Thursday, December 3, 2015

What are the figures of speech in "The Witch" by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge?

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, once a teacher, was known more
as a novelist, but she also wrote quite a bit of verse as well. In her poem, "The
Witch," there are several devices (figures of speech) that the author uses; some are
specifically, poetic devices as well.


In the first stanza,
Coleridge uses internal rhyme, where a word in the middle of a line
rhymes with a word at the end of that line, seen here with "wet" and
"set:"



My
clothes are wet, and my teeth are
set...



There is some
irregular rhyme used: I say irregular because the stanzas are irregular in size and
also, then, in terms of end rhyme. For instance, in the first
stanza, the second and fourth lines rhyme, and again, there is rhyme in the sixth and
seventh lines. The fourth stanza follows the same rhyme
scheme.


Repetition is also seen with
the line that is repeatedly used through the poem, almost word-for-word each
time—stressing the importance of that line:


readability="6">

...lift me over the threshold, and let me in at
the
door...



Personification
is seen in giving non-human things, human characteristics—in this case, the wind cannot
be cruel.



The
cutting wind is a cruel
foe.



The following line uses
both repetition and internal
rhyme
:


readability="5">

She came—she came—and the quivering
flame



The following line is
an example of a metaphor, which compares two very different things that share similar
characteristics—obviously "her" hands are not stone: she is not a
statue—but the cold must make her hands feel like
stone.



My hands are
stone...



These are the most
obvious literary devices I see.

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