Figures of Speech. Sound.

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Figures of Speech. Sound.

• Instruments of Poetry

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Figures of Speech (Tropes)

• Change the literal meaning of words to
  figurative.
• Serve to create imagery.
• In literature, express ones unique vision.

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Simile

• An artistic comparison stressing similarity
  between objects, actions, persons, etc., in order
  to point to their special characteristics.
• A is like B
• A is as B
• A as if B

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William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

• Sonnet 130

• Will in Canada The Sanders portrait

• Read by Alan Rickman
• My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun
  (Ironic reading)
• As any she belied with false compare. (Animation)

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Metaphor

• A figure of speech in which a term or phrase is
  applied to something to which it is not literally
  applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as
  in A mighty fortress is our God.
  http//dictionary.reference.com/browse/metaphor

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Metaphor

• Trite metaphor predictable, unoriginal.
• Dead metaphor commonly used, creates no image.
• Absolute metaphor an analogy that cannot be
  replaced or changed (Light for truth).
• Extended metaphor (conceit)
• developed at length (ex., throughout a poem).

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John Donne. The Flea

• John Donne (1574-1631)

• English poet, lawyer, Anglican priest.
• Famous for his elaborate metaphors (conceits) and
  paradoxes (ex. Who are a little wise the best
  fools be).
• The most notable of the Metaphysical poets.

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Robert Frost. Design

•   I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,On a
  white heal-all, holding up a mothLike a white
  piece of rigid satin cloth --Assorted characters
  of death and blightMixed ready to begin the
  morning right,Like the ingredients of a witches'
  broth --A snow-drop spider, a flower like a
  froth,And dead wings carried like a paper
  kite.What had that flower to do with being
  white,The wayside blue and innocent
  heal-all?What brought the kindred spider to that
  height,Then steered the white moth thither in
  the night?What but design of darkness to
  appall?--If design govern in a thing so small.

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Metonymy

• A figure of speech that consists of the use of
  the name of one object or concept for that of
  another to which it is related, or of which it is
  a part, as scepter for sovereignty, or the
  bottle for strong drink, or count heads (or
  noses) for count people. http//dictionary.ref
  erence.com/browse/metonymy

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Synecdoche

• A figure of speech in which
• a part is used for the whole (sail for ship)
• or the whole for a part (buy some chicken)
• container for its content (Have a glass!)
• material for a thing it is made of (steel for
  sword)
• a general class for a specific member (bug for
  any insect)
• or a specific member for a general class (soda
  pop).

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Hyperbole and Litotes

• Hyperbole
• Exaggeration that aims to create an emphatic
  effect.
• Litotes
• Emphatic understatement. Can involve a double
  negation (ex., Not bad).

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Personification and Oxymoron

• Personification
• An artistic device of representing an inanimate
  object or an abstract idea as a living creature
  or a person.
•  Oxymoron
• A combination of seemingly contradictory words
  (Dry wine).

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Sound Rhythm

• A regular recurrence of sounds.
• Can be created by repeated words, parallel
  constructions.
• Can be maintained visually, with a chain of
  stanzas (groupings of lines within a poem
  separated by a space).

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Rhythm

• The most obvious function of the line-break is
  rhythmic it can record the slight (but
  meaningful) hesitations between word and word
  that are characteristic of the minds dance among
  perceptions but which are not noted by
  grammatical punctuation.
• Denise Levertov

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Poetic Rhythm

• Repetition of stresses and pauses.
• Created by metre the recurrence of regular units
  of stressed and unstressed syllables.
• Stressed (accented) syllable emphasized more
  than another.
• Foot a group of syllables with a fixed pattern
  of stresses.

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Types of metrical feet

• Rising metres
• Iamb (unstressed stressed)
• Anapest (two unstressed one stressed)
• Falling metres
• Trochee (stressed unstressed)
• Dactyl (one unstressed two stressed)

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Metrical Patterns

• Measured by the number of feet in a line
• Monometer (1)
• Dimeter (2)
• Trimeter (3)
• Tetrameter (4)
• Pentameter (5)
• Hexameter (6)
• Heptameter (7)
• Octameter (8)

• Iambic pentameter is the most common metre in
  English poetry, rhymed and unrhymed.
• Metrical patterns can carry certain meanings of
  their own based on the way they sound and the
  memory of their usage in poetry.

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Metrical Line

• Caesura a pause in the rhythm within a line.
• Ex. Two loves I have II of comfort and
  despair.
• (Shakespeare)
• End-stopped line ends with a pause.
• Run-on line spills to the next line without a
  strong pause. This device is called enjambment.