P5: FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE I: SIMILE, METAPHOR,

PERSONIFICATION, APOSTROPHE, METONYMY

I. Figurative language
A. Figurative language is language which says
1. less than what you mean, or
2. more than what you mean, or
3. the opposite of what you mean, or
4. something other than what you mean.
B. We use figurative speech because
1. it communicates our meaning more vividly and
forcefully than literal language
2. it also says more--adds dimension (depth)
C. Definition of Figure of Speech ("trope": general
term for any use of figurative images)
1. General Definition:
a. any way of saying something other than the
normal (literal) way
b. some rhetoreticians have classified as many as
250 different tropes
2. For our purposes:
a. a way of saying one thing and meaning
 another (figurative language is language that is
meant not to be taken literally)
b. we will focus on just a few
II. Metaphor and Simile
A. Both are used as a means of comparing things that are
essentially unlike
B. Distinction between the two:
1. Simile is a comparison that is expressed (explicit)
by use of some word or phrase: like, as, than,
similar to, resembles, or seems
2. Metaphor is a comparison that is implied; the
figurative term is substituted for or identified
with the literal term
C. Both metaphor and simile speak of one thing (often an
abstraction) in terms of something else (usually
something concrete and hence sensory). The
comparison stated or implied can be represented as a
kind of equation if we take the equals sign (=) to mean
"resembles." The literal term of the comparison is the
subject the poet is basically concerned with. The
figurative term is the term in which the poet is
"explaining" or picturing his basic subject. Thus
Literal Term = Figurative Term
Often abstract; Usually concrete;
 Unfamiliar to Familiar to reader
reader
Example: When in Act I, Scene 2 of
Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet says "O God! God! /
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable / Seem to me
all the uses of this world! / Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an
unweeded garden / That grows to seed," we can
explain the metaphor as so:
human experience = "an unweeded
("this world") garden"
defined by basic
physical drives
Langton Hughes         Harlem (727)
 2. What specific denotation has the word “dream”?
One of its denotations is “a condition or achievement that is
longed for, or an aspiration.”
 Since the poem does not reveal the contents of the dream,
the poem is general in its implication.
What happens to our understanding of it on learning that its
author was a black American?
The knowledge that the poet was a black American living in
Harlem during the first half of the 20th century helps us
understand that the "dream deferred" is specifically the
hoped for but delayed realization of full and equal
participation of black Americans with whites in the political
and economic freedoms supposedly guaranteed by the
Constitution. The metaphorical comparison of black
frustration to a bomb (metonymically representing a race
riot or even armed revolution) is therefore appropriately
placed in the tic position.

