FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE 2
Figurative Language
It is likely that you and your roommate understand each other well enough, and yet if you examine this conversation literally, that is to say unimaginatively, you will find that you have been speaking nonsense. Actually you have been speaking figuratively. You have been saying less that what you mean, or the opposite of what you mean or something else that what you mean.
Symbol
Ø a symbol may be roughly defined as something tat means more than what it is.
Ø Symbol vary in the degree of identification and definition that their authors give them. Frost in this poem forces us to interpret the choice of road symbolically by the degree of importance he gives it in the last stanza.
Ø The symbolisthe richest and at the same time the most difficult of the poetical figures.
Ø Image, metaphor, and symbol shade into each other and are sometimes difficult to distinguish. In general, however, an image means only what it is; a metaphor means something other than what it is; and a symbol means what it is and something more too.
Ø Meaning ray out from a symbol, like the corona around the sun or like connotations around a richly suggestive word. But the very fact that symbol may be so rich in its meaning makes it necessary that we use the greatest tect in its interpretation.
Ø The poem allows it but doesn’t itself suggest it. Morever, we should never assume that because the meaning of a symbol is more or less open, we may it mean anything we choose.
Ø Accurate interpretation of the symbol requires delicacy, tact, and good sense. The reader must keep his balance while walking a tightrope between too little and too much-between underinterpretation and overinterpretation.
To know and understand the symbol of a poem, lets discuss this poem:
A WHITE ROSE
The read rose wispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
Oh, the read rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.
But I send you a cream-white rosebud,
With a flush on its petal tips;
For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on the lips.
John Boyle O’Reilly (1844-1890)
Ø In his first two line O’Reilly indicates so clearly that his “red rose” is a symbol of physical desire and his “white rose” a symbol of spiritual attachment.
Ø When we get to metaphor in the third line we unconsciously substitute passion for the red rose in our minds, knowing without thinking that what O’Reilly is realy likening is falcons and passion, not falcons and roses.
Ø Similarly in the second stanza, the symbolism of the white rosebud with pink tips is specifically indicated in the last two lines, although, as a matter of fact, it would have been clear from the first stanza.
Allegory
Ø Allegory is a narrative or description that has a second meaning beneath the surface one. Although the surface story or description may have its own interest, the author’s major interest is in the ulterior meaning.
Ø Allegory has been defined sometimes as an extended metaphor and sometimes as a series of related symbols, but it is usually distinguishable from both of these.
Ø It is unlike extended metaphor in that it involves a system of related comparisons rather than one comparison drawn out.
Ø It differs from symbolism in that it puts less emphasis on the images for their own sake and more on their ulterior meanings. Also these meanings are more fixed.
Ø In allegory usually there is a one-to-one correspondence between the details and a single set of ulterior meanings.
Ø In complex allegories the details may have more than one meaning, but these meanings tend to be definite. Meanings do not ray out from allegory as they do from a symbol.
Ø Allegory is less popular in modern literature than it was in medieval and Renaissance writing, and it is much less often found in short poems than in long.
Ø It has sometimes, especially with political allegory, been used to conceal meaning rather than reveal it (or, rather, to conceal it from some people while revealing it to oyhers).
Ø Though less rich than the symbol, allegory is an effective way of making the abstract concrete and has occasionally been used effectively even in fairly short poems.
To know and understand about the allegory letssee this poem.
Relate the symbols employed to the meaning of the poem.
THE SICK ROSE
O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
William Blake (1757-1827)
Ø The poem might be interpreted as being only about “a rose” that has been attacked on stormy night by a cankerworm.
Ø The connotations of certain words and details are so powerful as to suggest that something more is meant: “sick” (applied to aflower), “invisible,” “night,” “howling storm,” “joy,” and “dark secret love.”
Ø The some specific interpretations of the poem are that it refers to the destruction of love by selfishness, possessiveness, or jealousy; of innocence by experience; of humanity by Satan; of imagination by reason.
