Ch 5 Review: Fig Lang I
AP Literature: Ms. Stacey
Name: ________________________________
Date: _____________
DIRECTIONS: Read and paraphrase the poem excerpts below. Then, identify the figures of speech used in each [choose
from: simile, metaphor (note if its parts are stated or implied), personification, apostrophe, metonymy, and synecdoche]
and explain HOW and WHY they are apt examples of figurative language. Please note that there may be more than one
figure of speech used in each example. Be sure to unpack any inferences and clearly describe what is being contrasted
or compared to what. Don’t neglect to use the titles to help you! Answer in CANS (complete and neat sentences) on a
sheet of loose leaf; one per partnership). Use sentence starters like these:
To identify:
“These lines contain an example of…”
“This line also exemplifies…”
“This phrase is an instance of…”
“Here, the poet is using...”
To explain and analyze:
“With this simile, the poet likens __ to ___”
“In this metaphor, __ is being equated to ___”
“This comparison is intriguing, because it…”
“This representation helps to…”
“Here, the poet is personifying … by…”
“The poet gives human qualities to ___, causing the reader to…”
“By directly addressing this inanimate object, the poet helps readers…”
“In this line, the poet uses ___ as a stand in for ___”
“By using the part, __, to represent the whole, ___, the poet supports…"
1. “Sorrow is my own yard
where the new grass
flames as it has been flamed
often before but not
with the cold fire
that closes round me this year.”
(Lines 1-6 of William Carlos Williams’ “The Widow’s Lament in Springtime”)
2. “Out in the porch’s sagging floor,
Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,
Blindly struck at my knee and missed.”
(Lines 8-10 of Robert Frost’s “Bereft”)
OVER 
3. “I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful ‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.”
(Lines 1-5 of Sylvia Plath’s “The Mirror”)
4. “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run”
(Lines 1-4 of John Keats’ “To Autumn”)
5. “The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder high
Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high, we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.”
(Lines 1-8 of A.E. Housman’s To an Athlete Dying Young”)
6. [The saw] Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap—
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling…”
(Lines 16-22 of Robert Frost’s “Out, Out—“)