Literary devices – bringing it all together

Over that past five Tuesdays, we’ve been looking at some useful tricks to make your English more interesting, namely

• The Simile
• The Metaphor
• Alliteration
• Personification
• Onomatopoeia

Today, we’ll bring them all together in one little poem (a “limerick”) that demonstrates their use:

Onomatopoeia

When you read cartoons, you often see words like “whoosh”, “splat”, “boing” etc., which represent a sound. For example, you can hear “boing” when something is bouncing, and “whoosh” when something moves very fast. Words which look like the sound that they make are called Onomatopoeia.

Find out about other interesting tricks (“literary devices”) here:

• The Simile
• The Metaphor
• Alliteration
• Personification

Personification

It’s Tuesday, which means that it’s time to learn another little trick (a “literary device”) to make your English text more interesting.

In Personification, we talk about a thing or an animal as if it were a person. This makes our message more colourful. It is especially popular in poetry. Here are some examples from everyday life:

Find out about other interesting tricks (“literary devices”) here:

• The Simile
• The Metaphor
• Alliteration
• Onomatopoeia

Alliteration

It’s Tuesday, so it’s time to learn another little trick (a “literary device”) to make your English text more interesting.

Look at this sentence: “curious cats can catch a cold.” You’ll notice that most words start with the same sound, “c”. This technique is called “alliteration”.

Here are some more examples:

Find out about other interesting tricks (“literary devices”) here:

• The Simile
• The Metaphor
• Personification
• Onomatopoeia

The Metaphor

Last week we looked at the “simile”, which uses comparison words “like” and “as… as” to compare two things. For example, “He never forgets anything – he has a memory like an elephant.” In other words, his memory is compared to the memory of an elephant.

The “metaphor” goes one step further. Look at this: “He never forgets anything – he has an elephant’s memory.” Now we’re saying that his memory actually is an elephant’s memory. (*)

Many metaphors have become everyday expressions:

(*) By the way, you can find more elephant metaphors here: “elephant in the room“, and “white elephant“.

 

Find out about other interesting tricks (“literary devices”) here:

• The Simile
• Alliteration
• Personification
• Onomatopoeia

The Simile

No, not a “smile”. Notice the small difference. It is pronounced “si-mi-lee”.

Look at this sentence, which demonstrates a simile: “He ran from the burning house like an Olympic sprinter.”

The simile is a nice little tool that we use for making a statement more interesting, or more lively. Because it is used quite a lot in literature, we call it a “literary device”.

The picture shows a few more typical similes:

Find out about other interesting tricks (“literary devices”) here:

• The Metaphor
• Alliteration
• Personification
• Onomatopoeia