Figurative

Languages
1. Simile

– a figurative comparison with the use of “like” or

“as”.

2. Metaphor

- a figurative language without the use of “as” or

“like”

3. Allegory

- An extended metaphor. It is a literary technique

in which an abstract idea is given a form of
characters, actions or events.
2
 Simile

“Life is like a game.

Your love is like the sun.

Your lips are as red as roses”

3
 Metaphor

“Her mouth was a fountain of delight. And when he

possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the
very borderland of life’s mystery”

- The Storm (By Kate Chopin)

4
Allegory

Faerie Queen, a masterpiece of Edmund Spenser, is a

moral and religious allegory.

The good characters of book stand for the various

virtues, while the bad characters represent vices. “The
Red-Cross Knight” represents holiness, and “Lady Una”
represents truth, wisdom, and goodness. Her parents
symbolize the human race. The “Dragon,” which has
imprisoned them, stands for evil.

The mission of holiness is to help the truth fight evil,

and thus regain its rightful place in the hearts of human
beings. “The Red-Cross Knight” in this poem also
represents the reformed church of England, fighting
against the “Dragon,” which stands for the Papacy or
5
4. Oxymoron

– is a figure of speech in which two opposite ideas

are joined to create an effect.

5. Personification

- a figurative attribution of personal or human

qualities to things that aer not human.

6. Hyperbole

- derived from a Greek word meaning “over-

casting,” is a figure of speech that involves an
exaggeration of ideas for the sake of emphasis.
6
 Oxymoron

“The shackles of love straiten’d him

His honour rooted in dishonoured stood

And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true”

- Lancelot and Elaine (By Alfred Lord Tennyson)

7
 Personification

“Have you got a brook in your little heart,

Where bashful flowers blow,

And blushing birds go down to drink,

And shadows tremble so?”

- Have You Got A Brook In Your Little Heart (By Emily

Elizabeth Dickinson)

8
 Hyperbole

“I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you

Till China and Africa meet,

And the river jumps over the mountain

And the salmon sing in the street,

I’ll love you till the ocean

Is folded and hung up to dry.””

- As I Walked One Evening (By W. H. Auden)

9
7. Onomatopea – is defined as a word which imitates
the natural sounds of a thing. It makes the
description more expressive and interesting.

8. Alliteration - repetition of the initial letter of or

sound in a succession of words.

9. Assonance – takes place when two or more words,

close to one another repeat the same vowel sound,
but start with different consonant sounds.

10. Consonance – repetition of the consonant sound

in a succession of words.

10
 Onomatopeia

“The moan of doves in immemorial elms,

And murmuring of innumerable bees.”

- Come Down, O Maid (By Alfred Lord Tennyson)

11
 Alliteration

“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes;

A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.”

- Romeo and Juliet (By William Shakespeare)

12
 Assonance

“When I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,

Before high-piled books, in charactery,

Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain …”

- When I have Hears (By John Keats)

13
 Consonance

“Rap rejects my tape deck, ejects projectile

Whether Jew or gentile, I rank top percentile

Many styles, more powerful than gamma rays

My grammar pays, like Carlos Santana plays.”

- Zealots (By Fugees)

14
11. Metonymy – a figurative representation of one
thing for another.

12. Apostrophe – a direct address to an inanimate

object, a dead person, an absent person, or an idea.

13. Synecdoche - is a literary device in which a part

of something represents the whole, or it may use a
whole to represent a part.

14. Anaphora - the deliberate repetition of the first

part of the sentence in order to achieve an artistic
effect.

15. Epistrophe – repetition of words at the end of the

lines, clauses, or sentences.
15