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Question
Complete the table listing the poetic devices used by Shelley in Ozymandias.
| Poetic Device | Lines from the poem |
| Alliteration | ...and sneer of cold command |
| Synecdoche (substitution of a part to stand for the whole, or the whole to stand for a part) | the hand that mock'd them |
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Solution
Alliteration
Repetition of a initial sound
Two vast and trunkless legs …
cold command,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
boundless and bare
lone and level sands stretch …………
Anastrophe
Inversion of the normal word order
… well those passions read (normally, read those passions well)
Enjambement (also spelled without the first e)
Carrying the sense of one line of verse over to the next line without a pause
… a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
“Whose frown, And wrinkled lip is the enjambement.
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
‘round the decay begins the enjambement.
Synecdoche
Substitution of a part to stand for the whole, or the whole to stand for a part
The hand that mocked them,
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RELATED QUESTIONS
In pairs, find metaphors from the story to complete the table below. Try to say what qualities are being compared. One has been done for you.
| Object | Metaphor | Quality or Feature Compared |
| Cloud | Huge mountains of clouds | The mass or ‘hugeness’ of mountains |
| Raindrops | ||
| Hailstones | ||
| Locusts | ||
| An epidemic (a disease) that spreads very rapidly and leaves many people dead | ||
| An ox of a man. |
Alliteration is the repetition of sounds in words, usually the first sound. Sibilance is a special form of alliteration using the softer consonants that create hissing sounds, or sibilant sounds. These consonants and digraphs include s, sh, th, ch, z, f, x, and soft c.
Onomatopoeia is a word that imitates the sound it represents for a rhetorical or artistic effect of bringing out the full flavor of words. The sounds literally make the meaning in such words as “buzz,” “crash,” “whirr,” “clang” “hiss,” “purr,” “squeak,” etc.lt Is also used by poets to convey their subject to the reader. For example, In the last lines of Sir Alfred Tennyson’s poem ‘Come Down, O Maid’, m and n sounds produce an atmosphere of murmuring Insects:
… the moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.
Notice how D H Lawrence uses both these devices effectively in the following stanza.
He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.
To what effect has the poet used these devices? How has it added to your understanding of the subject of the poem? You may record your understanding of snake characteristics under the following headings:
(a) Sound
(b) Movement
(c) Shape
In poetry, when words/ideas are arranged in an ascending order of importance, the figure of speech used is called ‘Climax’.
For example, Man should work for his family, his country, but most of all for God.
- Pick out two examples of ‘Climax’ from the poem.
Pick out from the poem two examples of the following.
Onomatopoeia
Choose the correct Figure of speech that occurs in the following line. Justify your choice.
____________ but still we keep a bower quiet for us____________ .
Identify the Figure of Speech in the following line.
I stand and look at them long and long.
Pick out two lines that contain the following figures of speech.
Inversion
Find out lines from the poem that are examples of following Figures of Speech.
| Figures of Speech | Lines |
| Repetition | ......................... |
| Alliteration | ......................... |
| Hyperbole | ......................... |
Find out examples from the poem.
Alliteration
Find out examples from the poem.
Personification
Alliteration is the occurrence of the same sound at the beginning of words in a phrase, sentence, etc. such as ‘That life is lived it's very best.’
Find out more examples of Alliteration from other poems in your book.
Pick out lines that contain:
Hyperbole
Identify the Figures of speech used from those given in the bracket.
(Simile/ Repetition/ Antithesis/ Personification/ Metaphor/ Alliteration/ Apostrophe)
“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs”
Match the lines of the poem with their Figures of speech.
| Group A | Group B | |
| (1) Whose woods these are I think I know | (a) | Alliteration |
| (2) The woods are lovely, dark and deep | (b) | Personification |
| (3) And miles to go before I sleep And miles to go before I sleep. | (c) | Inversion |
| (4) My little horse must think it queer | (d) | Repetition |
Complete the following example of Hyperbole using words from the bracket below.
She wept____________of tears.
Complete the following example of Hyperbole using words from the bracket below.
The hungry man ate a ____________ of food.
Complete the following example of Hyperbole using words from the bracket below.
I shall come over in just a ____________
Pick from the poem lines which contain the Figures of speech.
Interrogation
Find from the poem, one example of the following.
Personification
Find from the poem, one example of the following.
Tautology
