Figurative Language

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Title: Figurative Language

1
Figurative Language

The Language of Literature

2
Figurative language

Language which uses figures of speech for
example, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, simile,
alliteration, hyperbole, etc.
Figurative language must be distinguished from
literal language.

3
Literal language

Language use that takes the meaning of
words in their primary and non-figurative
sense, as in literal interpretation.

4
Literal / Literary

Literary of, relating to, or having the
characteristics of letters, humane learning, or
literature
Literal adhering to fact or to the ordinary
construction or primary meaning of a term of
expression
From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary

5
Literal / Figurative

Its heavily raining / pouring with rain / the
rain is pouring
It is raining cats and dogs / the rain is coming
down in buckets
Youre a pretty sight You look awful
Youve got slightly wet, didnt you? Youve got
drenched with rain

6
Speaking figuratively

you say less than what you mean
or more than what you mean
or the opposite of what you mean
or something other than what you mean

7
Figurative speech

Broadly defined
Any way of saying something other than the
ordinary (literal) way.
(From the antiquity on rhetoricians have defined
over 250 separate figures.)
Narrowly defined
A way of saying one thing and meaning another.
Language that cannot be taken literally.

8
Literary texts

A work of literature is always a coded text,
in parts it may use figurative language (figures
of speech or tropes),
and as a whole it always communicates ideas
different from its literal meaning.
Therefore the student of literature must learn
the various techniques of decoding literary texts.

9
Thomas Hardy and Emma Lavinia Gifford
10
Thomas HardyThe Walk

You did not walk with me
Of late to the hill-top tree
By the gated ways,
As in earlier days
You were weak and lame,
So you never came,
And I went alone, and I did not mind,
Not thinking of you as left behind.

11
Hardy cont.

I walked up there to-day
Just in the former way
Surveyed around
The familiar ground
By myself again
What difference, then?
Only that underlying sense
Of the look of a room on returning thence.

12
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
13
W. B. YeatsDown by the Salley Gardens

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did
meet
She passed the salley gardens with little
snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on
the tree
But I, being young and foolish, with her would
not agree.
In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her
snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on
the weirs
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of
tears.

14
A willow (salley) tree
15
Another one
16
Robert Frost (1874-1963)American poet with an
axe on his shoulder
17
Robert FrostStopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

18
Frost cont.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

19
Two manuscripts of the poem
20
Imagery

Representation through language of sense
experience
Image
- visual imagery (mental image)
- auditory imagery (sound)
- olfactory imagery (smell)
- gustatory imagery (taste)
- tactile imagery (touch)
- organic imagery (internal sensation, hunger,
fatigue)
- kinesthetic imagery (movement, tension in the
muscles)

21
A figure of speech

An expression extending language beyond its
literal meaning, either pictorially through
metaphor, simile, allusion, personification, and
the like, or rhetorically through repetition,
balance, antithesis and the like. A figure of
speech is also called a trope.
The Harper Handbook to Literature, ed. by
Northrop Frye, Sheridan Baker, George Perkins.
New York Harper Row, 1984

22
Figures of speech / Tropes

Figures of speech tropes
Trope (Greek turn) denotes any rhetorical or
figurative device

23
Figurative language

Metaphor (Greek 'to transfer') /'m?t?f?r, -f?r/
How to spot metaphor textual and contextual
signals
Metaphor and simile /'s?m?li/ in poetry
figurative language with a purpose
The effects of metaphor denotation /connotation
denotation what is referred to
connotation associations, connecting
images, ideas, moods, etc.
IPA transcriptions http//dictionary.reference.co
m
Audio http//howjsay.com

24
Metaphor and simile

The analysis of metaphor
tenor (the concept, idea, new element)
vehicle (the image to illuminate the tenor)
grounds (the basis of comparison their
similarity)
O Rose, thou art sick. (Blake)
No sign of comparison vehicle stands for
tenor
SimileO my luve's like a red, red rose
(Burns)
luvetenor red, red rosevehicle
likegrammatical indicator of similarity

25
Figures of speech metaphor, simile

Used as means of comparing things that are
essentially unlike
Metaphor the comparison is implied, implicit,
i.e. the figurative term is substituted for or
identified with the literal term
Simile the comparison is expressed, explicit
(like, as)

26
Metaphor

A figure of speech in which one thing is
described in terms of another.
I. A. Richards (1893-1979), English literary
critic, by 'tenor meant the purport or general
drift of thought regarding the subject of a
metaphor by 'vehicle' the image which embodies
the tenor.

