Figurative Language: Images and Symbols

Dr Frances McCormack

Figurative language

‘figures of speech’

Words or phrases that are not meant to be taken literally: ‘you are the apple of my eye’; ‘look before you leap’; ‘love is blind’; ‘there are plenty more fish in the sea’

Don’t be over-eager to ‘decode’ meanings in poems…

‘Figures of speech enable the poet to say one thing in terms of something else. They bring together two things that are both similar and different--and it is in the relationship between them that the poet finds meaning. Figurative language thus enriches the semantic possibilities of a poem because the images created can communicate on two levels: they represent physical experience and simultaneously function as a thematic signpost’ (Thorne, 74-5)

Metaphor

A comparison which speaks of one thing as though it were another.

Tenor: the object being described in the metaphor

Vehicle: the thing/idea in terms of which that object is being described

Ground: the similarity between the tenor and the vehicle

‘An Englishman’s home is his castle’

Metaphor

Gk metaphero “to carry over”, “to transfer”

Transfer of word or idea from one context to another

Metaphors add a deeper layer of meaning to a text

But, there are dead metaphors: ‘no stone will be left unturned’. These metaphors have been so overused that we don’t pay any attention to the ground anymore.

Conceit

‘When a metaphor is extended and explored so that it becomes the governing idea of a poem’ (Williams, 224).

Also known as an extended metaphor.

Especially popular among metaphysical poets.

Often witty.

‘The Flea’, by John Donne

The Flea: consummation of a relationship

Three stanzas, each nine lines long. Stanzas rhyme aabbccddd

Alternating lines of tetrameter and pentameter

Seduction poem

Flea is an unlikely symbol for their love: conceit

‘The Flea’, by John Donne

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yrSGRWTOzQ&feature=related

‘The Thought Fox’, by Ted Hughes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NO-XOCbacI

What strikes you?

Sound effects: alliteration in first line; assonance

First two lines in final stanza: striking

Fox as a symbol in literature and culture.

‘I imagine…’: unrealistic

‘creeping’ lines…

‘The Twa Corbies’, Anonymous

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSL0QO54JpM&feature=related

‘The Twa Corbies’, by Anonymous

As I was walking all alane,I heard twa corbies makin a mane;The tane unto the ither say,"Whar sall we gang and dine the-day?”

"In ahint yon auld fail dyke,I wot there lies a new slain knight;And nane do ken that he lies there,But his hawk, his hound an his lady fair.”

"His hound is tae the huntin gane,His hawk tae fetch the wild-fowl hame, His lady's tain anither mate,So we may mak oor dinner swate.”

"Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,And I'll pike oot his bonny blue een;Wi ae lock o his gowden hair We'll theek oor nest whan it grows bare.”

Mony a one for him makes mane,But nane sall ken whar he is gane;Oer his white banes, whan they are bare,The wind sall blaw for evermair."

‘The Eagle’, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLn8d3sVc8A

Simile

A comparison made between two distinct things, using ‘like’ or ‘as’

‘And like a thunderbolt, he falls’

Ambiguous: ‘falling’ suggests a sense of defeat; but ‘thunderbolt’ is destructive