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Creative-Writing-Figurative Language

The document discusses figurative language and provides examples of common types: 1) Similes, metaphors, personification, and hyperbole are discussed as common figures of speech. 2) Examples are given for each type, including similes from poetry comparing spring to a hand and stars to cheeks, a metaphor from James Joyce, and personified peace from A Separate Peace. 3) Figurative language is used across literature and speech to convey meaning creatively and engage audiences.

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616 views

Creative-Writing-Figurative Language

The document discusses figurative language and provides examples of common types: 1) Similes, metaphors, personification, and hyperbole are discussed as common figures of speech. 2) Examples are given for each type, including similes from poetry comparing spring to a hand and stars to cheeks, a metaphor from James Joyce, and personified peace from A Separate Peace. 3) Figurative language is used across literature and speech to convey meaning creatively and engage audiences.

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نجشو گحوش
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Lesson
Reading and Writing Poetry
Figurative Language

Figurative Language

The use of figurative language goes back to ancient time. We can find the use of figurative
language in writings of Aristotle, Homer, Quintilian and Horace. They were among the first
writers who theorized about the function and use of figurative language.
Figurative language serves as an excellent communication tool and is something we
encounter daily that helps us convey complex descriptions or emotions quickly and effectively. Also
referred to as "figures of speech," figurative language can be utilized to persuade, engage and
connect with an audience and amplify your intended message. Implementing figurative language
takes some careful thought and close observations to successfully convey your intended meaning. In
this article, we review some common types of figurative language and evaluate some examples to
deepen your understanding.
Figurative language is the use of descriptive words, phrases and sentences to convey
a message that means something without directly saying it. Its creative wording is used to build
imagery to deepen the audience's understanding and help provide power to words by using different
emotional, visual and sensory connections.
Figurative language is used to:
 Compare two unlike ideas to increase understanding of one
 Describe ideas sometimes difficult to understand
 Show a deeper emotion or connection
 Influence the audience
 Help make connections
 Make descriptions easier to visualize
 Elicit an emotion

Figurative language is used in literature like poetry, drama, prose and even speeches.
Figures of speech are literary devices that are also used throughout our society and help relay
important ideas in a meaningful way. Here are some common figures of speech and some examples
of the same figurative language in use:

Some Types of Figures of Speech


1. Simile
A simile is a comparison between two unlike things using the words "like," "as" or "than."
Often used to highlight a characteristic of one of the items, similes rely on the comparison
and the audience's ability to create connections and make inferences about the two objects
being discussed and understand the one similarity they share.
Spring is like a perhaps hand

Spring is like a perhaps hand


(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and
changing everything carefully
spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and
without breaking anything.

2. Metaphor

The word metaphor came from a Greek word meta-over, phero-carry. It literally


meaning are a “carrying over”. A metaphor is a direct comparison without using the
comparative words "like" or "as." Metaphors equate the two things being compared to
elicit a stronger connection and deepen the meaning of the comparison. Some
metaphors, which continue for several lines or an entire piece, are called extended
metaphors.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man


James Joyces

Are you not weary of ardent ways,


Lure of the fallen seraphim?
Tell no more of enchanted days.

Your eyes have set man's heart ablaze


And you have had your will of him.
Are you not weary of ardent ways?

Above the flame the smoke of praise


Goes up from ocean rim to rim.
Tell no more of enchanted days.

Our broken cries and mournful lays


Rise in one eucharistic hymn.
Are you not weary of ardent ways?
While sacrificing hands upraise
The chalice flowing to the brim,
Tell no more of enchanted days.

And still you hold our longing gaze


With languorous look and lavish limb!
Are you not weary of ardent ways?
Tell no more of enchanted days.

3. Personification

It is the beauty tool for literature. It adds beauty to the text and appeals readers’
mood and creates more interest in reading. In personification, human traits are
attributed to non-human things or to some abstract ideas. This personifies objects and
makes them more relatable.

Peace had deserted Devon. Although not in the look of the campus and
village; they retained much of their dreaming summer calm. Fall had barely
touched the full splendor of the trees, and during the height of the day the sun
briefly regained its summertime power. In the air there was only an edge of
coolness to imply the coming winter. But all had been caught up, like the first
fallen leaves, by a new and energetic wind.

-  John Knowles’ A Separate Peace

4. Hyperbole

Hyperbolic language is mostly used by poets who want to elevate the value
and significance of something. Hyperbole is a deliberate exaggeration of the
truth, used to highlight the significance of something or sometime used to create
a comic effect by exaggerating the trivial matter or something of low value.

"The brightness of her
cheek would shame those A murderer and a
stars. villain,
As daylight doth a lamp. A slave that is not
Her eye in heaven twentieth part the tithe
Would through the airy Of your precedent
region stream so bright lord."
That birds would sing
and think it were not
night."
Romeo and Juliet –
Romeo and Juliet – William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
Activity: Determine the figure of speech in the following phrases.
Figure of Speech

"Either way, or both, he died like


a bug under a microscope."
simile
-The Long Walk by Stephen King

"Love is a spirit all compact of


fire" –
metaphor
Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare

“No night is now with hymn or


carol blessed.
Therefore the moon, the
governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the
air,
That rheumatic diseases do personification
abound.”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by


William Shakespeare

She speaks.
O, speak again, bright angel! For
thou art
As glorious to this night, being
o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of Simile
heaven

 Romeo and Juliet, William


Shakespeare

Her heart was divided between


concern for her sister, and
resentment against all the others. personification

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen


"Thou art a boil, a plague sore"

Metaphor
- King Lear, Shakespeare

I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you Hyperbole


Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the
mountain
And the salmon sing in the
street.
As I Walked Out One Evening
W.H. Auden

“But soft! What light through


yonder window breaks? It is
the East, and Juliet is the sun!” Metaphor
Romeo and Juliet by William
Shakespeare
“Neptune’s ocean wash this
blood
Clean from my hand? No. This
my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas
incarnadine, Hyperbole
Making the green one red.”

-Macbeth (By William
Shakespeare)

Thy soul was like a Star, and


dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose
sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, Simile
majestic, free

London, 1802,” by William


Wordsworth

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