27
Types of metaphor I

A dead metaphor (cliché) is one in which
the sense of a transferred image is absent.
Example "to grasp a concept" uses
physical action as a metaphor for
understanding. Dead metaphors normally go
unnoticed.

28
Carol Ann Duffy (1955)Sit at Peace(excerpt)

When they gave you them to shell and you sat
on the back-doorstep, opening the small green
envelopes
with your thumb, minding the queues of peas, you
were
sitting at peace. Sit at peace, sit at peace, all
summer.
Nip was a dog. Fluff was a cat. They sat at peace
on a coloured-in mat, so why couldnt you?
But the day you fell from the Parachute Tree,
they came
from nowhere running, carried you in to a quiet
room
you were glad of. A long silent afternoon,
dreamlike.
A voice saying peace, sit at peace, sit at peace.

29
Carol Ann DuffyMrs Lazarus(excerpts)

I had grieved. I had wept for a night and a day
over my loss, ripped the cloth I was married in
from my breasts, howled, shrieked, clawed
at the burial stones until my hands bled, retched
his name over and over again, dead, dead.
(Also allusion to John 11,1-46)

30
Types of metaphor II

An extended metaphor (conceit, concetto)
establishes a principal subject (comparison)
and subsidiary subjects (comparisons).
Used extensively by English metaphysical
poets of the seventeenth century.

31
John Donne (1572-1631)A Valediction Of
Weeping(excerpt)

Let me pour forthMy tears before thy face,
whilst I stay here,For thy face coins them, and
thy stamp they bear,And by this mintage they are
something worth. For thus they be Pregnant of
thee Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of
moreWhen a tear falls, that thou fall'st which
it boreSo thou and I are nothing then, when on
a divers shore.

32
Types of metaphor III

A mixed metaphor (catachresis) is one that leaps
from one identification to a second
identification inconsistent with the first. It
can be deliberate or unintentional.
Example
To be, or not to be, that is the
questionWhether 'tis nobler in the mind to
sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of
troubles,And by opposing end them?
(Shakespeare Hamlet, Act III, Scene I)

33
Further figures of speech

Synaesthesia /s?nis?iz??/ the mixing of
sensations, the concurrent appeal to more than
one sense (e.g. hearing a colour, seeing a smell)
Personification give the attributes of a human
being to an animal, an object or a concept
Metonymy /m?t?n?mi/ the use of something
closely related for the thing actually meant
Synecdoche /s?n?kd?ki/ the use of the part for
the whole

34
Metonymy / Synecdoche

Metonymy substitute naming an associated
idea names the item
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Synecdoche a part stands for the whole or the
whole for a part
Listen, you've got to come take a look at my new
set of wheels. (One refers to a vehicle in terms
of some of its parts, "wheels.)

35
Even further figures of speech

Symbol something that means more than what it
is
Allegory a narrative or description that has a
second meaning, with more emphasis on the
ulterior meaning than on the surface story
Unlike metaphors, it involves a system of
related correspondences.
Unlike symbols, it puts less emphasis on the
images for their own sake

36
Allegory / Symbol

A narrative that serves as an extended metaphor.
Allegories are written in the form of fables,
parables,
poems, stories, and almost any other style or
genre.
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. The difference between an allegory and
a symbol is that an allegory is a complete
narrative
that conveys abstract ideas to get a point
across,
while a symbol is a representation of an idea or
concept that can have a different meaning
throughout
a literary work.

37
Examples of allegory

Platos Cave allegory (The Republic, Book VII)
Aesops Fables
Dante Alighieris The Divine Comedy
Edmund Spensers The Faerie Queene
George Orwells Animal Farm

38
Platos Allegory of the Cave

The Allegory of the Cave can be found in
Book VII of Plato's The Republic.

