Lesson 3

• Metaphors


  • “Henry was a lion on the battlefield” - Henry fought valiantly and bravely embodying the traits of a lion, "All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players." - As You Like It by Shakespeare, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” by William Shakespeare
• Similes

  Marked by the use of the words ‘like’ or ‘as’, draw parallels or comparisons between two unrelated and dissimilar things, people, beings, places, and concepts. They attach a greater degree of meaning and understanding to a sentence, helping the reader better understand the sentiment the author wishes to convey
• Similes


  • "Her eyes sparkled like diamonds"
  • "white as a ghost," "fast as a speeding locomotive," "lie like a rug," "as clear as mud," "dance like a maniac," "She weeps like a wench that had shed her milk" - All's Well That Ends Well by Shakespeare, "The cafe was like a battleship stripped for action" - The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, "Either way, or both, he died like a bug under a microscope." - The Long Walk by Stephen King, "And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs" - Birches" by Robert Frost, "He had a broad face and a little round belly That shook, when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly. - "A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore, " From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire" - "To a Skylark" - Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Love set you going like a fat gold watch" - "Morning Song" by Sylvia Plath
• A metaphor is a figure of speech that directly compares one thing to another for rhetorical effect. It can sometimes include other literary terms like similes
• Line by Line Elements of Style in Literature

  • Simile
  • Metaphor
  • Apostrophe
  • Personification
  • Synecdoche
  • Metonymy
• Metaphors

  Refer to a meaning or identity ascribed to one subject by way of another. They imply that one subject is another to draw a comparison between their similarities and shared traits. Metaphors aim to better understand the lesser known element by using a known concept or identity
• In formal persuasive and informative essays, using apostrophe might seem melodramatic and distracting
• John Donne's "The Sun Rising"


  • Use of hyperbole and figurative language to link the narrator's relationship with the sun
• Apostrophe in literature is different from the apostrophe punctuation mark
• Death Be Not Proud by John Donne

  • Use of apostrophe to address Death as a personified force
• Apostrophe in literature

  An arrangement of words addressing a non-existent person or abstract idea as if it were present and capable of understanding feelings
• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare


  • Metaphor comparing Juliet to the sun
• Personification of hope

  • Describing hope as a living, breathing, ebullient force
• Example of apostrophe in "The Star" by Jane Taylor


  • Directly addressing the star, personifying it and pondering its nature
• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare


  • Juliet's use of apostrophe towards the dagger
• Apostrophe in literature

  A figure of speech where the writer or speaker addresses someone not present, dead, or an inanimate object
• Shakespeare's "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?"


  • Extended metaphor comparing an unseen lover to a summer’s day
• Brendan McGuigan: '"A forceful, emotional device" used in creative writing and persuasive essays'
• Example of apostrophe in "Oh Christmas Tree"


  • People singing to the Christmas tree, personifying it
• Juliet: 'Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die.'
• Synecdoche

  A figure of speech in which a part of something is used to signify the whole, or vice-versa
• Juliet decides to kill herself at the climax after finding Romeo dead
• Personification from Literature

  • Example 1: TITANIA: No night is now with hymn or carol blessed...
  • Example 2: Her heart was divided between concern for her sister...
  • Example 3: Something there is that doesn’t love a wall...
• Personification

  The projection of characteristics that normally belong only to humans onto inanimate objects, animals, deities, or forces of nature
• Synecdoche allows for a smaller component of something to stand in for the larger whole, in a rhetorical manner
• Synecdoche

  As a literary device, allows for a smaller component of something to stand in for the larger whole, or vice versa. It is a helpful device for writers to express a word or idea in a different way by using an aspect of that word or idea
• Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that refers to a part of something is substituted to stand in for the whole, or vice versa
• Speaker: 'Quote'
• Metonymy can refer to the substitution of a term with another term that is closely related or associated with it
• Example: "all hands on deck" is a demand for all of the crew to help, yet the word "hands" - just a part of the crew - stands in for the whole crew
• Synecdoche in Literature

  • Example 1: The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
  • Example 2: "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -" by Emily Dickinson
  • Example 3: Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Metonymy in Literature

  • Example 1: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (William Shakespeare)
  • Example 2: All’s Well that Ends Well (William Shakespeare)
  • Example 3: Bartleby the Scrivener (Herman Melville)
• Herman Melville: '“As I afterwards learned, the poor scrivener, when told that he must be conducted to the Tombs,

  offered not the slightest obstacle, but in his pale, unmoving way, silently acquiesced.”'
• Metonymy is a figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated
• Metonymy in Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener


  Underscores two plot elements: Bartleby is to be interned in prison and foreshadows that he is to be interred in a “tomb” simultaneously
• William Shakespeare: '“I know a man that had this trick of melancholy sold a goodly manor for a song.”'
• Metonymy

  Can refer to the substitution of a term that is connected in any way to the original concept
• William Shakespeare: '“And as imagination bodies forth

  The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen

  Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

  A local habitation and a name.”'
• Metonymy in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night’s Dream


  Creates an image for the reader that the source of poetry is the pen rather than the poet
• Metonymy in Shakespeare's All’s Well that Ends Well

  Indicates an inexpensive or cheap price assigned to something of value