Literary Devices

‘I'm a crumpled up piece of paper lying here

Cause I remember it all too well’

All too Well, Taylor Swift

• Personification

• Simile

• Metaphor

• Sarcasm

Answer explanation

The speaker compares herself to a crumpled piece of paper

'Time, curious time

Gave me no compasses, gave me no sign'

Invisible String, Taylor Swift

• Imagery

• Personification

• Simile

• Metaphor

Answer explanation

Time is personified. What does it mean for the speaker?

'Now you hang from my lips

Like the Garden of Babylon

With your boots beneath my bed,

Forever is the sweetest con'

Cowboy Like Me, Taylor Swift

• Simile

• Metaphor

• Allusion

• Allegory

Answer explanation

The Hanging Garden of Babylon

Considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Worland

Thought to have been located near the royal palace in Babylon

The site of the Hanging Gardens had not yet been conclusively established.

Many theories persisted regarding the structure and location of the gardens.

Zombies eat brains. You’re safe.

• Pun

• Sarcasm

• Contrast

• Paradox

Answer explanation

When a speaker is being sarcastic, he/she veils the true intention of the sentence with an ironic remark

'Water in the bight doesn’t wet anything'

The Bight, Elizabeth Bishop

• Simile

• Imagery

• Paradox

• Pun

'Doom is dark and deeper than any sea-dingle'

The Wanderer, W.H. Auden

• Onomatopoeia

• Assonance

• Rhyme

• Alliteration

Answer explanation

Alliteration: repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words

Assonance: repetition of similar vowel sounds

Onomatopoeia: when the words sound like what they mean

We'll talk more about sound devices in the future💪🏼

'"Mine is a long and a sad tale!' said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing.

"It is a long tail, certainly," said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; "but why do you call it sad?"

And she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking.'

Alice's Adventure in the Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

• Pun

• Understatement

• Personification

• Juxtaposition

Answer explanation

The mouse is personified, given the human quality of speech.

Pun: wordplay that depends on a similarity in sound but a difference in meaning

Expect to see a lot of puns in Merchant of Venice😉

'Because I could not stop for Death—

He kindly stopped for me—

The Carriage held but just Ourselves—

And Immortality.'

Because I could not stop for Death (479), Emily Dickinson

• Simile

• Enjambment

• Personification

• End-stopped

Answer explanation

Enjambment: The running-over of a sentence or phrase from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation.

The opposite is end-stopped

'The woods are lovely, dark and deep

But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.'

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Robert Frost

• Contrast

• Alliteration

• Repetition

• End rhyme

'O brawling love, O loving hate,

O anything of nothing first created,

O heavy lightness, serious vanity,...

Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,'

Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

• Paradox

• Contrast

• Oxymoron

• Pun

Answer explanation

The difference between oxymoron and paradox is subtle.

Paradox: the opposition of ideas or themes ('I've never heard silence quite this loud')

Oxymoron: a contradiction merely between words ('old new')