Poetry figurative language

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4

Literary devices

Practice round identifying poetic/literary devices and figurative language.

Name 3 literary devices and forms of figurative language you remember from the PIF list.

Practice round

You may use your PIF list to help you identify the Poetic devices used in the following examples and answer the questions.

Choose the literary device:
'Twinkle twinkle little star..'

1. onomatopoeia
2. simili
3. alliteration
4. repetition

The ghostly galleons grab greedily

This is an example of:

1. Alliteration
2. Assonance
3. Simile
4. Metaphor

Which literary device is saying the exact opposite of what you mean?

1. satire
2. hyperbole
3. irony
4. alliteration

We are the corroboree and the bora ground.

This is an example of:

1. Alliteration
2. Assonance
3. Simile
4. Metaphor

Turn off your television sets. Turn them off now! Turn them off right now! Turn them off and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of this sentence I'm speaking to you now.

1. hyperbole
2. anaphora
3. assonance
4. oxymoron

Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire.

1. oxymoron
2. euphemism
3. anaphora
4. personification

I can resist anything but temptation.

1. paradox
2. metonymy
3. synecdoche
4. personification

I had so much homework last night that I needed a pickup truck to carry all my books home.

1. synecdoche
2. onomatopoeia
3. pun
4. hyperbole

All hands on deck!

1. assonance
2. apostrophe
3. irony
4. synecdoche

synecdoche vs metonymy

Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that refers to a part of something is substituted to stand in for the whole, or vice versa. 

In a metonymy, the word we use to describe another thing is closely linked to that particular thing, but is not a part of it. 

The crown, Hollywood, 

Why do we wait until a pig is dead to cure it?

1. pun
2. personification
3. anaphora
4. synecdoche

Identify literary techniques

“After I got off the telephone, I sat very still for a long time. According to the clock on the stove, which I could see from where I sat, it was two-forty-five in the morning. Never had I been alone and awake at such an hour. The living room – normally so airy and open, buoyant with my mother’s presence – had shrunk to a cold, pale discomfort, like a vacation house in winter: fragile, fabrics, scratchy sisal rug, paper lamp shades from Chinatown and the chairs too little and light. All the furniture seemed spindly, poised at a tiptoe nervousness. I could feel my heart beating, hear the clicks and ticks and hisses of the large elderly building slumbering around me. Everyone was asleep. Even the distant horn-honks and the occasional rattle of trucks out on Fifty-Seventh Street seemed faint and uncertain, as lonely as a noise from another planet.” 

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt Pg 77  

Find the following:

simile

personification

alliteration

onomatopoeia

Literary techniques 

Simile = The living room... like a vacation house in winter

Personification = All the furniture ... poised at a tiptoe nervousness ... large elderly building slumbering

alliteration = fragile, fabrics, scratchy sisal rug

Onomatopoeia = horn-honks ...rattle 

Identify literary techniques

“After I got off the telephone, I sat very still for a long time. According to the clock on the stove, which I could see from where I sat, it was two-forty-five in the morning. Never had I been alone and awake at such an hour. The living room – normally so airy and open, buoyant with my mother’s presence – had shrunk to a cold, pale discomfort, like a vacation house in winter: fragile, fabrics, scratchy sisal rug, paper lamp shades from Chinatown and the chairs too little and light. All the furniture seemed spindly, poised at a tiptoe nervousness. I could feel my heart beating, hear the clicks and ticks and hisses of the large elderly building slumbering around me. Everyone was asleep. Even the distant horn-honks and the occasional rattle of trucks out on Fifty-Seventh Street seemed faint and uncertain, as lonely as a noise from another planet.” 

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt Pg 77  

Find the following:

simile

personification

alliteration

onomatopoeia

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

      — Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

      Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;

      Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

      And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

      Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

      The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Anthem for Doomed Youth, Wilfred Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

      — Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

      Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;

      Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

      And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

      Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

      The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

This poem was written is 1917. How does this info influence the way you read and interpret it?

Anthem for Doomed Youth, Wilfred Owen

For tomorrow

Read p. 6 on context in the poetry reader.

Take a look at the timeline on p. 7.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

      Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

      The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.