Figurative Language
It is likely that you and your roommate understand each other well enough, and yet if you examine this conversation literally, that is to say unimaginatively, you will find that you have been speaking nonsense. Actually you have been speaking figuratively. You have been saying less that what you mean, or the opposite of what you mean or something else that what you mean.
Symbol
Ø a symbol may be roughly defined as something tat means more than what it is.
Ø Symbol vary in the degree of identification and definition that their authors give them. Frost in this poem forces us to interpret the choice of road symbolically by the degree of importance he gives it in the last stanza.
Ø The symbolisthe richest and at the same time the most difficult of the poetical figures.
Ø Image, metaphor, and symbol shade into each other and are sometimes difficult to distinguish. In general, however, an image means only what it is; a metaphor means something other than what it is; and a symbol means what it is and something more too.
Ø Meaning ray out from a symbol, like the corona around the sun or like connotations around a richly suggestive word. But the very fact that symbol may be so rich in its meaning makes it necessary that we use the greatest tect in its interpretation.
Ø The poem allows it but doesn’t itself suggest it. Morever, we should never assume that because the meaning of a symbol is more or less open, we may it mean anything we choose.
Ø Accurate interpretation of the symbol requires delicacy, tact, and good sense. The reader must keep his balance while walking a tightrope between too little and too much-between underinterpretation and overinterpretation.
To know and understand the symbol of a poem, lets discuss this poem:
A WHITE ROSE
The read rose wispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
Oh, the read rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.
But I send you a cream-white rosebud,
With a flush on its petal tips;
For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on the lips.
John Boyle O’Reilly (1844-1890)
Ø In his first two line O’Reilly indicates so clearly that his “red rose” is a symbol of physical desire and his “white rose” a symbol of spiritual attachment.
Ø When we get to metaphor in the third line we unconsciously substitute passion for the red rose in our minds, knowing without thinking that what O’Reilly is realy likening is falcons and passion, not falcons and roses.
Ø Similarly in the second stanza, the symbolism of the white rosebud with pink tips is specifically indicated in the last two lines, although, as a matter of fact, it would have been clear from the first stanza.
Allegory
Ø Allegory is a narrative or description that has a second meaning beneath the surface one. Although the surface story or description may have its own interest, the author’s major interest is in the ulterior meaning.
Ø Allegory has been defined sometimes as an extended metaphor and sometimes as a series of related symbols, but it is usually distinguishable from both of these.
Ø It is unlike extended metaphor in that it involves a system of related comparisons rather than one comparison drawn out.
Ø It differs from symbolism in that it puts less emphasis on the images for their own sake and more on their ulterior meanings. Also these meanings are more fixed.
Ø In allegory usually there is a one-to-one correspondence between the details and a single set of ulterior meanings.
Ø In complex allegories the details may have more than one meaning, but these meanings tend to be definite. Meanings do not ray out from allegory as they do from a symbol.
Ø Allegory is less popular in modern literature than it was in medieval and Renaissance writing, and it is much less often found in short poems than in long.
Ø It has sometimes, especially with political allegory, been used to conceal meaning rather than reveal it (or, rather, to conceal it from some people while revealing it to oyhers).
Ø Though less rich than the symbol, allegory is an effective way of making the abstract concrete and has occasionally been used effectively even in fairly short poems.
To know and understand about the allegory letssee this poem.
Relate the symbols employed to the meaning of the poem.
THE SICK ROSE
O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
William Blake (1757-1827)
Ø The poem might be interpreted as being only about “a rose” that has been attacked on stormy night by a cankerworm.
Ø The connotations of certain words and details are so powerful as to suggest that something more is meant: “sick” (applied to aflower), “invisible,” “night,” “howling storm,” “joy,” and “dark secret love.”
Ø The some specific interpretations of the poem are that it refers to the destruction of love by selfishness, possessiveness, or jealousy; of innocence by experience; of humanity by Satan; of imagination by reason.
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