POETRY “Figures of Speech”

POETRY  “Figures of Speech”

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Figurative speech is speech which employs various figures of speech. So, it is kind of expression in which words are used out of  their ordinary use with the aim to add beauty or emotional strength and to transfer the poet's sense impressions by comparing or identifying one thing with another that has a meaning familiar to the reader. Some examples of figures of speech are: metaphor,simile, personification, hyperbole, understatement, metonymy, paradox,and paronomasia.

Such as this example; “I will speak daggers to her, but use none,” says Hamlet, preparing to confront his mother. His statement makes sense only because we realize that daggers is to be taken two ways: literally (denoting sharp, pointed weapons) and nonliterally (referring to something that can be used like weapons-namely, words). Sometimes also use figurative to exaggerate statements, to attribute qualities of an object, to indicate human characteristic to non human,

In reading poetry, we often meet comparisons between two things whose similarity we have never noticed before. Like imagery, figurative language refers us to the physical words. Use the figurative in poem will give the poem power and they are more than just ways of playing with words.

CHAPTER II

CONTENT

·         Metaphor

Metaphor is used to attribute qualities to an object not normally related with those qualities. Example:

Love is the wild card of existence

Oh, my love is a red, red rose.

·         Simile

Simile is a similar can be a direct comparison between two things aren’t particularly similar in there essence. It indicates by some connective, usually like, as, than, or a verb such as resembles. Here are examples:

Oh, my love is like a red, red rose.                             

Oh, my love resembles a red, red rose.                      

Oh, my love is redder than a rose.                             

If we are aware of the connotations of red rose (beauty, softness, freshness, etc), then the line “My love is like a red, red rose” need not to call to mind a woman with a scarlet face and a thorny neck.

·         Personification

It is a process of assigning human characteristic to non human objects, abstraction or ideas. See James Stephens’ poem in first stanza in his poem titled The Wind:

The wind stood up and gave a shout.             

He whistled on his fingers and           

It means that the wind is a wild man, and evidently it is not just any autumn breeze but a hurricane or at least a stiff gale.

·         Hyperbole

Hyperbole is a figure of speech which employs exaggeration used for rhetorical effect. The effect of hyperbole in this particular instance and in many other in fiction is a dramatic heightening. Example: “Vaster than empires, and more slow”. Hyperbole can be used also for humorous purposes, as; “Every time I shake, some skinny gal loses her home.”

·         Metonymy

The substitution of a word closely associated with another word in place of that other word. Such as this example:

Is all the proud and mighty have

Between the cradle and the grave,

We know that cradle and grave signify birth and death. And between them is a life.

·         Paradox

Paradox occurs in a statement that at first strikes us as self-contradictory but than just reflection makes some sense. Example: “Lives in a larger world than the globe-trotter.” two different meanings of larger are contrasted: “greater in spiritual values” versus “greater in miles”.

CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

             Personifying objects can be an easy description of another thing. Through metonymy, a poet can focus our attention on a particular detail in a larger object; using hyperbole make us see the physical actuality in back of words. paradox cause us to realize this actuality and enjoyably at the same time. Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another.

References

·         How to analyze poetry. Christopher Russell Reaske. Monarch press.

·         Steinmann, Martin and Gerald Willen. Literature for Writing(second edition. California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 2004

In this chapter, the writer wants to analyze the poem from unknown author that implied some figures of speech.

Love is a dream

Love is a dream
Its gone as we wake up
Leaving some moments
To be cherished

Love is like a wind
It embraces us with passion
leaving the scent of fresh flowers
tingling our mind

Love is like a water bubble
Beautiful to see from far
Even rainbows are visible
But a tender touch will break it
Leaving a refreshing sprinkle

Love resembles a shadow
We try to escape but it follow
At times it makes us hollow
It disappears with the sun
And leave us in the Nights
To Haunt all over again

My love race along to your heart than water racing

Is all soft and strong

Between the mountain and beach

·         Metaphor

The data: according to poem “Love Is a Dream”

a.       In stanza I: Love is a dream

Comment: in my analysis for love is a dream is that human usually doesn’t realize that the love has been coming to their hearts. As dream that comes while people sleeping. It gone as we wake up and leave some moments

·         Simile

The data:

a.       In stanza II: Love is like a wind

b.      In stanza III: Love is like a water bubble

c.       In stanza IV: Love resembles a shadow

Comment: according to the data above, the author describe love as wind means that wind blow and vestige some senses of memories. And the author considers that love is beautiful by imagining it as rainbow that seems in water’s flow.

·         Personification

The data:

a.      In stanza II: It embraces us with passion

b.      In stanza III: But a tender touch will break it

Comment: based on the data that it refer to wind that imagined it can hold human with a strong feeling. Another one described that love as air ball that broke if someone touches it.

·         Hyperbole

The data:

a.       In stanza IV: At times it makes us hollow

Comment: in my analysis that love sometimes suddenly disappear by the time. So, the author uses the exaggeration word to show the reader how it happened.

·         Metonymy

The data:

a.       in stanza V: Between the mountain and beach

Comment: according to data, between the mountain and beach have meaning between them is a water flow.

·         Paradox

The data:

a.       in stanza V: My love race along to your heart than water racing

Comment: according to data, it has some reflection to make some sense between two different meaning races along the heart and the water racing.

By:Puput Putri Zakiyah