Soliloquy-Definition and Examples of Soliloquy

Soliloquy:

Soliloquy is a dramatic technique of speaking alone on the stage. Soliloquy is a dramatic convention of exposing to the audience the intentions, thoughts and feelings of a character who speaks to himself while no one remains on the stage. For example, four lines of Hamlet's famous soliloquy are quoted here:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea or troubles,

A soliloquy is different from an aside. Though, both in soliloquy and in aside only one character speaks, in aside some other characters remain present on the stage but in soliloquy none is allowed to be present on the stage. A soliloquy is also different from the dramatic monologue. The soliloquy is a dramatic technique but the dramatic monologue is a form of poetry in which a single speaker speaks to a silent listener who responds by physical gestures.

Onomatopoeia-Definition and Examples of Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia:

Onomatopoeia is a figure of speech in which the sound of the words or phrases suggests the sense. The use of words whose sound imitates the sound of the thing being named. For example, the pronunciation of words like hum, buzz, clang, boom, hiss, crack, and twitter suggests their meaning. The value of onomatopoeia as a poetic device becomes evident when sound echoes sense throughout an entire phrase or line:

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain.

The moan of doves in immemorial elms,

And murmuring of innumerable bees.

"Tis the night of doom," say the ding-dong doom-bells.

Metonymy- Definition and Examples of Metonymy

Metonymy:

Metonymy is a figure of speech that substitutes the name of a related object, person, or idea for the subject at hand. Crown is often substituted for monarchy, the White House for the President of the United States and the staff, and Shakespeare for the works of Shakespeare. Metonymy should not be confused with synecdoche, a substitution of a part of something for the whole or the for a part.

Imagery- Definition and Examples of Imagery

Imagery:

Imagery is the collective use of images.  The making of  "pictures in words," the pictorial quality of a literary work achieved through a collection of Images. In a broader sense, imagery is often used as synonymous with figure of speech or figurative language (Simile, Metaphor, or Symbol). Imagery appeals to the senses of taste, smell, hearing, and touch, and to internal feelings, as well as to the sense of sight. It evokes a complex of emotional suggestions and communicates Mood, Tone, and meaning. It can be both figurative and literal, as these lines from Elinor Wylie's "Puritan Sonnet" demonstrate:

I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,

Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meager sheaves;

That spring, briefer than apple-blossom's breath,

Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,

Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,

And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.

Hyperbole- Definition & Examples of Hyperbole, Hyperbole in Poetry

Hyperbole:

Hyperbole, obvious, extravagant exaggeration or overstatement, not intended to be taken literally, but used figuratively to create humor or emphasis. The most extreme examples of hyperbole occur, not surprisingly, in love poetry, context, moreover, in which hyperbole seems psychologically believable. In Andrew Marvell's " To His Coy Mistress, " for example, the speaker declares:

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires and more slow,

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze:

Two hundred to adore each breast:

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

Definition & Examples of Symbol in Literature

Symbol:

Symbol,broadly, anything that signifies, or stands for, something else. In Literature, a symbol is usually something concrete- an object, a place, a character, an action- that stands for or suggests something abstract. In Joseph Conrad's story " The Lagoon," darkness is a symbol of evil and light a symbol of good. A symbol may be universal or private. Darkness and light are universal symbols of evil and good. Climbing is a universal symbol of progress, descending, of failure. The dove is a universal symbol of peace. In contrast, the great white whale in Herman Melville's Novel. Moby-Dick is a private symbol and a complex one. Many books and articles have been written in an effort to explain it, but like many great private symbols in literature and art, its significance is complex and clusive.

A symbol differs from a literal Image, from a Metaphor, and also from an emblem in an Allegory. Consider a forest, or a wood. In the following lines, woods is an image, presented literally as a place one is going through:

Over the river and through the woods

To grandmother's house we go.

If the woods were pictured in more detail-snow covered pines, elm branches black against the sky-it would still be literal image, although a more vivid one

Simile- Simile Literary Terms, Examples & Definition of Simile

Simile:

Simile is a figure of speech that uses like, as, or as if to compare two essentially different objects, actions, or attributes that share some aspect of similarity. In contrast to a Metaphor, in which a comparison is implied, a simile expresses a comparison directly.

Examples of Simile:

-Here and there

his brown skin hung in strips

like ancient wallpaper..

--Elizabeth Bishop

An old man whose black face

shines golden-brown as wet

pebbles under a street light...

--Denise Levertow

Like a small grey

coffe-pot

sits the quirrel

--Humbert Wolfe