English 10 / Unit 5: Poetry: Form, Sound and Meaning
5.5 Figurative Language in Depth
Notes
Beyond simile and metaphor, poets use more complex figures.
- A conceit is an elaborate, surprising extended metaphor. In Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," two lovers are compared to the legs of a drawing compass.
- Apostrophe addresses someone absent or something nonhuman: Donne's "Death, be not proud."
- Paradox is a statement that seems contradictory but reveals a truth: "Death, thou shalt die."
- Metonymy uses a related thing to stand for something ("The crown" for the king). Synecdoche uses a part for the whole ("all hands on deck").
- Oxymoron joins opposite words: "sweet sorrow," "loving hate."
Practice
Donne's line "Death, be not proud" speaks directly to Death. This device is:
Addressing an absent or abstract thing is apostrophe.
"The pen is mightier than the sword," where "pen" means writing and "sword" means military force, is an example of:
Related objects stand for larger ideas.
Comparing two separated lovers to the two legs of a drawing compass, worked out in detail over several stanzas, is a(n):
An elaborate, unexpected extended metaphor is a conceit.
Ready for more? Take the Unit 5 test.