Imagery

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Imagery Figurative Language

• Animage is a word or sequence of words
• that refers to any sensory experience
• (Kennedy and Gioia 741).

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Imagery

• What are your five senses? Sight, Hearing,
  Touch, Taste, and Smell
• An image conveys a sense perception , i.e., a
  visual picture, a sound, a feeling of touch, a
  taste, or an odor
• Imagery a noun used to refer to a set of
  related images in poem or the totality of images
  in a poem
• Shelley uses nature imagery in his poem To
  Autumn.

3
Figures of Speech

• Figurative language uses figures of speech to
  convey unique images and create some sort of
  special effect or impression.
• A figure of speech is an intentional deviation
  from the ordinary usage of language.

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Poetry works by comparison

• Poets often create images or enhance meaning by
  comparing one thing to another for special
  effect.
• A most important figure of speech is the
• Metaphor

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Metaphor

• The term metaphor has two meanings, a broad, more
  general meaning and a concise, specific meaning.
• All figures of speech which use association,
  comparison, or resemblance can generally be
  called types of metaphor, or metaphorical.
• One specific figure of speech which compares two
  things by saying that one IS the other is called
  a metaphor.

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Simile

• A simile is a type of metaphor, a figure in which
  an explicit comparison is made using the
  comparative words like, as, resembles, than.
  Similes are easy to spot.
• (X is like Y X is compared to Y in order to
  illustrate X more fancifully, poetically, or
  effectively. But Y is not a literal
  representation of X, not actual.)
• The teams center looked like a skyscraper.
• My love is like a red, red rose.
• We were as quiet as frightened mice.

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More similes

• Kennedy and Gioia offer a good list of ways to
  make a simile
• My love is like a red, red rose.
• My love resembles a rose.
• My love is redder than a rose.
• She came out smelling like a rose! (767)

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Metaphor

• A metaphor also compares, but a metaphor is a bit
  more sophisticated than a simile.
• For one thing, in a metaphor, the words
• like or as are missing. So readers have to
  recognize the comparison on their own without
  those easy words which help us to spot a simile
  so quickly.

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Metaphor (continued)

• In a metaphor, a poet writes that X is Y.
  Readers understand that we are not to take the
  comparison literally, but that the metaphor helps
  us to see X in a new way.
• My brother is a prince.
• Razorback Stadium was a slaughterhouse.

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More metaphors

• Richard was a lion in the fight.
• Her eyes are dark emeralds. Her teeth are
  pearls.
• But Avoid Mixed Metaphors (combining two or more
  incompatible images in a single figure of
  speech)
• Management extended an olive branch in an attempt
  to break some of the ice between the company and
  the workers.

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Implied Metaphor

• Kennedy and Gioia offer a kind of metaphor (767)
  lacking the actual to be verb (is, am, are,
  was, were and other such forms of the verb to
  be) called
• an Implied Metaphor
• What is implied here about the speakers love?
• Oh, my love has petals and sharp thorns.
• Oh, I placed my love into a long-stemmed vase
• And I bandaged my bleeding thumb.
• And here, what is implied about the city and the
  subway?
• The subway coursed through the arteries of the
  city.

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Extended Metaphor

• This kind of metaphor may run through an entire
  work. In George Orwells Animal Farm, for
  example, the farm is compared to a nation, with
  different possible forms of goverance. This
  comparison extends throughout the novel.
• Sometimes a poet will use an extended metaphor
  throughout a poem rather than simply as one
  single figure of speech in a poem.

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Dead Metaphor

• A dead metaphor has been so used and overused
  that it has lost its power to surprise, delight,
  or effectively compare.
• A cliché is a dead metaphor, a phrase so
  often repeated that it no longer has force
• He hit the nail on the head.
• She was cool as a cucumber.
• Jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.
• This powerpoint show is crystal clear.
• Avoid the use of clichés in your own writing!

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Personification

• Another kind of comparison is called
  personification. Here, animals, elements of
  nature, and abstract ideas are given human
  qualities.
• John Milton calls time the subtle thief of
  youth (599). Homer refers to the rosy fingers
  of dawn (599).
• Other examples of personification
• The stars smiled down on us.

• An angry wind slashed its way across the island.

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• The three main uses of figurative language needed
  to read poetry are the previous
• Simile
• Metaphor
• Personification
• But there are many other poetic devices used.
  The more you recognize, the richer your reading
  experience can be.
• Here follow more figures of speech

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Oxymoron

• Oxymoron - two contradictory terms are placed
  side by side, usually for an effect of
  intensity
• darkness visible (John Milton)
• burning ice
• People often enjoy joking sarcastically by
  declaring certain pairs of words to be oxymorons

military intelligence
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Hyperbole

• Hyperbole (hy per bo lee) is intentional
  exaggeration or overstating, often for dramatic
  or humorous effect

• Your predicament saddens me so much that I feel a
  veritable flood of tears coming on

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Understatement

• The intentional understatement is used for effect
  also Thank you for this Pulitzer Prize I am
  pleased.
• Another kind of understatement called Litotes
  occurs when a negative is used to state a
  positive

• When I won the Pulitzer Prize, I was not
  unhappy.

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Apostrophe

• A person or thing which is absent is addressed
• What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt
  Whitman (Ginsberg 599).
• Oh sun, I miss you, now that its December.

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Metonymy

• In this figure (m tawn nimee) one thing is
  replaced by another thing associated with it
• The Crown is amused (The Crown is the Queen).
• The White House is furious (The White House is
  the President).

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Synecdoche

• Here, (sin nec duh kee) a part represents the
  whole
• All hands on deck!
• Lend me your ears.
• Lets buy one hundred head of cattle!

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Want more?

• Figures of speech are numerous. The effective
  practice of communication is called rhetoric, and
  many, many figures of speech can be identified in
  language use.
• Some other figures are anachronism, euphemism,
  pun, and onomatopoeia (o no mat o pee ya). In
  this last figure, words are used to convey sound,
  like

bzzzz or cock-a-doodle-doo.
Oh no, you say? Here it comes!
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• Works Cited

Birkerts, Sven. Literature The Evolving Canon.
Boston Allyn and Bacon, 1993. Ginsberg, Allen.
A Supermarket in California. Literature The
Evolving Canon. Sven P. Birkerts, ed. Boston
Allyn and Bacon, 1993. 599. Kennedy, X.J. and
Dana Gioia, eds. Literature An Introduction
to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 7th ed. New
York Longman, 1999.