was fatally wounded): “Ask me for tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man…”

34. Pun • A form of “word play” in which words have a double meaning. • I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger and then it hit me. • I’m reading a book about anti-gravity. It’s impossible to put it down. • I was going to look for my missing watch, but I didn’t have the time.

35. Refrain One or more lines repeated in each stanza of a poem Example: Annabel Lee, by Edgar Allan Poe For the moon never beams without bringing me dreamsOf the beautiful Annabel Lee;And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyesOf the beautiful Annabel Lee;And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the sideOf my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,In the sepulchre there by the sea,In her tomb by the sounding sea.

36. Repetition Technique in which a sound, word, phrase, or line is repeated for emphasis or unity. Example: I looked upon the rotting sea,And drew my eyes away;I looked upon the rotting deck,And there the dead men lay. (Rime of the Ancient Mariner-Coleridge)

37. Rhyme/Rhyme Scheme Rhyme: Identical or similar sounds at the end of two or more lines Internal rhyme (within a single line); End rhyme (End of lines) Rhyme Scheme: Pattern of end rhymes in a poem Example: The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, A And sorry I could not travel both B And be one traveler, long I stood A And looked down one as far as I could A To where it bent in the undergrowth; B

38. Simile • A comparison of two unlike things using like or as • Example: • Her cheeks are red like a rose; The water well was dry as a bone; He is as cunning as a fox. • “I would have given anything for the power to soothe her frail soul, tormenting itself in its invincible ignorance like a small bird beating about the cruel wires of a cage.” (Joseph Conrad)

39. Important! Using “like” or “as” doesn’t make a simile. A comparison must be made. Not a Simile: I like pizza. Simile: The moon is like a pizza.

40. Sonnet A lyric poem consisting of 14 lines, commonly written in iambic pentameter. Two types: Petrarchan and Shakespearean (Three quatrains or 4 line units, and a final couplet…rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg) Example: SONNET 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? AThou art more lovely and more temperate: BRough winds do shake the darling buds of May, AAnd summer's lease hath all too short a date: BSometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, CAnd often is his gold complexion dimm'd; DAnd every fair from fair sometime declines, CBy chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd; DBut thy eternal summer shall not fade ENor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; FNor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, EWhen in eternal lines to time thou grow'st; FSo long as men can breathe or eyes can see, GSo long lives this, and this gives life to thee. G

41. Speaker The voice that “talks” to a reader; similar to a narrator in fiction Example: My Papa's Waltz Theodore Roethke The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt.

42. Stanza A group of two or more lines that form a unit in a poem. It is comparable to a paragraph in prose. Example: My Papa's Waltz Theodore Roethke The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt.

43. Symbol • A person, place, an object, or an activity that stands for something beyond itself • Example: • Dove is a symbol of peace; Red rose or red color stands for love or romance; Black color is a symbol that represents evil or death; A ladder may stand as a symbol for a connection between the heaven and the earth; A broken mirror may symbolize separation • “All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players;they have their exits and their entrances;And one man in his time plays many parts,” • (Shakespeare)

44. Synechdoche • Synecdoche is a literary device in which a part of something represents the whole or it may use a whole to represent a part. • Synecdoche may also use larger groups to refer to smaller groups or vice versa. It may also call a thing by the name of the material it is made of or it may refer to a thing in a container or packing by the name of that container or packing. • Example: • The word “bread” refers to food or money as in “Writing is my bread and butter” or “sole breadwinner”. • The word “suits” refers to businessmen. • “His eye met hers as she sat there paler and whiter than anyone in the vast ocean of anxious faces about her.” “Faces” refers to people (not just their faces).

45. Theme • Message about life or human nature that the writer wants the reader to understand • Example: • Love and Friendship • War • Revenge • Greed

46. Theme (cont’d) • It is important not to confuse a theme of a literary work with its subject. Subject is a topic which acts as a foundation for a literary work while a theme is an opinion expressed on the subject.  For example, a writer may choose a subject of war for his story and the theme of a story may be writer’s personal opinion that war is a curse for humanity.

47. Understatement Expression with less strength than expected. The opposite of hyperbole. I’ll be there in one second. This won’t hurt a bit.

48. Act/Scene Divisions of a play Act: Major division of a play. Plays can have as many as 5 acts. Scene: Smaller division that presents the play’s plot. Typically occurs at a single place and time.

49. Aside A short speech directed to the audience or another character in the play and is not heard by other characters on stage.

50. Chorus Comments on the actions of characters in the play. Can be a group or a single actor who acts as a narrator