Literary Devices: Metaphor, Antithesis, Personification
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Metaphor
A metaphor identifies a word with another, replacing an idea with a more expressive one. If a comparison uses a comparative link (such as "like" or "as"), it becomes a metaphor.
- The cypress is a water fountain.
- The sigh escaping from your strawberry mouth. (Strawberry = red and sweet.)
Sometimes, the actual term of the metaphor appears; this is a pure metaphor.
- The sweet mouth that invites you to taste a joke among distilled pearls...
"Pearls" is a metaphor for "teeth".
Antithesis
Antithesis relates two words that oppose each other.
- Sleep was yesterday; tomorrow is land!
- Shortly before, nothing, and shortly after, smoke!
It was - is, sleep - land, yesterday - morning, shortly before - shortly after. Opposing words are used to attract attention.
Personification (Prosopopoeia)
Personification attributes human qualities to inanimate or irrational beings.
With my stones, soften their natural hardness and break; the trees seem to bend; birds that are heard when singing, with a different voice, condole, and I guess I die singing.
Epithet
An epithet uses adjectives, usually placed before nouns, to add liveliness and color, but they do not add any new meaning.
- For you, the green grass, the cool wind,
- white lily and pink,
- sweet spring wanted.
Hyperbaton
Hyperbaton changes the normal order of words in a sentence.
- This, then, yawn formidable land the melancholy emptiness.
The logical order would be: "The melancholic yawning emptiness of this formidable land."
Anaphora
Anaphora repeats a word or words at the beginning of sentences.
- I left for you my woods...
- I stopped trembling, I left a jolt.
- I left my shadow...
- I left sad doves near a river.
- I stopped to smell the sea, I stopped seeing you.
Asyndeton
Asyndeton is the deliberate suppression of conjunctions or links connecting sentences or words.
- Come, run, fly,
- high mountain passes, took the plain,
- not forgive the spur,
- not give peace at hand,
- withering wag iron ins
Polysyndeton
Polysyndeton is the union of several sentences or words with unnecessary links.
- And there it is recognized, and grows and launches,
- and advances and foams up, and jumps and trusts,
- and cleaves and late in the running water, singing,...