Lovely Lorelie D.

Planos

BSA2-A

ENGLISH 3

Sensory imagery - is any description that involves one or more of the five senses -- touch, sight, taste, smell
and sound. Poetry that is rich in sensory detail helps the reader perfectly envision the scene the poet is
describing.
Imagery means to use figurative language to represent objects, actions and ideas in such a way that it
appeals to our physical senses.
Allusion
The use allusions are not confined to literature alone. Their occurrence is fairly common in our daily speech.
Look at some common allusion examples in everyday life:

Dont act like a Romeo in front of her. Romeo is a reference to Shakespeares Romeo, a
passionate lover of Juliet, in Romeo and Juliet.

The rise in poverty will unlock the Pandoras box of crimes. This is an allusion to one of Greek
Mythologys origin myth, Pandoras box.

This place is like a Garden of Eden. This is a biblical allusion to the garden of God in the Book of
Genesis.

Hey! Guess who the new Newton of our school is? Newton, means a genius student, alludes to a
famous scientist Isaac Newton.

Stop acting like my ex-husband please. Apart from scholarly allusions we refer to common people
and places in our speech.

Apostrophe
- In poetry, an apostrophe is a term used when a speaker directly addresses someone or something that
isn't present in the poem. The speaker could be addressing an abstract concept like love, a person (dead or
alive), a place, or even a thing, like the sun or the sea.
- In poetry, an apostrophe is a figure of speech in which the poet addresses an absent person, an abstract
idea, or a thing.
- When a character in a literary work speaks to an object, an idea, or someone who doesn't exist as if it is a
living person. This is done to produce dramatic effect and to show the importance of the object or idea.
Examples of Apostrophe:
1. Oh, rose, how sweet you smell and how bright you look!
2. Car, please get me to work today.
3. Oh, trees, how majestic you are as you throw down your golden leaves.
4. Dear love, please don't shoot me with your Cupid's bow.
Hyperbole, derived from a Greek word meaning over-casting is a figure of speech, which involves an
exaggeration of ideas for the sake of emphasis. It is a device that we employ in our day-to-day speech.
- A hyperbole is a literary device wherein the author uses specific words and phrases that exaggerate and
overemphasize the basic crux of the statement in order to produce a grander, more noticeable effect.
The purpose of hyperbole is to create a larger-than-life effect and overly stress a specific point. Such
sentences usually convey an action or sentiment that is generally not practically/ realistically possible or
plausible but helps emphasize an emotion.
Example:
She was stone cold
I am so tired I cannot walk another inch or Im so sleepy I might fall asleep standing here.
"I'm so hungry I could eat a horse."
"they laughed their brains out"

Litotes is a figure of speech which employs an understatement by using double negatives or, in other
words, positive statement is expressed by negating its opposite expressions.
They do not seem the happiest couple around.

The ice cream was not too bad.

New York is not an ordinary city.

Your comments on politics are not useless.

You are not as young as you used to be.

I cannot disagree with your point of view.

William Shakespeare was not a bad playwright at all.

He is not the cleverest person I have ever met.

She is not unlike her mother.

Ken Adams is not an ordinary man

A million dollars is not a little amount.

You are not doing badly at all.

Your apartment is not unclean.

A metaphor is a rhetorical figure of speech that compares two subjects without the use of like or as.

It was raining cats and dogs.

Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

A watched pot never boils.

A metonymy is a word or phrase that is used to stand in for another word. Sometimes a metonymy is
chosen because it is a well-known characteristic of the word.
- Metonymy is a figure of speech in which something is called by a new name that is related in meaning to
the original thing or concept.

The big houseRefers to prison

The penCan refer to prison or to the act of writing

Stuffed shirtsPeople in positions of authority, especially in a business setting

The crowna royal person

Oxymoron- As with many other literary and rhetorical devices, oxymorons are used for a variety of
purposes. Sometimes they are used to create some sort of drama for the reader or listener, and sometimes
they are used to make the person stop and think, whether it's to laugh or to ponder.

kill with kindness

old news
small giant
original copy
even odds
elevated subway

Paradox- The paradox may be hard or even impossible to believe, yet usually the contradiction can be
reconciled if the reader thinks about the juxtaposition more deeply.
Examples of Paradox

Your enemys friend is your enemy.

I am nobody.

What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young. George Bernard Shaw

Wise fool

Truth is honey which is bitter.

I can resist anything but temptation. Oscar Wilde

Personification is a figure of speech in which a thing, an idea or an animal is given human attributes. The
non-human objects are portrayed in such a way that we feel they have the ability to act like human beings.

Look at my car. She is a beauty, isnt it so?

The wind whispered through dry grass.

The flowers danced in the gentle breeze.

Time and tide waits for none.

The fire swallowed the entire forest.

Simile is an explicit comparison between two unlike things through the use of connecting words, usually
like or as.

Our soldiers are as brave as lions.

Her cheeks are red like a rose.

He is as funny as a monkey.

The water well was as dry as a bone.

Synecdoche is a literary device in which a part of something represents the whole or it may use a whole to
represent a part.

Boots on the groundrefers to soldiers

New wheelsrefers to a new car

Ask for her handrefers to asking a woman to marry

Suitscan refer to businesspeople

Plasticcan refer to credit cards

The White Housecan refer to statements made by individuals within the United States government
Irony is a figure of speech in which words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different
from the actual meaning of the words.

I posted a video on YouTube about how boring and useless YouTube is.

The name of Britains biggest dog was Tiny.

You laugh at a person who slipped stepping on a banana peel and the next thing you know, you
slipped too.

The butter is as soft as a marble piece.

Oh great! Now you have broken my new camera.