FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE BY CONTRAST
Paradox
Paradox occurs in a statement that at first strikes us as self-contradictory but that on reflection makes some sense. It is often achieved by a play on words.
“But oh, as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.”
The blind John Milton tells how one night he dreamed he could see his dead wife.
Exercise:
Chidiock Tichborne
Elegy, Written with His Own Hand
In the Tower before his execution
My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares (weeds)
And all my good is but vain in hope of gain:
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
My tale was heard, and yet it was not told,
My fruit is fall’n, and yet my leaves are green,
My youth is spent, and yet I am not old,
I saw the world, and yet I was not seen:
My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
I sought my death, and found it in my womb,
I looked for life, and saw it was a shade,
I trod the earth, and knew it was my tomb,
And now I die, and now I was but made:
My glass is full, and now my glass is run,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
Irony
Irony is a literary device in which a discrepancy of meaning is masked beneath the surface of the language. Irony is present when a writer says one thing but means something quite the opposite. Two major kinds of irony are verbal irony (in which the discrepancy is contained in words) and situational irony (in which the discrepancy exists when something is about to happen to a character or characters who expect the opposite outcome, for instance: a clown whose heart is breaking must make the audience laugh).
OH NO (Robert Creeley)
If you wander far enough
you will come to it
and when you get there
they will give you a place to sit
for yourself only, in a nice chair,
and all your friends will be there
with smiles on their faces
and they will likewise all have places.
Tess Gallagher’s
I STOP WRITING THE POEM
to fold the clothes. No matter who lives
or who dies, I’m still a woman.
I’ll always have plenty to do.
I bring the arms of his shirt
together. Nothing can stop
out tenderness. I’ll get back
to the poem. I’ll get back to being
a woman. But for now
there’s a shirt, a giant shirt
in my hands, and somewhere a small girl
standing next to her mother
watching to see how it’s done.
Hyperbole
Hyperbole, also called overstatement (the opposite of understatement), is exaggeration to emphasize a point. For example:
“Every time I shake, some skinny gal loses home,” said by a fat woman.
Understatement is an ironic figure of speech that deliberately describes something in a way that is less than the true case. For example: Forst’s lines: “One could do worse than be a swinger of birches” actually means that to swing on a birch tree is one of the most deeply satisfying activities in the world.
A Red, Red Rose
(Robert Burns, 1759-1796)
O my luve is like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June.
O my luve is like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun!
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee wel, my only luve,
And fare thee wel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile!