Figurative Language and the Canterbury Tales
1. allegory: a literary work that has a second meaning beneath the surface, often relating to a fixed, corresponding idea or moral principle.
2. alliteration: repetition of initial consonant sounds. It serves to please the ear and bind verses together, to make lines more memorable, and for humorous effect. • Already American vessels had been searched, seized, and sunk. -John F. Kennedy • I should like to hear him fly with the high fields/ And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land. -Dylan Thomas, “Fern Hill”
3. allusion: A casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature, often without explicit identification. Allusions can originate in mythology, biblical references, historical events, legends, geography, or earlier literary works. Authors often use allusion to establish a tone, create an implied association, contrast two objects or people, make an unusual juxtaposition of references, or bring the reader into a world of experience outside the limitations of the story itself. Authors assume that the readers will recognize the original sources and relate their meaning to the new context. • Brightness falls from the air/ Queens have died young and fair/Dust hath closed Helen’s eye. -from Thomas Nashe’s “Litany in Time of Plague;” refers to Helen of Troy.
4. alter ego: A literary character or narrator who is a thinly disguised representation of the author, poet, or playwright creating a work.
5. anaphora: repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginnings of successive clauses. • The Lord sits above the water floods. The Lord remains a King forever. The Lord shall give strength to his people. The lord shall give his people the blessings of peace. -Ps. 29 • “Let us march to the realization of the American dream. Let us march on segregated housing. Let us march on segregated schools. Let us march on poverty. Let us march on ballot boxes.... --Martin Luther King, Jr.
2. alliteration: repetition of initial consonant sounds. It serves to please the ear and bind verses together, to make lines more memorable, and for humorous effect. • Already American vessels had been searched, seized, and sunk. -John F. Kennedy • I should like to hear him fly with the high fields/ And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land. -Dylan Thomas, “Fern Hill”
3. allusion: A casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature, often without explicit identification. Allusions can originate in mythology, biblical references, historical events, legends, geography, or earlier literary works. Authors often use allusion to establish a tone, create an implied association, contrast two objects or people, make an unusual juxtaposition of references, or bring the reader into a world of experience outside the limitations of the story itself. Authors assume that the readers will recognize the original sources and relate their meaning to the new context. • Brightness falls from the air/ Queens have died young and fair/Dust hath closed Helen’s eye. -from Thomas Nashe’s “Litany in Time of Plague;” refers to Helen of Troy.
4. alter ego: A literary character or narrator who is a thinly disguised representation of the author, poet, or playwright creating a work.
5. anaphora: repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginnings of successive clauses. • The Lord sits above the water floods. The Lord remains a King forever. The Lord shall give strength to his people. The lord shall give his people the blessings of peace. -Ps. 29 • “Let us march to the realization of the American dream. Let us march on segregated housing. Let us march on segregated schools. Let us march on poverty. Let us march on ballot boxes.... --Martin Luther King, Jr.