Figurative Language Words that you need to know
What is Figurative Language? Figurative language is language that doesn t mean exactly what it says. Figurative language uses words and phrases to create pictures in our minds or to emphasize a point.
What are types of figurative language? We are going to talk about Imagery, Metaphor, and Simile Personification, Hyperbole, and Idioms Onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, consonance, refrain and repetition.
Imagery Imagery is the use of words or other poetic devices to create pictures (or images) in the mind of the reader. For example: Let the light of late afternoon shine through the chinks in the barn, moving up the bales as the sun moves down from Let Evening Come by Jane Kenyon Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-like a syrupy sweet? from Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes
Simile Similes compare two unlike objects using like or as. Examples: I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree. From Trees by Joyce Kilmer He fell like a penny pitched with a wish down a well. From Epitaph for a Sky Diver by Ted Kooser
Metaphor Metaphors compare two objects that are not alike without using like or as Examples: Papa was a rolling stone. She s a rock in times of trouble. The toddler was a monster when he missed his nap.
Personification Personification gives human characteristics to something that is not human or alive. Examples of personification: It may be he (Death) shall take my hand and lead me into his dark land from I have a Rendezvous with Death by Alan Seeger How sunlight creeps along a shining floor? from You Reading This, Be Ready by William Stafford
Quick Quiz What is imagery? When would you use it? What is the difference between metaphors and similes?
Hyperbole Hyperbole is extreme exaggeration. Hyperboles are often found in metaphors or similes. Some examples: I m so hungry, I could eat a horse. If I ve told you once, I ve told you a thousand times..
Idioms Idioms are phrases or expressions where the meaning of the phrase can t be figured out by the individual words in the phrase.
Examples of Idioms It s raining cats and dogs! I was grinning from ear to ear. She escaped by the skin of her teeth. The car stopped on a dime. The athlete was tired of competing, so he threw in the towel. Hold your horses! I ll be there in a minute. The feuding brothers finally decided to bury the hatchet.
Quick Quiz What is personification? Hyperboles are often found in two other types of figurative language. What are the two types? Give an example of an idiom.
Alliteration Alliteration is when the beginning of words that are close together start with the same beginning sound. For example: Toby teaches tiny tots in Toledo. The quick and crazy cat climbed up the crooked cable. The letters don t have to be the same, just the sounds (as in quick and crazy).
Assonance and consonance Assonance is the repetition of similar vowel sounds in words that are close to each other. Example: The boat rowed slowly. Consonance is the repetition of similar consonant sounds in words that are close to each other. Example: The ship has weather d every rack, the prize we sought is won. Or: Rubber baby buggy bumpers
Onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia is what we call words that demonstrate sounds. Examples of Onomatopoeia: Bang, Swoosh, Buzz Half a league, half a league, half a league onward (The Charge of the Light Brigade-- meant to sound like horse hooves)
Refrain and repetition Refrain refers to a repeated line or stanza. Example: Into the Valley of Death Rode the six hundred from Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Tennyson Repetition is a repeated word or short phrase. Example: If by Rudyard Kipling
Rhyme Scheme Rhyme scheme is how a poem rhymes. Not all poems rhyme. Rhyme schemes are identified by letters. Each line of a poem gets a letter, starting with a. All the lines that rhyme with the first line will have the letter a. If it doesn t rhyme, it will get the letter b, then c, and so on.
Examples of rhyme scheme Invictus by William Earnest Henley Out of the night that covers me Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. The rhyme scheme is abab. Can you figure out why?
Practice with rhyme scheme Under the wide and starry sky Dig the grave and let me lie: Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he long d to be; Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.
More Practice My life closed twice before its close- It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me
Still more practice In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place, and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
Answers to rhyme scheme Requiem by Robert Louis Stevenson aaab cccb My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close by Emily Dickinson abcb In Flanders Fields by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae aabba
Quick Quiz Give an example of onomatopoeia. What is alliteration? What is the difference between assonance and consonance? (and don t say that one begins with an a and the other begins with a c) What is the difference between refrain and repetition?