FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE, POETIC DEVICES

Figurative Language (Figures of speech not meant to be taken literally; they are used to create imagery, appeal to the reader’s emotions, and generate deeper meaning)
Allusion - reference to another person, place, event, literary work, etc. (from William Butler Yeats’s “No Second Troy”: “Was there another Troy for her to burn?” the “her” alluding to Helen of Troy)
Hyperbole - exaggeration used to create emphasis and/or evoke strong feelings (from Andrew Marvell’s “The Unfortunate Lover”: “The sea him lent those bitter tears/Which at his eyes he always wears”)
Idiom - a common phrase or figure of speech not to be taken literally (beating around the bush, raining cats and dogs)
Metaphor - comparison of two unlike things, equaling one to the other (from John Keat’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn”: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”)
Personification - a metaphor that gives human qualities/traits to non-human things (from William Blake’s “Earth’s Answer”: “Earth rais'd up her head”)
Simile - comparing two unlike things using “like,” “as,” “so,” or “than” (from Robert Burn’s “A Red, Red Rose”: “O my Luve is like a red, red rose”)

Poetic Devices (Sound devices, which are used to intensify a mood, create rhythm, and/or to emphasize a theme or an idea)
Assonance The repetition of VOWEL sounds	Consonance The repetition of CONSONANT sounds
Rhyme - the repetition of vowel sounds in neighboring words (pair/fair, mad/glad, sigh/ride).	Alliteration - repetition of beginning consonant sounds (sad/Sunday, knowing/nobody, candy/kisses)
	Near/half rhyme - the repetition of ending consonant sounds in nearby words; the consonant sounds are the same, but the vowel sounds are different.  (chitter/chatter, bitter/platter, shaking/throbbing, quirk/lark)
Anaphora - the repetition of words at the beginning of a clause (from William Blake’s London: “In every cry of every Man,/In every Infants cry of fear,/In every voice: in every ban”)
Epistrophe - the repetition of words at the ending of a clause (William Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice: “If you had known the virtue of the ring/Or half her worthiness that gave the ring/Or your own honor to contain the ring/You would not then have parted with the ring.”)
Onomatopoeia - words that imitate their sound (hiss, rip, squeak, whisper, BAM! SPLAT!)

LITERARY DEVICES

•       Also called literary techniques, literary methods or literary motifs. These are the thumb, conventions or structures employed in literature and storytelling.

Some common literary devices

1. Aphorism – concise statement that contains a cleverly stated subjective truth or observation.

2. Chekhov’s gun - Insertion of an apparently irrelevant object early in narrative for a purpose only revealed later.

3. Cliffhanger - The narrative ends unresolved, to draw the audience back to a future episode for the resolution.

4. Defamiliarization -Forcing the reader to recognize common things in an unfamiliar or strange way, to enhance perception of the familiar.

5. Dramatic - Representing an object or character with abundant description.

6. Visualization

•       Detail, or mimetically rendering gestures and dialogue to make a scene more visual or imaginatively present to an audience.

7. Epiphany - A sudden revelation or insight-usually with a symbolic role in the narrative.

8. Flashback- it alters time sequences, taking characters back to the beginning of the tale, for instance.

9. Flashforward -Also called prolepsis, an interjected scene that temporarily jumps the narrative forward in time.

10. Foreshadowing - Hinting at events to occur later.

11. Juxtaposition - Using two themes, characters, phrases, words, or situations together for comparison, contrast, or rhetoric.

12. Paradox - A phrase that describes an idea composed of concepts that conflict.

13. Parody - Ridiculeby overstated imitation, usually humorous

14. Poetic license - Distortion of fact, altercation of the conventions of grammar or language, or rewording of pre-existing text made by a writer to improve a piece of art.

15. Stream of consciousness - Technique where the author writes down their thoughts as fast as they come, typically to create an interior monologue characterized by leaps in syntax and punctuation that trace a character’s fragmentary thoughts and sensory feelings.

16. Symbolism-Applied use of symbols: iconic representations that carry particular conventional meanings.

17. Ticking clock - Threat of impending disaster-often used in thrillers scenario where salvation and escape are essential elements

UNLOCKING OF DIFFICULTIES

1. Terrains - The Environment, Situations, Roads
2. Surreal - Strange, Weird, Fantastic, Bizarre
3. Vicissitudes – Changes, Deviations
4. Mesmerize – Hypnotize, Charm

5. Gesticulate- Gesture, Motion, Sign
6. Labyrinth – Maze, Web, Confusion

7. Freakish – Unpredictable, Changeable

INDIVIDUAL TASK:

Identify the figures of speech and literary devices found in the text. Write your answer on a half sheet of paper.

This Life by Dibyendra (SHORT POEM)

This life is all about rising and falling,
running through the terrains
of surreal moments, and clinging
on hopes and fears to face
the vicissitudes that leaves traces,
like the scars, that creeps,
screams, revisit one's dreams,
and sometimes mesmerize and gesticulate
toward the labyrinth of freakish dreams.

In every life, present are fears,

In every life, there are different breeze,

But sometimes ka-blam and agonies are not at peace.

I know that sooner or later, life will end.