Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Is there any figurative language in "The Dry Salvages" from Four Quartets by TS Eliot

Yes.  Certainly.


Keep in mind
the definition of figurative language: description that relies on
comparisons between two things that are not necessarily alike.  Figurative language
comes in several forms:


  • similes: comparisons
    using the words "like" or "as"

  • metaphors: direct
    comparisons which can be short and to the point or extended over several
    lines

  • personification: a more specific metaphor that
    compares something inhuman with a person.

I
encourage you to reread this poem keeping the above definitions in mind.  The entire
poem uses images from "The Dry Salvages" an outcropping of rocks off the coast of
Massachusetts.  In it, Eliot paints the beauty and majesty of the place and nature
itself in his figurative language.  He especially focuses on water imagery to look into
deeper questions of life, timelessness, eternity, immortality, and
spirituality.


A few examples to get you started
are:



I think
that the river is a strong brown god (ln. 1):
personification that extends over several
lines.


The river is
within us (ln. 15)
metaphor


oppression of the
silent fog (ln. 46)
metaphor


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