Some figures of Speech

• The simile: here two dissimilar things are compared to each other. There are two kinds of simile namely the simple simile and the Homeric or Epic simile. In the simple simile the comparison is without any elaboration. Thus it is brief and direct. In the Homeric or Epic simile there is an adaptation of writers like Homer or Virgil.

                    Example- She is as beautiful as Rose-   simple simile

The great brand

Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon

And flashing round and round, and whirled in an arch

Shot like a streamer of the Northern morn,

Seen where the moving of winter shock (by Tennyson)-    Epic simile

• The Metaphor:  here the comparison between two indifferent things is left implied or we can say that it is not expressed clearly.

Example- Chaucer is the morning star of English poetry.

                  Padma is the lotus of her village.

• Mixed or confused Metaphor– when different metaphors are applicable to a single object then it is known as Mixed or confused Metaphor.

Example- I smell a rat but I will nip it in the bud.

• Personification– it is also a kind of metaphor but here inanimate things are treated like a person.

Example – can honor’s voice provoke the silent dust

                   Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

• Pathetic Fallacy:- it is also a kind of personification where nature is personified strongly and it is supposed that nature takes an interest in human action.

Example – Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,

                   Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe.

                   That all was lost. (Paradise Lost)

• Apostrophe:- if any personified abstract quality or idea, any dead person or any inanimate object is directly addressed and it seems that they are present then it is Apostrophe.

Example-  Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour

                    England hath need of thee.

• Allegory:- it is a kind of narrative description where we can find story within a story.  Spenser’s Faerie queene and Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan are the best examples of allegory in Literature.

• Syncdoeche :- it is a kind of figure of speech in which a part can reflect the whole or the whole can reflect a part.

Example- Silver and gold(money)have I none.