This document defines and provides examples of various types of figurative language and sound devices used in poetry. It discusses figurative language techniques like simile, metaphor, personification, and irony. It also explains sound devices such as repetition, rhyme, rhythm, onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, cacophony, and euphony which poets use to reinforce meaning and create musicality in their works. Examples are provided to illustrate how each technique is employed.

1. Figurative Language
Figures of Speech

2. Figurative Language
 ornaments of language
 imaginative leap in order to
comprehend the author’s point

3. Figurative Language
 imaginative pleasure
 additional imagery verse
Making abstract concrete
 making poetry sensuous
 adding emotional intensity
means of concentration

4. Kinds of figures of speech
 Simile
 Metaphor
 Personification
 Apostrophe
 Paradox
 Allusion
 Irony
 Symbol
 Hyperbole
 Understatement
 Oxymoron
Metonymy
 Synechdoche
Antithesis

5. SIMILE
An explicit comparison is made
between two things essentially unlike by
the use of some such word or phrase as
like as, than, similar to, resembles,
compare, or seems.
 You were as brave as a lion.

6. METAPHOR
An implicit comparison is
made between two things
essentially unlike.
 The curtain of night fell

7. personification
Human attributes are given
to an animal, an object or a
concept.
 My alarm clock yells at me every

8. apostrophe
Someone absent or dead or
something non-human is addressed
as if it were alive and present and
could reply.
Car, please get me to work today.

9. paradox
A statement or situation containing
apparently contradictory or incompatible
elements. At first reading, paradox seems
unintelligible or absurd but at a closer
reading, it can communicate real truth.
Nobody goes to the restaurant because it's

10. allusion
A reference, explicit or implicit, to
something in previous literature or history
to broaden the context and deepen the
meaning of the piece of writing.
Your backyard is a Garden of Eden.
(Biblical allusion)

11. irony
Always implies some sort of discrepancy or
incongruity: between what is said and what is
meant, or between appearance and reality, or
between expectation and fulfillment. It is a dryly
humorous or lightly sarcastic mode or speech, in
which words are used to convey a meaning
contrary to their literal sense.

12. symbol
Something (object, person,
situation or action) means more
than what it is; may be read both
literally and metaphorically.
Black is used to

13. hyperbole
Exaggeration is used for
the purpose of emphasis
and in the service of truth.
If I can’t get a Smartphone, I will
die.

14. understatement
It is the opposite of hyperbole. It is the
deliberate underplaying or undervaluing of a
thing and mutes the expression of an emotion,
idea or situation. The irony created by saying
less than one means intensifies the effect.
“He is not too thin.” –

15. oxymoron
Two opposite or contrasting
words are jammed or put
together.
 open secret

16. metonymy
The name of one object is
replaced by another which is
closely associated with it.
We will swear loyalty to
the crown.

17. synecdoche
A part is used for the whole.
Check out my new
wheels.

18. antithesis
There is a marked contrast in words or clauses, as
well as in ideas, in order to emphasize both parts
of the contrast.
"Man proposes, God
disposes.”

19. Sound-effect devices
 The poet uses the sound as a means
of reinforcing meaning.
 Verbal music
Communicate mere information
 adjunct to the total meaning or
communication of the poem

20. Sound-effect devices
 Repetition
 Rhyme
 Rhythm
 Onomatopoeia
 Alliteration
 Consonace
Assonance
Cacophony
Euphony

21. repetition
A basic artistic device, fundamental to any conception of poetry. It is
a highly effective unifying force; the repetition of sound, syllables,
words, syntactic, elements, lines, stanzaic forms, and metrical
patterns establishes cycles of expectation which are reinforced with
each successive fulfillment.
If you think you can do it, you can do
it.

22. rhyme
 A type of echoing which utilizes a correspondence of sound in the final accented vowels
and all that follows of two or more words, but the preceding consonant sounds must differ,
as in the words bear and care.
 In broader poetic sense, however, rhyme refers to a close similarity of sound as well as an
exact correspondence; it includes the agreement of vowel sounds in assonance and the
repetition of consonant sounds in consonance and alliteration.
 Usually, but not always, rhymes occur at the ends of lines.
Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full!
One for the master, one for the dame,
And one for the little boy who lives down the lane.

23. rhythm
The regular or progressive pattern of recurrent accents in the flow of
a poem as determined by the arses and theses of the metrical feet,
i.e., the rise and fall of stress. The measure of rhythmic quantity is
the meter.
Stressed syllables - long sounding
Unstressed syllables - short sounding
Foot Type Pattern Example Rhythm
Iamb unstressed/stressed Today buh BUH
Trochee stressed/unstressed Trochee BUH buh
Spondee stressed/stressed hip hop BUH BUH
Anapest
unstressed/unstressed/stres
sed
Metaphor buh buh BUH
Dactyl
stressed/unstressed/unstres
sed
syllable BUH buh buh

24. onomatopoeia
The formation or used of words which imitate sounds, but the term
is generally expanded to refer to any word whose sound is
suggestive of its meaning whether by imitation or through cultural
inference.
I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air –
Between the Heaves of Storm

25. Alliteration
Also called head rhyme or initial rhyme, it is the
repetition of the initial sounds (usually
consonants) of stressed syllables in neighboring
words or at short intervals within a line or
passage, usually at word beginnings.
 Tongue Twister

26. consonance
The repetition of internal consonant
sounds.
Shelley sells shells by the seash

27. assonance
The rhyming of a word with another in
one or more of their accented vowels,
but not in their consonants; sometimes
called vowel rhyme.
 Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden Bells!

28. cacophony
The discordant sounds in the jarring
juxtaposition of harsh letters or syllables
which are grating to the ear, usually
inadvertent, but sometimes deliberately
used in poetry for effect.
I detest war because cause of war is
always trivial.

29. euphony
The harmony or beauty of sound which provides a pleasing effect to
the ear, usually sought-for in poetry for effect. It is achieved not
only by the selection of individual word-sounds, but also by their
arrangement in the repetition, proximity and flow of sound patterns.
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need. Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory,