Explanations on self-test on verbal devices

  1. (c) Imagery is a device that is used to appeal all the senses. For instance, a poet can, in just one image, appeal to sound and touch.
  2. (b) Here three comparisons are used, two using "like", one using "as"
  3. (a) Here three comparisons are made without the use of "like" or "as". All the things compared are said to be something else, e.g., "His hips are the ridge".
  4. (b) The whole of the little poem describes the cloudy sky in terms of a raggy army blanket.
  5. (b) The poet is painting a picture directly without the use of figures of speech.
  6. (b) The wind throughout the poem acts as if it were a person.
  7. (c) The poet is addressing the moon
  8. (a) "The hand" in the poem becomes "five sovereign fingers" and "five kings". The sustained description is referring to the person whose hand signed the declaration of war, and who wielded such enormous power for destruction over so many. The referral to the person as "hand" strikes a sinister note.
  9. (b) The "brave" refer to the soldiers fallen in battle and enshrines them, no matter who they were in life.
  10. (b) This is an example of a gross exaggeration made to defend the Divine Right of Kings.
  11. (c) The two nouns, "lily" and "rose" respectively represent death and love or a loved one. With these two symbols Keats first conveys a sense of the inevitable doom facing the knight, as well as a feeling of sadness and beauty., for the knight has met his doom through his love for someone. Through this use of symbolism the reader is able to grasp the paradox that unhappiness can be brought about by love.
  12. (a) The word, "jamcloset" is simply being used in its normal meaning of a special kind of cupboard in which jams are kept. There are no emotional overtones.
  13. (a) The word, "pit" is simply being used in its normal meaning of the bottom of the flowerpot. There are no emotional overtones.
  14. (c) Here Hopkins is trying to convey his depths of depression that he experienced during the night and with its lack of dissipation with the coming of the daylight. The usual meaning of "fell" is the downward stroke of the axe to cause a tree to fall. It is a word describing death and destruction of a tree. By describing his spirits as in the grip of the "fell of dark, not day", he aptly and accurately conveys the deadness and destruction he is experiencing within a sense of desolation.
  15. (b) Richards has created humour with the unreal dilemma in which the elephant finds itself. Even the title itself, "Eletelephon" is invented not to speak of the six other "new" words in the poem. One can only guess what she is trying to say.
  16. (c) Judith Wright is here speaking to her unborn child.
  17. (b) Has one ever seen such an amount of repetition of a single word in any one poem? To a member of the upper English class "jolly" is a convenient word which can be applied to almost anything! One can give so many different meanings to the word if one looks at each stanza and so knows immediately there is keen disapproval from the speaker who sees the hunter thinks it is all right to hunt the hare! "It is something we've always jolly well done!" you can imagine the hunter saying. "Jolly" for the upper class signifies wellbeing. The poem is a protest at the lack of sportsmanship in hare hunting perpetrated by the upper class, and the message of the protest is captured in the constant repetition of "jolly". How did you react to "Rest in Jolly Peace"?
  18. (a) Here one would be tempted to believe that Frost used the repetition of "and" simply to fit in with his conversational style of writing but the usage, in fact, underlines his hesitancy in making a decision - a decision of great importance as the two roads are symbols of different directions in his life.

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