Figurative Language In Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven

584 Words3 Pages
Poetry is an intriguing form of literature characterized by a multitude of different qualities, like figurative language, rhyme, repetition, and rhythm. Poetry itself is incredibly diverse, and comes in the form of ballads, diamantes, narrative poems, epics, lyrical poems, odes, elegies, free verse poems, and many more. What makes these types of poetry similar is their uses of the many different types of figurative language. Similes are one type of figurative language that directly compares two unlike objects using the words “like” or “as,” whereas metaphors make comparisons moe directly. Personification is a form of figurative language where inanimate objects are given human qualities. Another type of figurative language is alliterations,…show more content…
For example, lines one hundred one to one hundred three of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” utilize words with a negative connotation, like “loneliness,” and personification to contribute to the poem’s dark tone. “Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!/ Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!’/ Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’” Contrary to the negative tone of Poe’s poem, Robert Burns’s “A Red, Red Rose” takes advantage of similes and language with more positive connotations to convey the speaker’s love, especially in lines one through four. “O my Luve’s like a red, red rose/ That’s newly sprung in June;/ O my Luve’s like a melodie/ That’s sweetly play’d in tune.” Many poets also use a poetic device called extended metaphors, which is a metaphor that is carried on throughout several lines of a poem. One example of this is in lines one through three of Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!” where Abraham Lincoln is compared to a ship’s captain. “O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done,/ The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,/ The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting./” All in all, the differing moods and word choices used within poetry are what cause this branch of literature

More about Figurative Language In Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven

Open Document