Poetry: Figurative Language

This is Unit Seven of Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, part two of two. Part one worked the figures the glossary defines. This part takes the ones it omits, the traps, the procedure, and the three poets' manners. Part one's governing idea was that figures nest, so the narrower true term wins. This part pays it off at the first trap, where metaphor, true of almost everything, is offered against the narrower term that is also true. We begin with apostrophe, a term the board's own calibration set uses and the glossary never defines, worked on Keats addressing Autumn, and then paradox from the glossary with its compressed cousin the oxymoron. Then seven more standard senses the glossary lacks, from allusion to pathetic fallacy, and the record of a ten-term gap. Then the four traps. Then a four-question procedure that sorts the whole group, the tie-break when two terms fit, and effect answered as transfer rather than mood. Last, Donne who argues, Blake who places, Keats who accumulates, and the anchor's record: four defects disclosed and a source still the right one. By the end you will be able to name an apostrophe and separate paradox from oxymoron. To supply ten terms the glossary omits. To defeat four traps. To sort any device by four questions and answer its effect. And to describe three manners and state the anchor's record.

Five entries to start: apostrophe as the standard sense, Keats speaking to Autumn and making the season conspire with the sun, then paradox from the glossary and the oxymoron the glossary omits.

Direct address to the absent.

AIL 0631 Apostrophe

An apostrophe is a direct address to someone absent, dead, or to an abstraction or object. The glossary gives it no headword, which is a notable gap: the board's own calibration set includes a prose apostrophe to Vanity. This is the standard sense, and the exam uses a term the glossary omits.

The season is spoken to.

AIL 0632 Keats Addresses Autumn

To Autumn opens by addressing the season directly as a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom-friend of the maturing sun. The season is spoken to, and it is given a friendship. Apostrophe and personification arrive in the same two lines, two figures in two lines of verse.

Two forces, conspiring.

AIL 0633 Autumn and the Sun Conspire

Keats says the season conspires with the sun how to load and bless the vines with fruit. Conspiring requires intention and secrecy, both human, and it requires two parties. Autumn and the sun are now collaborators, which is personification extended into a small narrative, since conspiracy needs intention.

Seems contradictory, then resolves.

AIL 0634 Paradox, as the Anchor Defines It

The glossary defines paradox as a phrase which seems self-contradictory but makes powerful sense despite its lack of logic, quoting Shakespeare that one must be cruel only to be kind. The seeming is essential: a paradox resolves on reflection, where a contradiction does not; if it never resolves, it is not paradox.

Two contradictory words, yoked.

AIL 0635 Oxymoron

An oxymoron yokes two contradictory words together, as in bitter-sweet or living death. The glossary has no headword for it, so this is the standard sense. An oxymoron is a paradox compressed to a phrase, which is the distinction a question would test, and the glossary omits this term.

Eight entries on the supplied terms: allusion, trope, antithesis, euphemism, analogy, motif and pathetic fallacy, each in its standard sense because the glossary has no headword, and then the record of the gap.

A reference made without explanation.

AIL 0636 Allusion

An allusion is a brief reference to another text, person or event, relied on without explanation. The glossary gives it no headword. Allusions are common in the exam's Renaissance band, where classical and biblical reference was expected of readers, and the exam prints what you need; the passage supplies it.

Any turn from the literal.

AIL 0637 Trope

A trope is any figure that turns a word from its literal sense. The glossary has no headword for it but uses the word inside its own irony entry, calling verbal irony a trope. The term names the category that most of this unit belongs to, used in the glossary and not defined there.

Opposed ideas, parallel structure.

AIL 0638 Antithesis

Antithesis sets two opposed ideas in parallel grammatical form, so that the structure carries the contrast. The glossary gives it no headword. It belongs to the eighteenth century especially, and Pope's couplets are built from it, which unit eighteen takes up; the structure carries the contrast.

A mild word for a harsh thing.

AIL 0639 Euphemism

A euphemism substitutes a mild expression for a harsh one. The glossary has no headword for it. Browning's Duke supplies the exam's ideal instance, since giving commands stands in for ordering a killing, and the softening is the characterisation; the Duke's commands are a euphemism.

A comparison worked out in detail.

AIL 0640 Analogy

An analogy is an extended comparison used to explain or argue, usually worked out point by point. The glossary gives it no headword. Donne's compasses could be called an analogy as readily as a conceit, and where two terms fit, the other options decide which is wanted; conceit and analogy can both fit.

It becomes a motif by returning.

AIL 0641 Motif

A motif is an element that recurs through a work and accumulates meaning by recurring. The glossary has no headword for it. A motif differs from a symbol in requiring repetition: one occurrence can be symbolic, but a motif is only a motif the second time, so one occurrence cannot be a motif.

Nature made to share a mood.

AIL 0642 Pathetic Fallacy

The pathetic fallacy attributes human feeling to nature, particularly where the weather matches a character's mood. The glossary gives it no headword. It is a narrowed kind of personification, and the exam may offer both, in which case the narrower term is the better answer, a narrowed personification.

Ten more terms the glossary omits.

AIL 0643 What the Glossary Left Out Here

This unit supplied standard definitions for tenor and vehicle, apostrophe, oxymoron, allusion, trope, antithesis, euphemism, analogy, motif and pathetic fallacy. Ten terms, and the board's own sample set uses one of them. The gap is recorded alongside unit six's fourteen; the board uses apostrophe and the anchor does not define it.

Four entries on the traps: the parent term offered against the narrower one, the figure that is not in the passage, the literal phrase read as figurative, and the conventional meaning of a symbol.

Metaphor is the general distractor.

AIL 0644 Trap: The Parent Term

Because the anchor nests four figures under metaphor, metaphor is true of many passages where a narrower term is also true. Metaphor will be offered as a distractor against simile, personification and conceit. Prefer the narrowest option the passage supports; here the governing idea pays off, since true but general loses to true and exact.

Point at the words, or reject it.

AIL 0645 Trap: The Figure That Is Not There

An option may name a figure the passage does not contain at all, relying on the candidate's uncertainty. Test by pointing: name the words that constitute the figure. If you cannot point at them, the option is wrong, which is unit one's rule applied to devices; unpointable means wrong.

Vivid is not the same as figurative.

AIL 0646 Trap: Literal Read as Figurative

Not every vivid phrase is a figure. A poem describing an actual rose with actual petals is being literal, however beautiful. Candidates over-apply figurative terms because a poem is expected to be figurative throughout, and the board can test that assumption directly, because poems contain literal statements too.

Read the symbol as used here.

AIL 0647 Trap: The Conventional Meaning

A rose conventionally means love, so an option saying so will attract. Blake's rose is sick and invaded, and the conventional meaning is what the poem is working against. Read the symbol as this passage uses it rather than as the tradition uses it; convention is a distractor, not evidence.

Five entries on procedure: four questions in order, what to do when two terms fit, effect as the properties that travel, figures in prose and drama, and what naming does not settle.

Four questions, always in order.

AIL 0648 A Procedure for Device Questions

Read the quoted phrase, ask whether anything is being compared, then ask whether the comparison is announced, part for whole, associated, or human-attributing. Four questions in order, and they sort the whole group. Ordering them is faster than recalling definitions one at a time, because sorting beats recalling.

The quoted span shows the scope.

AIL 0649 When Two Terms Both Fit

Figures nest, as Donne's compasses showed. When two options are both defensible, choose the more specific, and if they are equally specific, choose the one that describes the whole quoted phrase rather than part of it. The question quotes a span for a reason, so match the term to the whole quotation.

Name the properties that travel.

AIL 0650 From Naming to Effect

Having named a figure, an effect question asks what it accomplishes. Answer in terms of the properties that travel from vehicle to tenor. Donne's gold makes love precious and extensible; Blake's worm makes the rose's decay secret and invasive. Name the transfer, not the feeling, because effect is transfer and not mood.

The terms carry across all genres.

