FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

IN POETRY
Poems renew our sense of the world of language,
and thereby make us better equipped with the
many vicissitudes of life.
Individual poets vary widely in the degree of
unnaturalness they introduce to their readings,
but in virtually all cases their goal is the same: to
destabilize the familiar world of their listeners, to
make them hear anew.

It is not the subject that makes her work poetic, but
rather her approach to that subject.
The effect of poetry depends on the combination
of a number of elements (concision, imagery,
grammatical parallelism, sound organization). It is
this constant and complex interplay that
distinguishes poetry not simply from newspapers,
but from virtually all prose. While a novel or short
story will undoubtedly reveal more careful
organization than a newspaper article, it will never
achieve the concentration and variety of
patterning found in poetry.

Every figure of speech can be divided into TWO
parts corresponding to what is literally said and
what is meant.
What is literally said, when it stands for something
else, may be termed the image. What is meant,
what the image stands for, may be called the
subject.

Of the hundreds of figures of speech, four have
been singled out by the literary theorist Kenneth
Burke as figures of thought, as indispensible means
to the discovery and representation of reality.
The four master tropes are metaphor, metonymy,
synecdoche, and irony.

METONYMY
Metonymy is substitution of the name of an attribute
or an adjunct for the name of the thing meant. To
put it another way, it is substitution based on
contiguity or proximity.
METONYMY
effect for cause ('Don't get hot under the collar!' for
'Don't get angry!');
object for user (or associated institution) ('the Crown' for
the monarchy, 'the stage' for the theatre and 'the press'
for journalists);
substance for form ('plastic' for 'credit card', 'lead' for
'bullet');
place for event: ('Chernobyl changed attitudes to
nuclear power');
place for person ('No. 10' for the British prime minister);
place for institution ('Whitehall isn't saying anything');
institution for people ('The government is not backing
down').
SYNECDOCHE
Synecdoche is the substitution of part for whole or whole
for part.
At the same time, our synecdoche is a metaphor since
we are saying that the part resembles the whole, that
the microcosm is a blueprint of the cosmos or world.
On the other hand, if the synecdoche does not posit a
resemblance between part and whole, it must be a
metonymy since the part is an adjunct of the whole and
vice versa. A hand has something of the relation to the
sailor or farmworker it belongs to as a sword has to a
soldier or a pen to a writer who wields it .
IRONY
Irony is the substitution of a statement for its
opposite. Put another way, in irony what is said in
some way contradicts what is meant. The
contradiction need not be absolute. In irony, what is
said may be understood as true in one sense and
false in another.
IRONY
Irony may thus reflect the opposite of the thoughts
or feelings of the speaker or writer (as when you say
'I love it' when you hate it) or the opposite of the
truth about external reality (as in 'There's a crowd
here' when it's deserted). It can also be seen as
being based on substitution by dissimilarity or
disjunction.
METAPHOR
Metaphor is a device for seeing something in terms
of something else.
It brings out the thisness of a that, or the thatness of
a this (Burke 503).
Metaphor is the substitution of a word, image, or
idea for another, based on an implied resemblance
or analogy.


BONSAI BY EDITH TIEMPO

All that I love I fold over once And once again And keep in a
box Or a slit in a hollow post Or in my shoe

All that I love?

Why, yes but for the moment- And for all time, both. Something
that folds and keeps easy, Sons note, or Dads one gaudy
tie, A roto picture of a young queen A blue Indian shawl,
even A money bill.


BONSAI BY EDITH TIEMPO

Its utter sublimation, A feat, this hearts
control Moment to moment To scale all love
down To a cupped hands size.

Till seashells are broken pieces From Gods own
bright teeth, All life and love are real Things you can
run and Breathless hand over To the merest child.

POETRY AND METAPHOR
. . . there are many other things I have found myself
saying about poetry, but the chiefest of these is that
it is metaphor, saying one thing and meaning
another, saying one thing in terms of another, the
pleasure of ulteriority. Poetry is simply made of
metaphor...Every poem is a new metaphor inside or
it is nothing. And there is a sense in which all poems
are the same old metaphor always. Robert Frost

BREAKING THROUGH BY MYRNA PENA
REYES


Haltingly I undo the knots
around your parcel that came this morning.
A small box should require little labor,
but youve always been thorough,
tying things tight and well.
the twine lengthens,
curls beside the box.
I see your fingers pull,
snapping the knots into place
(once your belt slapped sharply against my skin)


BREAKING THROUGH BY MYRNA PENA
REYES

You hoped the package would hold its shape
across 10,000 miles of ocean.
Its not a brides superstition
that leaves the scissors in the drawer.
Unraveling what youve done with love
I practice more than patience
a kind of thoroughness
I couldnt see before.

I shall not let it pass.
My father,
this undoing is what binds us.

ACTIVITY
Provide a brief summary of what the poem is about.
Give three metaphors used in the poem to support
your summary.