Figurative language
11056To participate in this discussion, please read the following poems:
“My Life had stood—A Loaded Gun,” “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s day?” “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,” “Divorce,” “Sex Without Love,” and “Harlem.”
Respond to one of the following sets of questions. Refer to specific passages from the stories in your response.
What seems to be the meaning of the opening metaphor in Emily Dickinson’s “My Life had stood–a Loaded Gun”? Does the rest of the poem explain in what sense the speaker’s life could be described as a loaded gun? Do you notice any other figurative language in this poem?
Like most of his sonnets, William Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” is divided into three quatrains (sections of four lines each) and a concluding couplet (two lines). In this poem, each quatrain is built around a different comparison. Explain what sort of figures these are and try to describe how they work together to create the poem’s argument. How do the three quatrains (i.e., the first 12 lines) lead up to the claim made in the final couplet?
Shakespeare’s sonnet “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” begins with what might be called a reverse simile (an anti-simile?). Throughout the poem, the speaker alludes to common figurative language for describing a woman’s beauty in the love poetry of his day: e.g., eyes like the sun, lips like coral, breasts as white as snow, rosy cheeks, perfumed breath, musical voice. What is Shakespeare doing with these familiar examples of figurative language in this poem? Does his poem end up praising his beloved or criticizing her?
In Billie Collins’ poem “Divorce,” what is being compared to what? What sounds and images are juxtaposed in this poem? What is the effect of the poem’s brevity, or how would this poem be different if it were longer with more explanation of the significance of the metaphors? How would you describe the tone of the poem, and how does the figurative language contribute to it?
In “Sex Without Love,” what do the figurative comparisons and imagery suggest about the speaker’s understanding of the lovers’ relationship to each other? Would you describe the speaker’s attitude toward the people engaging in sex without love as positive, negative, or neutral, and what details in the poem support your answer? What does religious language and imagery contribute to the poem?
The speaker in “Harlem” compares the dream deferred to a number of different things in the poem. What literal situation might each comparison evoke? What senses does each comparison engage with, and to what larger effect? What is the significance or logic of the ordering the comparisons in the poem, or how would the poem be different if it, for instance, started with the heavy load or explosion rather than the raisin in the sun? What is the relationship between the title of the poem and these different comparisons?
“Harlem opens with a question—“What happens to a dream deferred?”—to which the speaker offers responses as questions except for the statement in the second to last stanza. What is the effect of these different constructions? How would the effect of the poem change if all the responses were questions, if all of them were statements, or if only the final possibility were presented as a statement (e.g., It explodes)?
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