QUESTIONS.
Of the six images, five are similes. Which is a
metaphor? Discussion
Comment on its position and its
effectiveness. Discussion
Simile (like, as, Literal = Figurative
seems, etc.)
Named Term = Named Term
a dream deferred [put off; = a raisin in the sun
postponed] drying up (2-3)
a dream deferred [put off; = a sore festering
postponed] and then running
(4-5)
a dream deferred [put off; = rotten meat
postponed] stinking (6)
 a dream deferred [put off; = a syrupy sweet
postponed] crusting and
sugaring over ((7-
8)
a dream deferred [put off; a heavy load
postponed] sagging (9-10)
Metaphor (comparis
on implied)
a dream deferred [put off; a bomb exploding
postponed] (11)
D. Four forms of metaphor:
We need carefully to observe how the poet treats the
two parts (literal and figurative) of the comparison.
To allow the figurative term to make its full
impression, we need to cooperate with the poet
by perceiving all the implications suggested by it;
we need also to notice how he handles the literal
term.
The distinction in the four forms of metaphor is
whether the literal and figurative terms are respectively
named.
First Form: Both figurative and literal terms
are named
In "The widow's Literal term Figurative term
 Lament in named named
Springtime"
(693)
sorrow = yard
Second Form:
Literal named and figurative is implied
In "Harlem" Literal term Figurative term
named implied
deferred = bomb exploding
dream
Application: Robert Frost, "Bereft"
1 Describe the situation precisely. What time of
day and year is it? Where is the speaker? What is
happening to the weather? Discussion
2 To what are the leaves in lines 9-10
compared? Discussion
3 The word "hissed" (9) is onomatopoetic [use of
words that sound like what they mean] How is its
effect reinforced in the lines
following? Discussion
4 Though lines 9-10 present the clearest example
of the second form of metaphor, there are others.
To what is the wind ("it") compared in line 3?
Why is the door (4) "restive" and what does this
do (figuratively) to the door? To what is the
 speaker's "life" compared (15)?  Discussion
5 What is the tone of the poem? How reassuring is
the last line? Discussion
Second Literal name = figurative (implied
form in d )
"Bereft"
leaves = (snake)
Third Form: Literal implied, figurative named
Fourth Form: Literal implied, figurative implied
Application: Emily Dickinson, "It sifts from leaden sieves"
1 This poem consists essentially of a series of
metaphors having the same literal term identified
only as "It." What is "It"?  Discussion
2 In several of these metaphors the figurative term
is named--"alabaster wool" (3), "fleeces" (11),
"celestial veil" (12). Most of these are metaphors
of the third form in which only the figurative
term is named. In two of them, however, the
figurative term as well as the literal term is left
unnamed (metaphors of the fourth form). To
what is "It" compared in lines 1-2? In lines 17-
18? Discussion
3 Comment on the additional metaphorical
expressions or complications contained in
"leaden sieves" (1), "alabaster wool" (3), "even
face" (5), "unbroken forehead" (7), "a summer's
 empty room" (14), "artisans" (19). Discussion
Third literal figurative named
Form (implied)
metaphors
in "It Sifts (2) It (snow) = alabaster wool
from (11) (snow) = fleeces
Leaden
Sieves" (12) (snow) = celestial veil