39
Platos Allegory of the Cave

In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in
the Theory
of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable
to turn
their heads. All they can see is the wall of the
cave. Behind
them burns a fire. Between the fire and the
prisoners there
is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk.
The
puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up
puppets
that cast shadows on the wall of the cave. The
prisoners
are unable to see these puppets, the real
objects, that pass
behind them. What the prisoners see and hear are
shadows and echoes cast by objects that they do
not see.

40
An illustration of Platos Cave from Great
Dialogues of Plato (Warmington and Rouse, eds.)
New York, Signet Classics 1999. p. 316.
41
Platos Allegory of the Cave

Such prisoners would mistake appearance
for reality. They would think the things they
see on the wall (the shadows) were real
they would know nothing of the real causes
of the shadows.
Source http//faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/
cave.htm

42
George Herbert (1593-1633)Redemption

Having been tenant long to a rich Lord,
Not thriving, I resolved to be bold,
And make a suit unto him, to afford
A new small-rented lease, and cancell th old.
In heaven at his manour I him sought
They told me there, that he was lately gone
About some land, which he had dearly bought
Long since on earth, to take possession.

43
Herbert cont.

I straight returnd, and knowing his great birth
Sought him accordingly in great resorts
In cities, theatres, gardens, parks, and courts
At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth
Of theeves and murderers there I him espied,
Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and
died.

44
Allegorical figures inThomas Grays
(1716-1771)Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard(excerpt)

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

45
Gray cont.

Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted
vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

46
The portrait of Thomas Grayby John Giles Eccart
(1747-1748)
47
Grays MonumentStoke Poges, Buckinghamshire
48
St Giles Church, Stoke Poges
49
Churchyard, Stoke Poges
50
Southwell Minster
51
Carvings in the Chapter Houseof Southwell Minster
52
Carving in the Chapter House
53
Statues in Salisbury Cathedral
54
Figures of speech easy to confuse

Image, metaphor, and symbol are
sometimes difficult to distinguish.
An image means only what it is.
A metaphor means something other than what it is.
A symbol means what it is and something more,
too. It functions literally and
figuratively
at the same time.

55
Rhetorical figures

simple repetition /'r?p?'t???n/
parallelism /'pær?l??l?z?m, -l?'l?z-/
antithesis /æn't???s?s/
climax /'kla?mæks/
hyperbole /ha?'p?rb?li/
apostrophe /?'p?str?fi/
irony /'a?r?ni, 'a??r-/
Find examples for each in the quotation from
Alexander Popes An Essay on Man (1732-1734)

56
Cease then, nor Order imperfection nameOur
proper bliss depends on what we blameKnow thy
own point this kind, this due degreeOf
blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee.
Submit. - In this, or any other sphere,Secure
to be as blest as thou canst bearSafe in the
hand of one disposing Power,Or in the natal, or
the mortal hour.All nature is but art, unknown
to theeAll chance, direction, which thou canst
not seeAll discord, harmony not understoodAll
partial evil, universal goodAnd, spite of
pride, in erring reason's spite,One truth is
clear, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.
57
Repetition

All nature is but art, unknown to theeAll
chance, direction, which thou canst not seeAll
discord, harmony not understoodAll partial
evil, universal good

58
Parallelism

A matter of grammar and rhetoric the writer
expresses in parallel grammatical form equivalent
elements of content framing words, sentences,
and paragraphs to give parallel weight to
parallel thoughts
All nature is but art, unknown to thee All
chance, direction, which thou canst not see
All discord, harmony not understood All
partial evil, universal good

59
Antithesis

a direct contrast or opposition
a rhetorical figure sharply contrasting ideas in
balanced parallel structure
Cease then, nor Order imperfection name
Safe in the hand of one disposing Power,Or in
the natal, or the mortal hour.
(and lots more in the text)

60
Climax

A point of high emotional intensity, a turning
point or crisis.
The high point of an argument, reached by
arranging ideas in the order of least to most
importance
The point of greatest interest in any piece of
writing
Repeating the same sound or word
Climax after all the repetition, parallelism,
antitheses
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

