Figurative Language/Literary Devices
(AKA: Poetry Terms, Poetic Terminology, Poetic Devices, Figures of Speech)
1. Simile is a comparison of two unlike things using the words like or as.
Examples: He is stronger than an ox.
He is as strong as an ox.
He is strong like an ox.
Her eyelashes are like spider legs.
Her eyelashes are longer than a spider’s legs.
Her eyelashes are as long as a spider’s legs.
2. Metaphor is a comparison of two unlike things without using the words like or as.
Examples: He is an ox!
Her eyelashes were spiders sitting atop her eyelids.
He’s a walking dictionary.
She’s a walking calculator.
3. Onomatopoeia is a word that imitates the sound it represents (sound words).
Examples: clang, buzz, twang, kerplunk, shuffle, bubble, hiss
4. Alliteration is the repetition of first consonant sounds in a grouping of two or more words.
Examples: The pitiful python slithered away into the dismal, dark night.
He is the misanthrope, the malcontent, the miser; he is
SCROOGE.
5. Hyperbole is an exaggeration or overstatement that is unrealistic, but makes a point.
Examples: My husband is so tall that he can look eye-to-eye with the Statue of Liberty.
"I was helpless. I did not know what in the world to do. I was quaking from head to foot,
and could have hung my hat on my eyes, they stuck out so far." (from Mark Twain’s "Old
Times on the Mississippi")
6. Personification gives inanimate objects human qualities.
Examples: My purple ink pen threw-up all over his paper.
The stapler bit each paper, leaving its metal marker tightly pinched into the flesh of each
page.
7. Imagery is found in the word choice a writer uses to create a vivid picture in the reader’s mind.
The words chosen are strong and clear; there is no doubt in the reader’s mind as to what the author meant.
Imagery is usually based heavily on sensory details: sight, smell, sound, touch, taste.
Examples: “The sky was dark and gloomy, the air was damp and raw, the streets
were wet and sloppy.”
(from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens)