Poetry: Figurative Language

This is Unit Seven of Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, part one of two: figurative language, the figures the glossary defines, worked on Donne, Blake and Keats. Unit six closed by saying sound is how a poem moves and figure is what it claims. Here is this unit's governing idea, and it pays off inside Donne's compasses: the anchor nests four figures under metaphor, simile, personification, conceit and metonymy, and figures nest inside one another on the page, so when two terms are both true, the narrower one is the answer. Device questions offer five real figures whose boundaries overlap on purpose, which is why boundaries matter more than names. We start with the anchor's hierarchy and the two sides of any comparison, tenor and vehicle. Then simile against metaphor proper, with Donne's beaten gold. Then personification, a glossary example that could not be verified, and Blake's sunflower that can. Then the conceit, followed stanza by stanza through the compasses to the closed circle. Last, metonymy against synecdoche, the symbol in Blake's rose, and imagery in Keats's darkened garden. By the end you will be able to state the hierarchy and prefer the narrower term. To tell announced from asserted comparison. To test for personification by a human capacity. To follow a conceit to its claim. And to separate part from associate, symbol from substitution, and image from the merely visual.

Six entries to start: why figures are examined, the anchor's nesting of four figures under metaphor, why that matters for answering, metaphor's definition, the two sides of a comparison, and what a figure asks the reader to do.

The options overlap on purpose.

AIL 0601 Why Figures Are Examined

Sample question one is a device identification item, and its five options are all real figures. Figurative terms carry more of those questions than any other group. The difficulty is that several of them overlap, so a candidate needs the boundaries and not only the names; boundaries matter more than names here.

Four figures, one parent.

AIL 0602 The Anchor Makes Metaphor the Parent

The glossary defines simile as a type of metaphor, personification as a form of metaphor, conceit as a metaphor that is elaborate, and metonymy as a form of metaphor. Four figures are treated as kinds of one thing. That hierarchy is the anchor's organising choice and it is worth knowing, since many texts do not nest them.

Prefer the narrower true term.

AIL 0603 Why the Hierarchy Matters

Many textbooks treat simile and metaphor as rivals, distinguished by the word like. The anchor treats simile as a subtype. On a question offering both, the safer reading is the narrower term: if a comparison uses like or as, answer simile, because it is the more specific true description. Specific beats general when both are true.

A comparison with a purpose.

AIL 0604 Metaphor, as the Anchor Defines It

The glossary defines metaphor as a comparison intended to clarify or intensify the more complex of the objects compared. Note what that includes: a purpose, and an asymmetry. One side of the comparison is doing work on the other, and identifying which is which is often the question; the two sides are not equal partners.

Tenor is the subject, vehicle the image.

AIL 0605 The Two Sides of a Comparison

The subject being illuminated and the thing brought in to illuminate it need separate names. The standard pair is tenor for the subject and vehicle for the borrowed image. The glossary defines neither, so these are the standard senses, and the distinction makes effect questions answerable; neither term is in the glossary.

Only some properties travel across.

AIL 0606 What a Figure Asks of the Reader

A comparison invites the reader to carry properties from the vehicle across to the tenor, and to carry only some of them. Deciding which properties travel is the interpretive work, and an effect question is usually asking exactly that, so deciding which properties travel is the whole of the work.

Four entries on the first pair: simile as the glossary defines it, Donne's beaten gold as the worked instance, why that vehicle was chosen, and metaphor proper, asserted rather than announced.

The comparison is announced.

AIL 0607 Simile

The glossary calls simile a type of metaphor that makes the comparison explicit by using like or as. Explicit is the operative word: the comparison is announced rather than asserted. The announcement holds the two things slightly apart, which is a different effect from identifying them, and announcing holds them apart.

Gold thins without parting.

AIL 0608 Donne's Beaten Gold

Donne writes that two souls which are one endure not a breach but an expansion, like gold to airy thinness beat. The vehicle is goldsmith's work: gold can be hammered thinner and thinner without parting. Separation becomes extension rather than breaking, and the image denies that parting occurs at all.

Two properties travel, not one.

AIL 0609 Why Gold, and Why Beaten

Gold is precious, and it is the metal most capable of being beaten thin. Both properties travel: the love is valuable, and it survives attenuation. A vehicle chosen for two properties at once is a mark of the metaphysical manner this unit's second part takes up; precious and ductile, both carried over.

Asserted, not announced.

AIL 0610 Metaphor Proper

Where a simile says one thing is like another, a metaphor says it is the other, or speaks of it in the other's terms without announcing a comparison at all. The assertion is stronger and the reader has to detect the transfer rather than being told of it; you must detect the transfer yourself.

Four entries on personification: the glossary's definition, the example it gives that could not be verified in Blake, and the two lines of Blake's own sunflower poem that carry the figure instead.

A human capacity, attributed.

AIL 0611 Personification, as the Anchor Defines It

The glossary defines personification as a form of metaphor comparing something non-human with something human. The test is whether a human capacity is attributed: feeling, intention, speech, or judgment. Movement alone is not enough, since non-human things move without being personified, so motion alone does not personify.

The attribution could not be verified.

AIL 0612 The Glossary's Example Does Not Check Out

The glossary illustrates personification with a line about two sunflowers moving in a yellow room, credited to Blake. That line appears nowhere in the Blake witness read for this course. The unit therefore teaches the figure from a poem that can be verified, because the line is absent from Blake's Songs.

Weary, and counting the sun's steps.

AIL 0613 Blake's "Ah, Sunflower"

Blake's sunflower poem in Songs of Innocence and of Experience opens: ah, sunflower, weary of time, who countest the steps of the sun. Weariness and counting are both human, attributed to a flower. That is personification, verifiable in the text, and a better example than the one the glossary gives.

The flower is given a wish.

AIL 0614 The Sunflower That Wishes

The poem closes by saying the youth and the pale virgin arise and aspire where the speaker's sunflower wishes to go. Wishing is intention, the clearest human capacity of all. The flower now has a desire and a destination, and the personification has become the poem's argument; intention is the strongest marker.

Six entries on the conceit: the glossary's definition, then Donne's compasses from the twin legs through the fixed foot, the leaning, and the closed circle, and why examiners favour a sustained image.

An ingenious, elaborate metaphor.

AIL 0615 Conceit, as the Anchor Defines It

The glossary defines a conceit as a metaphor that is unusually ingenious or elaborate, and names it a common feature of the metaphysical poets such as John Donne. Unit three met the word in its other sense, meaning a thought. Here it names the device, and both senses remain examinable.

Two souls as one drawing compass.

AIL 0616 Donne's Twin Compasses

Donne writes that if the two souls be two, they are two as stiff twin compasses are two. The vehicle is a drawing instrument with a fixed leg and a travelling one. A parting is redescribed as a geometry, and the image then runs for three stanzas, which is what makes it a conceit.

The still foot moves after all.

AIL 0617 The Fixed Foot

Donne assigns the beloved the fixed foot, which makes no show to move but does move if the other does. The claim is that staying still is itself a kind of participation. The conceit has become an argument about fidelity rather than an ornament on one, so the image is making a claim.

The compass leans and listens.

AIL 0618 "It Leans, and Hearkens After It"

When the travelling foot roams, Donne says the fixed one leans and hearkens after it, and grows erect as that comes home. Leaning and listening are human; a compass does neither. The conceit has personification working inside it, which is how these figures actually arrive, and here the governing idea pays off: figures nest.

The circle closes where it opened.

AIL 0619 "Makes Me End, Where I Begunne"

The poem closes by saying her firmness makes his circle true and makes him end where he begun. A compass drawing a full circle must return to its starting point. The conceit resolves into a completed figure, and that return is the promise the whole poem was making, not an ornament.

One image, four possible questions.

AIL 0620 Why the Conceit Is Examined So Often

A conceit is sustained, so it can be asked about in several ways: what the vehicle is, which properties transfer, where the image shifts, and what it finally claims. One passage supports four question types, which is why the metaphysical poets appear heavily in this exam's Renaissance band; sustained images are examiner favourites.

Ten entries to close: metonymy and synecdoche and the question that separates them, symbolism from the glossary with Blake's rose read responsibly, how the exam asks about symbols, and imagery through Keats's other senses.

Association, not resemblance.

AIL 0621 Metonymy

The glossary defines metonymy as a form of metaphor in which a phrase is understood to represent something more, giving sabre rattling to mean threatening war. The substituted term is associated with the thing rather than resembling it, and that is what separates it from metaphor proper: related to the thing, not like it.

A part standing for the whole.

AIL 0622 Synecdoche

The glossary defines synecdoche as the use of a part to represent a whole, giving lend me a hand. It is the one figure in this group the glossary does not call a kind of metaphor. Part for whole is the test, and it is narrower than metonymy, so check that the term is a part.

Part, or merely associated.

AIL 0623 Metonymy Against Synecdoche

Ask whether the substituted term is a part of the thing or merely associated with it. A hand is part of a person, so lend me a hand is synecdoche. A sabre is not part of a war, so sabre rattling is metonymy. Part or associate: that is the test, and one question separates them.

The literal meaning is kept and exceeded.

AIL 0624 Symbolism, as the Anchor Defines It

The glossary defines symbolism as the use within a work of an element that has more than a literal meaning, quoting Shakespeare that all the world is a stage. A symbol keeps its literal sense and adds to it, which is what distinguishes it from a metaphor's substitution; a symbol does not replace its object.

A rose, a worm, and a secret love.

AIL 0625 Blake's Sick Rose

Blake writes that the rose is sick, that an invisible worm flying in the night has found out its bed of crimson joy, and that his dark secret love destroys its life. Every noun is literal, and every noun carries more than itself, so every noun in the poem works on two levels.

State the mechanism, attribute the reading.

AIL 0626 What the Sick Rose Is Read As

Readings of the poem have proposed concealment, possessive love, and disease among them. Decision D6 applies: a symbol's meaning is an interpretation and gets attributed rather than asserted. What can be stated flatly is the mechanism, that the literal images carry more than themselves; a symbol's meaning is never a fact.

Most likely, from this passage.

AIL 0627 How the Exam Asks About Symbols

The board asks what an element most likely represents, and most likely is doing real work. It concedes that a symbol supports more than one reading and asks for the best supported by the passage. Answer from the text's own detail, not from what the symbol conventionally means elsewhere; convention is not evidence.

A word picture, not only a visual one.

AIL 0628 Imagery, as the Anchor Defines It

The glossary says an image is a word picture, which may be a phrase, a sentence or a line, used to enhance appreciation of the figurative more than the literal. Imagery need not be visual, though the glossary's word picture invites that assumption; the term covers all five senses.

Sight withdrawn, smell supplying.

AIL 0629 Keats and the Other Senses

Keats writes that he cannot see what flowers are at his feet, nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, but in embalmed darkness guesses each sweet. Sight is withdrawn and smell replaces it. The passage is an argument for imagery that is not visual at all, and Keats removes the visual deliberately.

The word murmurs as it means.

AIL 0630 Keats and the Murmurous Haunt

That same stanza ends on the murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. Murmurous is sound, and the word's own consonants murmur, which unit six would call consonance. Image and sound device work the same phrase, and a question may ask about either; one phrase carries two examinable devices.

That is the anchor's hierarchy of figures, worked on Donne, Blake and Keats, with the governing idea paid off inside the compasses. You can state that the anchor nests simile, personification, conceit and metonymy under metaphor, prefer the narrower true term when two fit, and name tenor and vehicle with the properties that travel between them. You can tell an announced comparison from an asserted one, and read Donne's beaten gold for value and ductility both. You can test for personification by an attributed human capacity, know that the glossary's sunflower line is not in Blake, and teach the figure from the sunflower that is weary, counts, and wishes. You can follow the compasses from twin legs through the fixed foot that moves and the leg that leans and hearkens to the closed circle, and see personification nested inside the conceit. And you can separate part from associate, define a symbol as literal sense kept and exceeded, attribute readings of the sick rose, answer most likely from the passage, and read imagery through Keats's smell and sound. Part two takes the terms the glossary omits.