61
Hyperbole

Overstatement, to make a point, either direct or
ironical
Our proper bliss depends on what we blameKnow
thy own point this kind, this due degreeOf
blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee.
Submit. - In this, or any other sphere,Secure
to be as blest as thou canst bearSafe in the
hand of one disposing Power,Or in the natal, or
the mortal hour.
(and the rest of the excerpt as well)

62
Apostrophe

An address to an imaginary or absent person (or
as if the person were absent), a thing or a
personified abstraction
Cease then, nor Order imperfection name
Know thy own point this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee.
Submit. - In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear All
nature is but art, unknown to thee All chance,
direction, which thou canst not see

63
Further rhetorical figures

Paradox an apparent contradiction that is
nevertheless somehow true
Hyperbole (overstatement) exaggeration,
adding emphasis to what is really meant
Understatement saying less than what is
meant

64
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
65
ParadoxEmily Dickinson 1732

My life closed twice before its close -
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

66
The manuscript of a poem by Emily Dickinson
67
ParadoxJohn Donne The Legacy(excerpt)

When last I died (and, dear, I die
As often as from thee I go),
Though it be but an hour ago,
And lovers' hours be full eternity,
I can remember yet, that I
Something did say, and something did bestow
Though I be dead, which sent me, I should be
Mine own executor and legacy.

68
Two portraits of John Donne (1572-1631)
69
Irony

a trope, a non-literal use of language like
metaphor, metonymy, etc, also can be conceived as
a rhetorical figure
a type of tone, a particular way of
speaking/writing, a matter of style,
can be widespread in text
(unlike metaphors which are usually discrete
parts of text)

70
Irony

ironic meaning WE have to construct
DIFFERENCE between apparent meaning and true
meaning
the text as a whole or a large part of it is
unreliable if taken literally
an implied (vs explicit) interpretation is true
Example
difference between text and situation
WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT. when all sorts
of things go wrong

71
Mechanisms and techniques of irony

overemphasis of inverted meaning
Yes! I'd really like that!
internal inconsistency
- in narrative narrator is shown not to
have seen the truth
- in style unexpected change in register
unexpected change of rhythm
unexpected alliteration
rhyme fails to appear

72
Effects of irony

Irony which destabilizes
where the intended meaning is difficult to
pinpoint
internally inconsistent text
literal meaning is insufficient
no specific, authoritative or unified worldview
a final, implied meaning remains elusive

73
Types of irony

Verbal irony saying the opposite of what is
meant
Dramatic irony discrepancy between what the
speaker says and what the author means
Irony of situation discrepancy between the
actual
circumstances and those that would seem
appropriate
or discrepancy between what one
anticipates and what actually comes to pass

74
William Blake The Chimney Sweeper

When my mother died I was very young,And my
father sold me while yet my tongueCould scarcely
cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!So your chimneys
I sweep, and in soot I sleep.There's little Tom
Dacre, who cried when his head,That curled like
a lamb's back, was shaved so I said,"Hush, Tom!
never mind it, for when your head's bare,You
know that the soot cannot spoil your white
hair."And so he was quiet and that very
night,As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a
sight, - That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe,
Ned, and Jack,Were all of them locked up in
coffins of black.

75
Blake cont.

And by came an angel who had a bright key,And
he opened the coffins and set them all freeThen
down a green plain leaping, laughing, they
run,And wash in a river, and shine in the
sun.Then naked and white, all their bags left
behind,They rise upon clouds and sport in the
windAnd the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good
boy,He'd have God for his father, and never want
joy.And so Tom awoke and we rose in the
dark,And got with our bags and our brushes to
work.Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy
and warmSo if all do their duty they need not
fear harm.

76
The Portrait of William Blake (1757-1827)by
Thomas Phillips
77
William Blake The Chimney Sweeperfrom Songs of
Innocence and Songs of Experience
78
Situational irony

The Gift of the Magi (1906) is a short story
written by OHenry (William Sydney Porter,
1862-1910) about a young married couple
and how they deal with the challenge of
buying secret Christmas gifts for each other
with very little money. The plot and its "twist
ending" are well-known, and the ending is
generally considered an example of situational
irony.