AIL 0651 These Figures Are Not Only Poetic

Prose and drama use every figure in this unit. Swift's proposal runs on sustained irony; Fielding's greatness is a metonymy for criminality. The terms carry across the exam's genre bands, so this unit is not spent when the poetry items are finished, and prose and drama use them equally.

Naming is not interpreting.

AIL 0652 What Naming a Figure Does Not Settle

Identifying a metaphor does not tell you what it means, and a question about meaning is not answered by a device name. Unit six made the same point about metre. Keep the naming claim and the meaning claim separate, and check which one is being asked for; check which claim the question wants.

Eight entries to close: the three poets' manners, four things to carry forward, figure inside form, the anchor's four defects, why it remains the anchor, and the handoff to the form unit.

The poem argues; the image proves.

AIL 0653 The Metaphysical Manner

The glossary names the metaphysical poets in its conceit entry. Their manner is argumentative: a poem states a position and proves it with an elaborated image. Recognising that a Donne poem is arguing rather than describing changes what its figures are for, since Donne describes less than he argues.

Plain words, unsettled symbols.

AIL 0654 Blake's Manner

Blake works the opposite way: short poems, plain words, and symbols left unexplained. Nothing in The Sick Rose is difficult to read and nothing in it is settled. Where Donne's images are proved, Blake's are placed and left, which is a different reading task; placed and left, not proved.

Detail first, thought after.

AIL 0655 Keats's Manner

Keats accumulates sensory detail until a scene is nearly tactile, then lets a thought arrive out of it. His figures serve immersion rather than argument. Three poets, three uses for the same devices, which is why the exam can ask about manner as well as about names; same devices, three purposes.

Four things to carry, none of them lists.

AIL 0656 What to Carry Forward

Carry the four sorting questions, the anchor's nesting of metaphor, the ten supplied definitions, and the habit of pointing at the words. Those four things answer device items without recall, and recall under time pressure is what fails first, so carry the four and not a list of names.

Position inside a form carries meaning.

AIL 0657 Figure and Form Together

A figure placed at a sonnet's turn does different work from the same figure in its first quatrain. Position inside a form is part of a figure's meaning, which is why the next unit takes closed and open form before unit nine takes the sonnet's internal argument; where a figure sits matters.

Four defects, all disclosed.

AIL 0658 The Anchor's Record So Far

Four defects are now recorded: irony defined twice incompatibly, iambic diameter for dimeter, anapestic misspelled and undefined, and a personification example attributed to Blake that is not in Blake. The anchor remains the best available craft text, and its defects are disclosed rather than repeated.

The right source, corrected where needed.

AIL 0659 Why the Anchor Is Still the Anchor

Its glossary defines more of this exam's terminology than any other open text available, and its play texts and form chapters cover bands that would otherwise need building from nothing. A source can be the right choice and still need correcting in places, and both facts get stated, not one of them.

Next: closed form and open form.

AIL 0660 What the Next Unit Does

Sound is done and figure is done. The next unit takes form itself: what closed form asks of a poet, what open form does instead, and how the anchor's one-poem-per-form set maps onto the exam's expectations. Form is the last of the three poetry approaches, the third of three.

That is the terms the glossary omits, the traps, the procedure, three manners, and the anchor's record, with the governing idea paid off at the parent term. You can name an apostrophe and hear Keats speak to Autumn and set it conspiring with the sun, and you can separate a paradox that resolves from an oxymoron that compresses. You can supply allusion, trope, antithesis, euphemism with the Duke's commands, analogy beside conceit, motif that returns, and pathetic fallacy, and state the ten-term gap. You can refuse the parent term when a narrower one is true, reject a figure you cannot point at, leave a literal phrase literal, and read a symbol as this passage uses it. You can sort any device by compared, announced, part, human, match the term to the whole span, answer effect as the properties that travel, carry the terms into prose and drama, and keep naming apart from meaning. And you can say that Donne argues, Blake places and Keats accumulates, carry four things forward, and state four defects in a source that remains the right one. Unit eight takes form.