What is figurative language?

 Language that communicates meanings

beyond the literal meanings of words
Why do writers use figurative
language?
 Used to create effects, to emphasize
ideas, and to evoke emotions in readers
Types of Figurative Language
 Simile
 Metaphor
 Hyperbole
 Personification
 Onomatopoeia
Simile
 Comparison between two unlike things
using the word like or as
 Examples:
 Mr. Saunders is as tall as a tree.

 “The willow is like a nymph with streaming

hair…”
-Eve Merriam, “Simile: Willow and Gingko”
Simile - Practice
“O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.”
-Robert Burns, “O My Luve's Like a Red, Red Rose”

Identify the similes.

What is the speaker saying about his love?
Simile - Practice
“O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.”
-Robert Burns, “O My Luve's Like a Red, Red Rose”

What is the speaker saying about his love?

His love is new, fresh, and sweet.
Metaphor
 Comparison of two things that are basically
unlike but have some qualities in common
 Unlike a simile, a metaphor does not
contain the word like or as
 Examples:
 Love is a sad and lonely flower.

 “The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the

purple moor…”
-Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”
Metaphor - Practice
“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all…”
-Emily Dickinson, “Hope is the thing with feathers”

Identify the metaphor.

What is the speaker comparing? What
does it mean?
Metaphor - Practice
“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all…”
-Emily Dickinson, “Hope is the thing with feathers”

What is the speaker comparing? What does it

mean? She is comparing hope to a bird
to signify that hope gives us the ability
to fly high to reach our dreams freely.
Hyperbole
 Figure of speech in which the truth is
exaggerated for emphasis or a humorous
effect
 Examples:
 I was so embarrassed I could have died!

 “Here once the embattled farmers stood

And fired the shot heard round the world...”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Concord Hymn”
Hyperbole - Practice
“Why does a boy who’s fast as a jet
Take all day – and sometimes two –
To get to school?”
-John Ciardi, “Speed Adjustments”

Identify the hyperbole.

Hyperbole - Practice
“Why does a boy who’s fast as a jet
Take all day – and sometimes two –
To get to school?”
-John Ciardi, “Speed Adjustments”

Identify the hyperbole.

Personification
 The giving of human qualities to an
animal, object, or idea
 Examples:
 The thunder boomed angrily.

 The moon smiled down on Earth.

Personification - Practice
The trees shivered in the winter wind.

Identify the personification. What does it

mean?
Personification - Practice
The trees shivered in the winter wind.

Identify the personification. What does it

mean?
Trees cannot shiver. It is saying that
the branches were moving and
swaying because of the wind.
Onomatopoeia
 Sound device in which authors use
words whose sounds echo their
meanings
 Examples:
 I knew I was close to the farm when I heard
the moo of a cow.

 My sister told me to gargle with salt water

when I had a sore throat.
Onomatopoeia - Practice
“The whing of father’s racquet and the whack
Of brother’s bat on cousin’s ball...”
-Isabella Gardner, “Summer Remembered”

Identify the examples of onomatopoeia.

Onomatopoeia - Practice
“The whing of father’s racquet and the whack
Of brother’s bat on cousin’s ball...”
-Isabella Gardner, “Summer Remembered”

Identify the examples of onomatopoeia.

Other Literary Devices
 Idiom
 Oxymoron
 Alliteration
 Assonance
 Imagery
Idiom
 An expression that has a meaning different
from the meaning of its individual words
 Typically specific to a culture
 Examples:
 Let’s get on the ball!
○ This doesn’t really mean to find a ball and sit on it.
We use it to mean “Let’s start to work” or “Get
organized.”

 Shhh…don’t let the cat out of the bag.

○ This doesn’t really mean to keep a cat inside of a
bag. We use it to mean “keep a secret.”
Oxymoron
 Figure of speech that intentionally
combines two normally contradictory
terms
 Examples:
 Luke ate jumbo shrimp for dinner last night.

 Jacoby Ellsbury was almost safe with his

attempt to steal second base, but Derek
Jeter made a spectacular play to tag him
out.
Oxymoron - Practice
“O heavy lightness! Serious vanity!
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,
sick health!”
-William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet

Identify the examples of oxymoron.

Oxymoron - Practice
“O heavy lightness! Serious vanity!
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,
sick health!”
-William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet

Identify the examples of oxymoron.

Alliteration
 Sound device with the repetition of consonant
sounds at the beginning of words
 Examples:
 Chelsi picked the darling daisies from the garden.
 “Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-spoilers…”
-Gwendolyn Brooks, “Speech to the Young: Speech to
the Progress-Toward”
Alliteration - Practice
“And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing
a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet…”
-Henry W. Longfellow, “Paul Revere’s Ride”

Identify the examples of alliteration.

Alliteration - Practice
“And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing
a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet…”
-Henry W. Longfellow, “Paul Revere’s Ride”

Identify the examples of alliteration.

Assonance
 Sound device with the repetition of
vowel sounds within nonrhyming words
 Examples:
 “And the silken sad uncertain rustling of
each purple curtain…”
-Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”

 “It’s had tacks in it…”

-Langston Hughes, “Mother to Son”
Assonance - Practice
“And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride.”
-Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee”

Identify the examples of assonance.

Assonance - Practice
“And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride.”
-Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee”

Identify the examples of assonance.

Imagery
 Descriptive words and phrases that
recreate sensory experiences for the
reader
 Appeals to one or more of the five
senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste,
touch
Imagery
 Example:
“The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet…”
-T. S. Eliot, “Preludes”
Imagery - Practice
“This bed whose covers I straighten
smoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanket
and nothing hangs out.”
-Naomi Shihab Nye, “Daily”

Which sense is most addressed in the lines

above?
Imagery - Practice
“This bed whose covers I straighten
smoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanket
and nothing hangs out...”
-Naomi Shihab Nye, “Daily”

Which sense is most addressed in the lines

above?

The sense of sight is appealed to the

most.
Your Turn!

Identify the type of literary

device…..
 He drew a line as
straight as an arrow.
Simile
He drew a line as straight as an
arrow.
Knowledge is a kingdom
and all who learn are
kings and queens.
Metaphor .
Knowledge is a kingdom and all
who learn are kings and queens.
 He received three
emails today.
Assonance
He received three emails today.
 I'd rather take baths
with a man-eating shark,
or wrestle a lion
alone in the dark,
eat spinach and liver,
pet ten porcupines,
than tackle the homework,
my teacher assigns.
Hyperbole.
 I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear
in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise

.
Metaphor
“I’m a black ocean…”
 For days on end, her
thoughts about him
entertained her..
Personification
Thoughts entertaining.
“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes;
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.”

Alliteration
“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes;
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.”
“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?”

Oxymoron
“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?”

“It went zip when it moved and bop when it
stopped,
And whirr when it stood still.
I never knew just what it was and I guess I
never will.”
“It went zip when it moved and bop when it
stopped,
And whirr when it stood still.
I never knew just what it was and I guess I
never will.”

Onomatopoeia
Zip, bog, whirr
Kirk: If we play our cards right, we may be able to
find out when those whales are being released.

Spock: How will playing cards help?

(Captain James T. Kirk and Spock in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, 1986).

Idiom
Play our cards right.
“It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had
seen the damp lying on the outside of my little
window… Now, I saw the damp lying on the
bare hedges and spare grass,…. On every
rail and gate, wet lay clammy; and the marsh-
mist was so thick, that the wooden finger on
the post directing people to our village—a
direction which they never accepted, for they
never came there—was invisible to me until I
was quite close under it.”
Imagery
“It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had
seen the damp lying on the outside of my little
window… Now, I saw the damp lying on the
bare hedges and spare grass,…. On every
rail and gate, wet lay clammy; and the marsh-
mist was so thick, that the wooden finger on
the post directing people to our village—a
direction which they never accepted, for they
never came there—was invisible to me until I
was quite close under it.”