Figures of Speech
This device gives human qualities to non-human things. “The wind whispered through the trees.”
Personification
STARTING many words with the same consonant or vowel sound (e.g., “sweet silent thought”).
Alliteration
A comparison using “like” or “as.”
“Brave as a lion.”
Simile
Repetition of vowel + following sounds in words.
“cat / hat,” “glow / snow”
Rhyme
When reality differs from expectations; or words mean the opposite.
A fire station burns down
Irony
An exaggerated statement not meant to be taken literally (e.g., “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse”).
Hyperbole
A word that imitates a sound (e.g., “buzz,” “bam”).
Onomatopoeia
A comparison without using “like” or “as.”
“Time is a thief.”
Metaphor
Rhyme that happens inside a single line.
“I drove myself to the lake / and dove into the wake.”
Internal rhyme
A related object represents something larger (e.g., “the White House said…”)
Metonymy
A direct address to an absent/dead person or an abstract quality. “Oh Death, where is your sting?”
Apostrophe
Words that almost rhyme but don’t perfectly match in sound (e.g., heart / star, shape / keep)
Slant/End rhyme
Two opposite ideas in parallel structure (e.g., “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”).
Antithesis
Unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter
Shakespeare: “To be, or not to be, that is the question…”
Blank verse
A story in which characters or events represent deeper moral or political meanings.
Animal Farm = symbolism for political systems
Allegory
A word or phrase that stands for a part of something and yet represents the whole “All hands on deck.” (hands = sailors)
Synecdoche
Repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words
“The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.”
Assonance
A statement that seems contradictory but is true.
“The only constant is change.”
Paradox
A pattern of stressed/unstressed syllables.
iambic: da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM (e.g., “delay, today, escape”)
Meter
A type of metaphor that does not directly name the comparison but strongly suggests it (e.g., “He barked orders all day”).
Implied metaphor
A metaphorical phrase from Anglo-Saxon poetry used to name something indirectly (example: “whale-road” = the sea).
Kenning
Repetition of consonant sounds (not only at the start).
“The freaky flock of fluffy feathers.”
Consonance
Two contradictory words combined (e.g., “deafening silence”).
Oxymoron
Poetry without rhyme or regular rhythm.
Poetry that reads with natural speech, like much of Walt Whitman’s work
Free verse
Describing one sense using terms from another (e.g.,
“Loud colors,” “sweet sound,” “cold voice”
Synesthesia