I'd give my right arm for a slice of pizza.

A type of hyperbole in which the exaggeration is magnified so greatly that it refers to an impossibility is called an adynaton (from Greek a, 'without' and dynasthai, 'to be able').

Questions to ask when analyzing figures of speech

• Are comparisons drawn through metaphors or similes? What information, attitudes or associations are revealed through these associations?

• Are there any examples of synecdoche or metonymy? What is the writer's purpose in using these figures of speech? How do they affect the style and tone of the poem?

• Are animals, objects or ideas personified in the poem? How does personification contribute to our understanding of the poem?

6. Sound features (Delaney, d.)

Different sounds have different effects on us (e.g. the gentle lapping of water against rocks and the screeching of chalk against a blackboard). The sounds of language also create different responses in us and writers, especially poets, use this in their work. By choosing words for their sound as well as their meaning, writers create a musicality in their work that can evoke strong emotional responses and reinforce the meaning they wish to convey.

The most common sound features are rhyme, alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia.

The term rhyme refers to the effect that is created when a poet repeats the same sound at the end of two or more lines. Rhyme has several important functions:

• It adds a musical quality to the poem;

• It marks the end of each line;

• It makes the poem easier to remember;

• It affects the pace and tone of the poem.

There are several different types of rhyme:

single-syllable or masculine rhyme: the beginning of the syllable varies while the rest stays the same, for example day/say, light/night;

doudle-syllable or feminine rhyme matches two syllable words or parts of words: ocean/motion, pretending/bending;

triple-syllable rhyme matches three-syllable words: beautiful/dutiful, comparison/garrison;

true or perfect rhyme; the rhymed sounds correspond exactly, for example: boat/float, double/trouble;

imperfect rhyme (half rhyme or slant rhyme): the sound of two words is similar, but it is not as close as is required in true or perfect rhyme. Generally the words contain identical vowels or identical consonants but not both, for example loads/lids/lads, road/moan/boat;

end rhymes fall at the end of the lines;

internal rhymes occur within the same line;

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary (Thee Raven, Edgar Allan Poe)

Alliteration is the repetition of the same initial consonant sound in a sequence of nearby words. In Anglo-Saxon times, before the introduction of rhyme, alliteration gave the language of poetry its musical quality and made the poems, which were often recited, easier to remember. Alliteration is still popular in modern poetry and can also be found in songs, headlines and everyday expressions such as 'black and blue', 'safe and sound', and 'right as rain'.

Assonance is the repetition of similar or identical vowel sounds in a sequence of nearby words containing different consonants. It creates 'vowel rhyme' as in break/play, hope/spoke.

Like alliteration, assonance adds a musical quality to the language and it also establishes rhythm:

• open, broad sounds [o], [], [a:], [ei] (flow, burn, heart, flame) tend to slow the rhythm down;

• slender [i] and [e] (hill, met) sounds create a quicker pace.

The use of sound of words to suggest the sound they denote is called onomatopoeia. We hear this sound-echoing effect in the 'slamming' of a door, the 'buzzing' of bees, the 'ticking' of a clock. In his poem 'OnaMaTaPia', the poet Spike Milligan suggests that it's more difficult to spell onomatopoeia correctly than to understand and identify it!

OnaMaTaPia

Onamatapia!

Thud –Wallop – Crash!

Onamatapia

Snip – Snap – Gnash!

Onamatapia

Whack – Thud – Bash!

Onamatapia

Bong – Ting – Splash.

Rhythm

The beating of the heart, breathing, walking, running – rhythm is at the core of human existence. Rhythm is also an important part of the language of literature. Writers build on the natural rhythms of language, putting words with the same stress pattern side by side and creating an underlying beat or rhythm in their work.

Metrical Terms and Scansion

The regular and rhythmic arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables found in poetry is called metre. The basic unit of metre is the foot, which consists of one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed syllables. The most common feet are: