FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE PACKET
The repetition of like consonant
sounds, usually at the beginning of
words
“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.”
- Robert Frost
Exaggeration for the purpose of
emphasis
“And fired the shot heard round the world.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A implied comparison of two things
generally thought to be different
from each other.
(Without the use of like or as)
“The sun is a sailor with pockets of gold!”
Words used for special effects when
their sounds suggest their meaning
“To the rhyming and the chiming of the
bells!”
- Edgar Allen Poe
A type of metaphor that gives an
inanimate object (an object not
living) human qualities
“Death be not proud, though some have
called thee”
- John Donne
A comparison using like or as in a
comparison of two objects generally
different from each other.
“You are cool like silver”
- Amy Lowell
The same sound that different words
repeat, usually the last words in two
or more lines.
“I can but trust that good shall fall
At last – far off – at last, to all”
-Tennyson
Rhyme that occurs at the end of a line
“Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie.”
- Stevenson
Rhyme that occurs in the middle of
lines
“Barber, Barber, come and get me
Hairy torments irk and fret me”
- Nash
Regular pattern of rhyming (end
rhyme)

Rhyme schemes are represented by lower
case letters. The first line is always a. Each
new end rhyme is given a new letter symbol.
All lines having the same end rhyme, have the
same letter symbol
Razors pain you
Rivers are damp
Acids stain you
And drugs cause cramp
Guns aren’t lawful
Nooses give
Gas smells awful
You might as well live.
a
b
a
b
c
d
c
d
- Dorothy Parker
Language that appeals to one or
more of the five senses.
(sight, smell, taste, touch, sound)
“Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match”
- Robert Browning
Group of lines organized according to
a definite rhyme scheme or metrical
pattern. Each stanza is divided by a
space.
Two consecutive lines rhyming at the
end of a poem.
“An Eden, with my hoe and rake
The Serpent only God could make.”
a
a
The rhythmic description of a line in
terms of its accented and unaccented
syllables.
u
/
u
/
u
/
u
/
“He led / me through / his gar/dens fair /
u
/
u
/
u
/
u
/
Where all / his gold/ en plea / sures grow /
u
/
Iambic – (de ter)
/
u
Trochaic – (de cent)
u
u
/
Anapestic – (un in formed)
/
u
/
Dactylic - (Mich i gan)
/
/
Spondaic – (road way)
Monometer – one foot
Dimeter – two feet
Trimeter – three feet
Tetremeter – four feet (common)
Pentameter – five feet (common)
Hexameter – six feet
Heptamter– seven feet
Octometer – eight feet (rare)
Nonmeter – nine feet (rare)
Poetry written in unrhymed iambic
pentameter


Blank means the poetry is not rhymed
Iambic pentameter means that each line
contains five metrical feet consisting of a
unstressed syllable followed by a stressed
syllable
Musical quality in language produced
by repetition. Rhythm can be created
by meter or by using rhymes.
The repetition of like vowel sounds
“And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the might waters rolling evermore.”
-Wordsworth
The repeating of like consonant
sounds that are followed by different
vowel sounds.
“Through granite which titanic wars had groined
Yet also their encumbered sleepers groaned.”
- Owen