figurative+language

=Definition=


 * Figurative language is a writing or speech that is not intended to carry literal meaning and is usually mean to be imaginative and vivid.


 * Figurative language or speech contains images. The writer or speaker describes something through the use of unusual comparisons, for effect, interest, and to make things clearer. The result of using this technique is the creation of interesting images.


 * It is not intended to be interpreted in a literal sense. Appealing to the imagination, figurative language provides new ways of looking at the world. It always makes use of a comparison between different things. Figurative language compares two things that are different in enough ways so that their similarities, when pointed out, are interesting, unique and/or surprising.

=Examples=

__Simile__: A figure of speech in which an explicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike. The comparison is made explicit by the use of some such word or phrase as like, as, than, similar to, resembles, appears, or seems.

“The Guitarist Tunes Up” By: Frances Cornford

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.

__Metaphor__: A figure of speech in which an implicit comparison is made between two things usually unlike. Doesn’t use connective words such as //like// or //as.//

“Metaphors” By: Sylvia Plath

I’m a riddle in nine syllables, An elephant, a ponderous house, A melon strolling on two tendrils. O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers! This loaf’s big with it’s yeasty rising. Money’s new-minted in this fat purse. I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf. I’ve eaten a bag of green apples, Boarded the train there’s no getting off.

__Metonymy__ __and Synecdoche__: Two common types of metaphor: thing actually meant.
 * Metonymy**: the use of something closely related for the

Ex: In //“Out, Out--,”// Robert Frost uses metonymy when he describes an injured boy holding up his cut hand “//as if to keep / The life from spilling. . . .”// Literally he means to keep the blood from spilling.


 * Synecdoche**: the whole is replaced by the part.

Ex: Shakespeare uses synecdoche when he says that the cuckoo’s song is unpleasing to a “//married ear//,” for he really means a married //man.//

__Personification__: A figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, an object, or a concept.

Ex: When Keats describes autumn as a harvester “//sitting careless on a granary floor//” or “//on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep//,” he is personifying a season. Also, in the Dickinson poem mentioned earlier, Dickinson describes frost as a “//blond assassin//.” As a result, she is personifying frost.

“The Wind”

The wind stood up and gave a shout. He whistled on his fingers and

Kicked the withered leaves about And thumped the branches with his hand

And said he’d kill and kill and kill And so he will and so he will.

__Apostrophe__: An address to a person or thing not literally listening.

“Western Wind”

Western Wind, when wilt thou blow, The small rain down can rain? Christ! if my love were in my arms, And I in my bed again!

__Overstatement____(Hyperbole)__: Statement containing exaggeration.

Ex: Marvell’s //“To His Coy Mistress”: “An hundred years should go to praise / Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze, / Two hundred to adore each breast, / But thirty thousand to the rest”// (13-16).

__Understatement__: Implying more than is said.

Ex: Frost’s “//Birches//”: One could do worse than be a swinger of birches//.”—The end of the poem suggests that swinging on a birch tree is one of the most satisfying activities in the world.//


 * 4 Apr 2007 .
 * Lamb, Johnson, Annette, Larry. "Figurative Language ." July 03. 4 Apr 2007 .