Most useful

Figures of
Speech

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List of topics to be covered

1. Alliteration
2. Archaism
3. Assonance
4. Cacophony
5. Conceit
6. Elision

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List of topics to be covered

7. Euphony
8. Hyperbole
9. Metaphor
10.Metonymy
12. Onomatopoeia
13. Oxymoron

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List of topics to be covered

14. Personification
15. Paradox
16. Pun
17. Refrain
18. Simile
19. Synecdoche

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Alliteration

• Series of words begin with a same consonant sound.

E.g.
1. She sells seashells by the sea-shore.
2."And the balls like pulses beat;
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky
Lay like a load on my weary eye"
Rime of the Ancient Mariner (by Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
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Archaism

• Use of old fashioned "words" added in order to make style

in sound or sense.
• E.g.
1. Thou, thee , thine
2. And he stoppeth one of three.
‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (By S. T. Coleridge)
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Assonance

• Two or more than two words that are close to each other repeat
the same vowel sound but start with different consonant sound.
• E.g.
1. "That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.”
— Byzantium, by W. B. Yeats
2. “He gives his harness bells a shake"
- Robert's Frost Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
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Cacophony

• It is a mixture of unmusical and raucous sounds. Basically unharmonious and

dissonant sounds. For instance p,k, t,d, g, and b, and the sounds sh, ch, and s.
E.g.
1.Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—
Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier,
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
2. There’s a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
Daddy by Sylvia Plath

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Conceit

• Extended Metaphor : unlikely, far-fetched or strange comparisons are made.

E.g.
1."My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;"
Sonnet 130 Shakespeare
2. if they be two, they are two so As stiff
Twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix’d 'foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, by John Donne

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Elision

• Omission of sounds, phrases and syllables replacing them with

apostrophe.
• E.g.
1."Having commenc’d, be a divine in show,
Sweet Analytics, ’tis thou hast ravish’d me!"
Dr. Fauster by Christopher Marlowe
2. "Whiles crooning o’er an auld Scots sonnet,
Whiles glow ’ring round wi prudent cares,"
Tam O’Shanter , by Robert Burns)
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Euphony

• Soothing sounds emitted by words are used to create a pleasant

music in a poem.
• Longer vowels - 'oo', smooth
• Nasal consonants - w, n, m, l
• Consonants like z,v and Th.
• Consonants like Sh,H,F, and S.
• E.g. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long lives
this, and this gives life to thee." (Shakespeare sonnet 18)

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Hyperbole

• Overstatement that exaggerates a specific condition for

emphasis.
• E.g.
1. "A hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;" To his Coy Mistress
2. "Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;"
A Red, Red, Rose by Robert Burns

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Metaphor

• Implied, hidden and implicit comparison.

• Between two things that are not related but have something in common.
• E.g.
1. “Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?”
The Sun Rising by John Donne
2. But thy eternal summer shall not fade …”
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day (By William Shakespeare)

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Metonym (a change of name)

• Name of a thing replaced with name of something else.

• E.g.
1. The pen is mightier than the sword.
2. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.”
Julius Caesar (By William Shakespeare)

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Onomatopea

• Words that actually apperas as the sound they make and we

can almost listen those sounds when are read.
• E.g.
gurgle, warble, babble, slam, splash, bam, mumble, buzz,
thud, and belch etc..

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Oxymoron

• Two opposite ideas are joined to create an upshot.

E.g.
1. "His honour rooted in dishonoured stood
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true"
Lancelot and Elaine by Alfred Lord Tennyson
2. Foolish wisdom, Liquid gas, Original copies

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Personification

• Non-human objects are given human qualities.

• Thing, an idea or animals etc..
• E.g.
1. "Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth
2. “April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing"
The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot.

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Paradox

• Self-contraditory or silly statements that have concealed

truth.
E.g.
1. “I can resist anything but temptation.” – Oscar Wilde
2. “I must be cruel to be kind.” William
Shakespeare’s famous play Hamlet

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Pun

• Use of word that suggest two or more than two meaning.

• Similar sounding words.
• E.g.
1. “Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes with nimble
soles; I have a soul of lead” -Romeo and Juliet by
Shaespeare.
2. A horse is a very stable
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Refrain

• A line, a verse, a group of lines or a set that repeats itself in regular intervals.
• Sometimes a repition may include minor intervals.
• It can contribute to rhyming of a poem.
E.g.
1. “Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light…
“And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas

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Simile

• Makes a comparison.
• Shows similarity between two different things.
• 'Like' or 'as' is used.
E.g.
1. Her cheeks are red like a rose.
He is as funny as a monkey.
2.“I would have given anything for the power to soothe her frail soul, tormenting itself in its invincible ignorance
like a small bird beating about the cruel wires of a cage.” Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

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Synecdoche

• A word or phrase that refers to chunk of somethig is deputed to stand

in for the whole.
• E.g.
1.The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset – when the King
Be witnessed – in the Room –
I heard a Fly buzz – when I died – by Emily Dickinson
2. Ask for her hand—refers to asking a woman to marry

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