Figures of speech (tropes)

Figures of speech: Are there literary devices being used that affect how you read the poem? Here are some examples of commonly discussed figures of speech:

• metaphor: a comparison that is presented as an identification between two things

You are the rose of my life.

• Comparison/simile: comparison between two unlike things using "like" or "as"

• metonymy: one thing stands for something else that is closely related to it by authorship or symbolism (For example, using the phrase "the crown" to refer to the king would be an example of metonymy.)

I bought a Picasso. (you did not buy a man called Picasso, but a work of art by Picasso)

• synechdoche: a part stands in for a whole, singular used for the plural and vice versa (For example, in the phrase "all hands on deck," "hands" stands in the ship's crew.)

• personification: a non-human thing is endowed with human characteristics

• litotes: an understatement, often the use of a double negative for a positive meaning (example: not unlike, not displeased)

• irony: a difference between the surface meaning of the words and the implications that may be drawn from them

• hyperbole: an exaggeration

• oxymoron: putting two things that contradict each other for the sake of exaggeration

eloquent silence; cold fire

• epithet – a quality, usually expressed by an adjective

• antithesis - opposition

• repetition – reiteration of words or structures

• allegory- convey hidden meanings through symbolic figures, actions, imagery, and/or events, which together create the moral, spiritual, or political meaning the author wishes to convey.

A painting representing The Virgin conveys meaning about motherhood, woman, religion, faith.

• assonance – repetition of the same vowel in neighbouring words

• consonance – repetition of the same consonant in neighbouring words

• bathos – sentimentalism, excess of tender feelings