Identify Figurative Language
"You are beautiful and faded
Like an old opera tune
What is a simile?
"Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor."
What does the word "ember" mean here?
What is a spark from the fire?
"You are beautiful and faded
Like an old opera tune"
What is the meaning of the simile?
It is comparing the person to an old opera tune, and saying they are beautiful and old in a good way.
They stretched in a never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
What is a hyperbole?
“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This it is and nothing more.”
What does the word "entreating" mean here?
What is trying to enter, or seaking?
What is the meaning of this personification?
"And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor."
The sparks are dying out like people who become ghosts.
Let them be as flowers, always watered, fed, guarded, admired, but harnessed to a pot of dirt. I’d rather be a tall, ugly weed,
What is a metaphor?
What type of rhyme is used in this quote? "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,"
What is internal rhyme?
"Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;"
What does the word "yore" mean here?
What is long ago?
What is the meaning of this simile?
“look like the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under't”
Look innocent, but be malicious and evil in secret.
"Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,"
What does the word "countenance" mean here?
What is a facial expression?
Analyze the meaning of the personification is in the poem: "Have you got a brook in your little heart, Where bashful flowers blow, And blushing birds go down to drink, And shadows tremble so?" Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, Have You Got A Brook In Your Little Heart
The speaker is comparing the person's heart and feelings to a bashful flower, a blushing brook, and a shadow that trembles so the person is nervous and scared.
Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden1 sank to grief, So Dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
What is allusion?
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—"
What does the word "grim" mean here?
What is depressing, sad, forbidding?
What is the tone of this poem?
Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden1 sank to grief, So Dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
What is sad, grief-filled?
What is the metaphor in this poem?
Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden1 sank to grief, So Dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
The speaker is comparing nature's greenness (youth) to gold (wealth), so it's saying that everyone grows old and everything will die even though we would all like to stay young forever.