Figures of Speech/ Literary Devices
Updated: Jun 19
1. Simile: Used to compare two different things having a common quality.
e.g. She shall be sportive as the fawn
The soul was like a star, and dwelt apart.
He ran the race like a horse.
2. Metaphor: It refers to implied simile in which two things are treated as one.
The camel is the ship of the desert.
I see a lily on thy brow. ( John Keats)
When I consider how my light is spent (John Milton)
3. Personification : Used to represent inanimate, lifeless objects & abstract ideas as living beings.
The sun shed his beams on rich & poor alike.
Peace has her victories no less renowned than war.
The moon kisses flowers at night.
4. Oxymoron: Used to express two contradictory qualities of the same thing.
Everybody witnessed the living death of the hero.
She accepted it as the kind cruelty of the surgeon's knife.
5. Antithesis: Two contrasting or opposite ideas are set side by side to achieve emphasis.
Man proposes, God disposes.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
To err is human , to forgive is divine. ( Alexander Pope)
6. Pun: Words having similar sound but different meanings used for some comic effect.
If a woman loses her husband, she pines for a second.
An ambassador is an honest man who lies abroad for the good of his country.
Is life worth living?
7. Epigram: Use to express two antithetical or contradictory ideas.
cowards die many times before their death.
Child is the father of man.
They also serve who stand & wait. ( John Milton)
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
8. Transferred Epithet: an epithet which properly belongs to one object is transferred to another with which it has some sort of association.
The plough man plods his weary way.
I lay all night on my sleepless pillow.
Note: Weary and sleepless are supposed to be used with humans , but used here with inanimate objects like way and pillow. So epithets have been transferred from one place to another. Hence, transferred epithets.
9. Hyperbole: Used to make a fact exaggeration in order to make a more effective impressions in the mind of the reader.
All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. ( William Shakespeare from Macbeth)
Love is not time's fool. ( William Shakespeare)
Ten thousand saw I at a glance. ( William Wordsworth from Daffodils)
10. Apostrophe: When an inanimate thing or abstract quality or an absent person is addressed like a living human being, the figure is called apostrophe.
O Grave, where is thy victory?
O Solitude ! Where are thy charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
O ! death ! where is thy sting?
Frailty ! Thy name is woman.
11. Allusion: Reference to a historical event or to a mythical or literary figure.
Since my school days Maths has been my Achilles Heel. ( Reference to the week spot of Achilles, the greatest warrior to fight in the Trojan War)
I have met my Waterloo ( Reference to the Belgium town where Napoleon lost a make-or- break battle)
12. Metonymy: Change of name stands for the substitution of the name of one thing for that of another having a certain relation in them .
He is reading Shakespeare.
The delay is due to red-tapism.
the bottle has made him a drunkard.
Grey hairs should be respected.
13. Climax : ideas or words arranged in ascending order of importance.
I cam, I saw, I conquered.
To strive , to seek , to find and not to yield. ( also antithesis)
14. Anit-climax or Bathos: Opposite to climax.
She lost her husband, her child, her goods and her umbrella.
Poets are pigs are not appreciated until they are dead.
15. Pathetic Fallacy: inanimate objects are represented as sharing in human feelings by way of sympathy or otherwise ( i.e when we attribute human feelings to external & inanimate nature)
Note: the name was given by Ruskin because he thought that it was a fallacy or a mistake of the poet to attribute pathos or feelings to an inanimate object.
Earth cries for her murdered children.
The wind heaved a deep sign over the grave.
Crossword Puzzle Activity based on Figures of Speech
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