FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE AND POETRY

1. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE AND POETRY Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. -Plato

2. Figurative Language • Language that is not meant to be taken literally.

3. Simile • Comparing two things using the words like or as. • Love is like a rose. • “She’s like the wind.” • –Patrick Swayze • I was mad as a bull!

4. Metaphor • Comparing two things NOT using “like” or “as.” • My daughter is a nut! • Your room was a pig sty! • “That boy is a monster!” –Lady Gaga

5. Personification • Giving human-like qualities to something that is nonhuman or inanimate. • “Livin’ in a lonely world.” –Journey • “How misery loved me.” –Fallout Boy

6. Onomatopoeia • The word whose sound suggests its meaning.

7. Let’s reviewOn a half-sheet of paper, identify if the line is an example of a simile, metaphor, personification, or onomatopoeia. • Crash went the cymbal. • “Love is a burning flame.” Johnny Cash • “Tonight I’m going to party like it’s 1999!” –Prince • “I walk the city lonely, memories that haunt are passing by.” –Avenge Sevenfold • “I’m like a bird, I want to fly away.” –Nelly Furtado • A loud thump was heard when the drum fell. • “The wind cries Mary.” –Jimi Hendrix • “Love is a battlefield.” –Pat Benatar

8. Hyperbole • An obvious exaggeration. • “I’m so hungry I can eat a horse!” • “He’s as big as a house!” • “Wow, my hair turned grey waiting for you!”

9. Allusion • Making a reference to a famous person, historical time period, or another piece of literature. • Example: • My brother begs for food. How very Oliver Twist of him. • What is this, the Spanish Inquisition? (when your mom asking a lot of questions)

10. Let’s Talk Poetry Allegory • A narrative that serves as an extended metaphor. • The main purpose of an allegory is to tell a story that has characters, a setting, as well as other types of symbols, that have both literal and figurative meanings. • Examples: Dante’s The Divine Comedy

11. Parts of a poem • Stanza • The paragraph of a poem. • There is always a separation between stanzas. • How many stanzas does this poem have? Come Slowly Emily Dickens Come slowly, EdenLips unused to thee.Bashful, sip thy jasmines,As the fainting bee,Reaching late his flower,Round her chamber hums,Counts his nectars -alights,And is lost in balms!

12. How many stanzas?The Road Not Takeby Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claimBecause it was grassy and wanted wear,Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I marked the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to wayI doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.

13. Assonance • The same vowel sounds are used to emphasize a resemblance of sounds, usually in stressed syllable. • “Hear the mellow wedding bells” from Edgar Allen Poe • Notice the assonance that is repeated is the e. • “It's hot and it's monotonous.” by Sondheim • “The crumbling thunder of seas” by Robert Louis Stevenson.

14. Consonance and Alliteration • The use of repeated consonants as a poetic device, especially at the ends of words. • Think tongue-twisters! • Betty bought butter but the butter was bitter, so Betty bought better butter to make the bitter butter better. • How much wood can a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. • “Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade, He bravely breach'd his boiling bloody breast.” from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream

15. Using both assonance and consonance • Some poets use both in one line. • From “The Raven” • “And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain” In this one line, assonance is the “ur” sound in “purple” and “curtain”, consonance is the “s” sound in “uncertain” and “rustling”, and alliteration is shown in the “s” sound at the beginning of "silked" and "sad."

16. Repetition The repetition of words or phrases to emphasize an idea or to draw attention to a passage. “There is a place where the sidewalk endsAnd before the street begins,And there the grass grows soft and white,And there the sun burns crimson bright,And there the moon-bird rests from his flightTo cool in the peppermint wind.”

17. Limerick • A humorous verse composed of five lines. • It has a specific writing pattern, “aabba.” • The 1st, 2nd, and 5th line are long; the 3rd and 4th line are short

18. There was an Old Man with a beard,Who said, 'It is just as I feared!Two Owls and a Hen,Four Larks and a Wren,Have all built their nests in my beard!' Examples of limericks There once was a man from Nantucket Who kept all his gold in a bucket.     But his daughter, named Nan,     Ran away with a man And as for the bucket, Nantucket.

19. More Elements • Imagery: • Writing that appeals to the five senses. • The air smelled like cow manure and roses. • My grandmother’s hands feel like cotton. • Tone/mood: • The attitude an author takes toward a subject. • Sad, mocking, joyous • Ex. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways!” What is the tone?

20. Rhyme Scheme • repeated pattern of end rhymes • marked with the letters of the alphabet • Ex: AABBCCAABBCC…etc. • Let’s find the rhyme scheme of the poem under the document camera.