Fourth Literal figurative

Form (implied) (implied)
metaphors
in "It Sifts (1-2) (snow) = (flour) falling from
from leaden sieves
Leaden (17-18) = (lace or cloth)
Sieves" (snow) around the wrist
and ankles
E. The fourth form is rare; Emily Dickinson's "I like to
see it lap the miles" (911) is an extended example--a
train is compared to a horse though neither is named:
Literal (implied) = figurative
(implied)
(train) = (horse)
laps miles and valleys up; laps, licks,
feeds [takes water] itself feeds, steps,
at tanks;
peers, has ribs,
 peers [with its head- crawls,
lights] into shanties by
the road; complains, chases
itself, neighs,
hoots [with its whistle], is
punctual; and stops at a
stable
and stops at its stable
[station or roundhouse]
III Personification--giving the attributes of a human to an
animal, object, or concept
A. Actually is a subtype of metaphor: an implied
comparison in which the vehicle/ figurative term is a
human
B. Examples:
"Mirror" by Sylvia Plath (692-93)--the mirror
speaks and thinks [object]
"To Autumn" by John Keats (724-25)--describes
autumn as a harvester (season)
C. Difference in degree to which we are asked to actually
visualize the literal term in human form
1 In Keat's comparison, we are asked to make
a complete identification of autumn with a
human
2 In Plath's, though the mirror speaks and thinks,
 we continue to visualize it as a mirror
3 In Frost' "Bereft", the "restive" door remains in
appearance a door tugged by the wind
4 In Browning's reference to "startled little
waves" barely perceptible, should not think of
waves in human form or having human emotions
*** NOTE: Be sure to pay attention to the comment at the
top of page 732 concerning how various figures of speech
blend into each other
D. Application--Personification in Anne Bradstreet's “The
Author to Her Book”
Bradstreet's book The Tenth Muse was published in
1650 without her permission.
2 The poem is an extended personification
addressing her book as a child. What
similarities does the speaker find between a child
and a book of poems? What does she plan to do
now that her child has been put on public
display? Discussion
3. Trace the developing attitudes of the speaker
toward the child/book. Why does she instruct the
child to deny it has a father?      Discussion
E. Application--Personification in Maya Angelou’s “The
Telephone”
1. Most home telephones were black before the
innovation of a variety of "designer” colors.
What are the connotations of the colors to lines
1-3?  Discussion
2. Line 4 introduces a simile. Explain how a
telephone might resemble a "spinstered aunt"
(5). What would such an aunt have to do with
the speaker's “needs / and need" (6-
7)?               Discussion
3. Beginning in line 8, the simile is developed into
a personification. To what is the telephone
compared? How are its activities a development
of the “Aunt" simile? Be sure you understand the
denotation of "tats" and "crocheting” (5),
"hemming” (12), "darning” (14), and "needle
sound" (21).     Discussion
 4. How does the last line provide a conclusion to
the poem?     Discussion
IV Apostrophe--addressing someone absent, dead, or
something nonhuman as if that person or thing were present
and alive and could reply
A. Examples:
1 In A. E. Houseman's "To an Athlete Dying
Young" (1060), the speaker apostrophizes a dead
runner
2 In William Blake's "The Tiger" (1030), the poet
apostrophizes a tiger
3 In Keat's "To Autumn" (783), the poet
apostrophizes as well as personifies the season.
B. Personification and apostrophe
1 Give immediacy and life to language
2 But do not require great imaginative power
(particularly apostrophe) and can be found even
in mediocre and bad poetry
3 We need to distinguish their effective use and
their merely conventional use
Application: "Bright Star," John Keats
1 The speaker tongs to be as "steadfast" (1) as the
star, yet lines 2-8 express his wish to be unlike
the star in important ways. What are the qualities
 of the star that he would not want to emulate?
Why would these be wrong for him in his
situation? Discussion
2 Explore the apparent contradictions in the phrase
"sweet unrest" (12). How do they anticipate the
final line? Discussion
3 The speaker repeats "still" (13). What relevant
denotations does the word evoke, and how does
the repetition add intensity and meaning to this
apostrophe? Discussion
4 Why is an apostrophe more effective here than a
description of the star that does not address
it? Discussion
V. Synecdoche (use of part for the whole) and Metonymy (use
of something closely related for the thing actually meant)
A. Both substitute some significant detail or aspect of an
experience for the experience itself
B. Examples
1 metonymy--Randall (645): "those guns will fire"
subbed for "the police will fire the guns"
2 In Kay (678), "catalogues of domes" subbed for
enough domed buildings to fill a catalogue
3 In A. E. Houseman's "Terrence, This Is Stupid
Stuff" (649),
 a. synecdoche: "Malt does more than Milton
can / to justify God's way to man," malt
subbed for beer or ale;
b. metonymy: Look into the pewter pot / to see
the world as the world is not,"
(1) pot subbed for ale
(2) world subbed for human life and the
conditions under which it is lived
4 In Robert Frost's "Out, Out--" (773) metonymy:
held up hand "as if to keep / the life from
spilling," life subbed for blood
C. Synecdoches and metonymies gain vividness,
meaning, or compactness
D. Dead vs. fresh figures of speech
1 like many other figures, some synecdoches and
metonymies may have become embedded in our
language and no longer strike us as being fresh
"redhead" for red-haired person
"hands" for manual laborers
"tongues" for languages
"dead metaphors" for all dead (trite or stale,
hence not fresh or alive) tropes
2 Since synecdoche and metonymy are so similar,
 we will refer to both figures as Metonymy: any
trope in which a part or something closely related
is substituted for the thing literally meant
VI Summary--figurative language (tropes) is often more
effective than direct literal) language
A. Figurative language affords us imaginative pleasure.
B. Figurative language adds imagery to verse, makes the
abstract concrete, makes poetry more sensusous
C. Figurative language adds emotional intensity to what
is otherwise a merely informative statement and
conveys an attitude along with the statement
D. Figurative language compacts language, says much in
few words
1 Example: excerpt from Macbeth (780) in which
Shakespeare compares life to a candle
a. it begins and ends in darkness
b. while it burns, it gives off light and energy, is
active and colorful
c. it gradually consumes itself, gets shorter and
shorter
d. it can be snuffed out at any moment
e. it is brief at best, burning for only a short
duration
 2 Good use of figurative language is capable of
expressing n compact metaphorical terms certain
truths about life that might require dozens of
words to state in literal terms.
E. When interpreting figurative language, one always
risks misinterpretation, but it is a risk well worth
taking, for the figurative language will provide depth
and pleasure to our understanding poetry

                                                                PRACTICE!