Figurativ Language of poetry.docVIP

PAGE  PAGE 6 FIGURATIVE SPEECH Robert Frost, one of the most famous twentieth-century poets, once said, “Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another.” Of course, this is an exaggeration, but it does underlining the importance of figurative language—saying one thing in terms of another. Words have a literal meaning that can be looked up in any dictionary, but they can also be employed so that something other than that literal dictionary is intended. What is impossible or difficult to convey to a reader through the literal use of language may be highly possible through the use of figures of speech, also called tropes. Figures of speech make language significant, moving and fascinating. “My love is a rose” is, when taken at face value, ridiculous, for few people love a plant with a prickly, thorny stem. But “rose” suggests many other possible interpretations—delicate beauty, something soft and rare, a costly item, etc. —and so it can be implied in a figurative sense to mean “love” or “loved one.” If a reader comes across the phrase “Brutus growled,” the reader is forced, if the poem has indicated that Brutus is human, to accept “growled” in a nonliteral manner. We understand that it is likely that the poet is suggesting that Brutus sounded like an animal, perhaps a lion or a bear, and indicates Brutus’s irritation or unrest. The author calls forth the suggestion of wild animals to describe Brutus most vividly and accurately. This is far more effective than saying “Brutus spoke roughly” or “Brutus acted like a loud person.” By using a vivid figure of speech, the author calls the reader’s imagination into play. Allegory Allegory occurs when one idea or object is represented in the shape of another. “In medieval morality plays and in some poems, abstract ideas, such as virtues and vices, appear as people. In this way the reader can understand a moral or a lesson more easily. In Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I Could Not Stop fo