79
The photo of OHenry and the cover of the
illustrated edition of The Gift of the Magi
80
OHenry, The Gift of the MagiPlot

Young married couple Della and James "Jim"
Dillingham
Young are very much in love with each other but
can barely
afford their one-room apartment due to their very
bad
economic situation. For Christmas, Della decides
to buy
Jim a chain for his prized pocket watch given to
him by his
father's father. To raise the funds, she has her
long,
beautiful hair cut off and sold to make a wig.
Meanwhile,
Jim decides to sell his watch to buy Della a
beautiful set of
combs made out of tortoiseshell and jewels for
her lovely,
knee-length brown hair. Although each is
disappointed to
find the gift they chose rendered useless, each
is pleased
with the gift that they received, because it
represents their
love for one another.

81
OHenry, The Gift of the Magi

The story ends with the narrator comparing the
pair's
mutually sacrificial gifts of love with those of
the Biblical
Magi
The magi, as you know, were wise men
wonderfully wise men who brought gifts to the
new-born Babe in the manger. They invented the
art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise,
their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly
bearing the privilege of exchange in case of
duplication. And here I have lamely related to
you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish
children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed
for each other the greatest treasures of their
house. But in a last word to the wise of these
days let it be said that of all who give gifts
these two were the wisest. Of all who give and
receive gifts, such as they are wisest.
Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
(Based on Wikipedia)

82
Robert FrostFire and Ice (1920)

Some say the world will end in fire Some say
in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold
with those who favor fire. But if it had to
perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To
say that for destruction ice Is also great And
would suffice.

83
Robert Frost Fire and IceBackground

It discusses the end of the world, likening the
elemental
force of fire with the emotion of desire, and ice
with hate.
According to one of Frost's biographers, Fire and
Ice was
inspired by a passage in Canto 32 of Dantes
Inferno, in
which the worst offenders of hell, the traitors,
are
submerged, while in a fiery hell, up to their
necks in ice
"a lake so bound with ice,
It did not look like water, but like a glass ...
right clear
I saw, where sinners are preserved in ice."

84
Robert Frost Fire and IceBackground

In an anecdote he recounted in 1960 in a
"Science and the Arts" presentation, prominent
astronomer Harlow Shapley claims to have inspired
"Fire and Ice". Shapley describes an encounter he
had with Robert Frost a year before the poem was
published in which Frost, noting that Shapley was
the astronomer of his day, asks him how the world
will end. Shapley responded that either the sun
will explode and incinerate the Earth, or the
Earth will somehow escape this fate only to end
up slowly freezing in deep space. Shapley was
surprised at seeing "Fire and Ice" in print a
year later, and referred to it as an example of
how science can influence the creation of art, or
clarify its meaning.

85
Frosts Fire and Ice // Dantes InfernoComparison

The nine lines of Frosts poem //
the nine rings of Dantes Hell
The narrowing of the poem //
the downward funnel of the rings of Hell
The rhyme scheme of Frosts poem,
aba / abc / bcb,
vaguely resembles Dantes tercets, aba
bcb cdc etc

86
Giovanni Stradano (Jan Van der Straet,
1523-1605), Flanders-born artist active mainly in
Florence. From his illustrations to Dantes
Inferno
87
Allusion

A reference to something in history or
previous literature.
It is like a richly connotative word or a
symbol, a means of suggesting more
than it says.

88
John Milton (1608-1674)Sonnet XIX

WHEN I consider how my light is spent
E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,
I fondly ask But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his
State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o're Land and Ocean without rest
They also serve who only stand and waite.

89
Miltons Sonnet

He puns the term talent alluding to the
parable of the talent told in Matthew
25,14-30

90
Milton Dictates the Lost Paradise to His Three
Daughters, by Eugéne Delacroix c. 1826)
91
The Holy Bible King James VersionThe Gospel
according to St. Matthew 25