Poetic Language - Metaphor, Simile, Symbols

Poetic Language - Metaphor, Simile, Symbols

Goals of Lesson

To learn how a word can be used as a symbol, in a metaphor and in a simile

To learn about famous people in the 1970s - 1980s

To practice your watching and listening skills for the PART 

To practice identifying metaphors and similes for the Poetry Test

'Don't Burn the Candle at Both Ends' 

This means that your 

energy = a candle (metaphor)

If you burn it at both ends, your energy will be used up very quickly!

You will have a 'burn out'  (idiom, or saying)

In 1973, Elton John recorded a great hit, 'Candle in the Wind'  about the 50s Hollywood star, Marilyn Monroe.

How did she die?

1. suicide from heartbreak
2. murder by jealous woman
3. barbiturate overdose
4. alcohol poisoning

What was Marilyn's childhood like?

1. she lived with loving parents
2. she lived with different foster families
3. she lived with her alcoholic mother
4. she lived with her violent father

When did she first get married?

1. 27 years old
2. 21 years old
3. 19 years old
4. 16 years old

What happened to her mother by the time Marilyn started acting?

1. she was put in jail
2. she remarried
3. she was put in an institution
4. she was forbidden to see her daughter

What type of image did she have in her films?

1. a dumb blond
2. a rich heiress
3. a good secretary
4. a cowboy's girlfriend

Candle in the Wind

While you listen to the hit song, 'Candle in the Wind' about the life of in Marlyn Monroe by Elton John, think what this simile means:

'You lived your life 

like a candle in the wind'

What do you think, 'You lived your life like a candle in the wind' mean?

Goodbye Norma Jeane

Though I never knew you at all

You had the grace to hold yourself

While those around you crawled

They crawled out of the woodwork

And they whispered into your brain

They set you on the treadmill

And they made you 

change your name

Metaphors!

What crawls?

What kind of thing crawls out of woodwork?

What kind of words would these things say to her?

What happens on a treadmill?

And it seems to me you lived your life

Like a candle in the wind

Never knowing who to cling to

When the rain set in

And I would've liked to known you

But I was just a kid

Your candle burned out long before

Your legend ever did

1.  'kwetsbaar leven' - live vulnerably

2. What does the rain symbolize here?

3. What is the candle in this metaphor?

Princess Diana

In 1981 Lady Diana Spencer ('Lady Di') married the Prince Charles (now King Charles), and became a symbol of royal  charity, grace and kindness for England. When she died in 1997, Elton John sang new words to his song Candle in the Wind.

What words to you hear that are different?