DIRECTIONS: On another sheet of paper, write another example for each term/device to turn in.

If you cant think of one

on your own, you may look one up. KEEP THIS LIST and study the correct definitions and examples given for the EOC
and for a future worksheet and/or quiz in class.

Literal language means exactly what it says, literally
Figurative language creative way of making a point, without literally meaning exactly what is said
Figure of Speech devices that use creative, figurative language (for emphasis or to make a certain point)

Figures of Speech / Figurative Language

Aphorism saying that makes some wise or clever observation about life; advice (EXAMPLE: The early bird gets the worm.)

Euphemism - Substitution of a less harsh, inoffensive term for one considered offensive/explicit.
(EXAMPLE: saying passed away instead of died)

Hyperbole - An exaggerated statement used for emphasis or heightened effect. EXAMPLE: Ive told you a million times!

Idiom The meaning of the phrase cannot be understood by the meanings of the individual words; Form of expression
often used by people from a certain area/region. (EXAMPLE: Its raining cats and dogs.)

Irony -Statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted (opposite) by the appearance or presentation of words,
situation, or idea
A) dramatic irony audience knows something that the character does not
B) situational irony what occurs is opposite than expected or what usually happens;Cancer researcher dies of cancer
C) verbal irony Use of words to convey opposite of literal meaning (Example: sarcasm)

Metaphor - An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have something important in common.
(EXAMPLE: That student is a sponge when learning new facts.)

Oxymoron -Incongruous orcontradictory words/terms side by side for special meaning. (EXAMPLE: bittersweet
memory)

Paradox - A statement that appears to contradict itself. (EXAMPLE: It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.)

Personification - A figure of speech in which an inanimate/nonliving object or abstract quality is given human qualities
or abilities, like it is a person. (EXAMPLE: The wind whispered through dry grass)

Pun - A play on words, sometimes on the different meaning of the same word and sometimes on the similar meaning
or sound of different words. (EXAMPLE: My fear of planes has taken off.)

Simile - Stated comparison (like a metaphor, but using"like" or "as") between two things mostly unlike, to make a point
about something they have in common.
(EXAMPLE: When I first get up in the morning, I move as slow as molasses in winter.)

Understatement - Figure of speech in which a writer or speaker deliberately makes a situation seem less important or
serious than it is.

Poetic Devices, Rhythm & Rhyme

Alliteration - repetition of the same beginning sound in two or more words that appear close
together in a phrase or line(s) of poetry and arent an exact rhyme; Usually beginning
consonant sound, but not always EXAMPLES: knows nature ... summer smoke circled ... cold around the campfire

Assonance - Repetition of the same vowel sound (short and long sounds of a, e, i, o, u) within words that appear close
together in a phrase or line(s) of poetry and arent an exact rhyme (EXAMPLE: sleep, bleeds, meat)

Consonance - Repetition of the same consonant sound (b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l ...) within words that appear close together in a
phrase or line(s) of poetry and arent an exact rhyme EXAMPLE: The unleashed dog came crashing through the room.

Onomatopoeia - A word that sounds like it is spelled or what it means; Imitates the sound associated with the object or
action it refers to. (EXAMPLES: buzz, ring, pow)

Rhyme Scheme the pattern of rhyming words at the end of lines of poetry or verse. (The last word in the first line is
automatically labeled A, and the last word in the next line is labeled A if it rhymes with the first line or B if it does not. Next
letters of the alphabet are assigned to all lines of the poem, depending on which previous word the line rhymes with, if any, in order to
determine the overall rhyme scheme/pattern.)
EXAMPLE: Roses are red, A
Violets are blue. B
Sugar is sweet, C
And so are you. B
(SEE NEXT PAGE)

Countee Cullen was an African American poet who wrote in the first decades of the twentieth century, a time when African
Americans had little social power.

From the Dark Tower
Label the Rhyme Scheme:
We shall not always plant while others reap ___
The golden increment of bursting fruit, ___
Not always countenance, abject and mute, ___
That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap; ___
Not everlastingly while others sleep ___
Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute, ___
Not always bend to some more subtle brute; ___
We were not made eternally to weep. ___

The night whose sable breast relieves the stark, ___
White stars is no less lovely being dark, ___
And there are buds that cannot bloom at all ___
In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall; ___
So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, ___
And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds. ___

- by Countee Cullen


The Fawn
Label the Rhyme Scheme:
There it was I saw what I shall never forget ___
And never retrieve. ___
Monstrous and beautiful to human eyes, hard to believe, ___
He lay, yet there he lay, ___
Asleep on the moss, his head on his polished cleft small ebony hooves, ___
The child of the doe, the dappled child of the deer. ___

Surely his mother had never said, Lie here ___
Till I return, so spotty and plain to see ___
On the green moss lay he. ___
His eyes opened; he considered me. ___

I would have given more than I care to say ___
To thrifty ears, might I have had him for my friend ___
One moment only of that forest day: ___

Might I have had the acceptance, not the love ___
Of those clear eyes; ___
Might I have been for him the bough above ___
Or the root beneath his forest bed, ___
A part of the forest, seen without surprise. ___

Was it alarm, or was it the wind of my fear lest he depart ___
That jerked him to his jointy knees, ___
And sent him crashing off, leaping and stumbling ___
On his new legs, between the stems of the white trees? ___

Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Fawn. c1956 by Norma Millay Ellis