~ The Poet's Place Cafe~

A simile is a plainly stated comparison that says one thing is like another thing. For example, “Superman was as fast as a speeding bullet.”

2. A metaphor is a direct statement of assumed likeness. For example, “She is my sunshine.”

3. A symbol is a physical thing which represents something else, like the flag is used to represent our nation or a wedding ring represents the vows of marriage.

4. Personification is the endowment of some thing or idea with the characteristics of a person, thus making an abstract idea concrete, as in “Time has gobbled up my life.”

5. Allegory is the use of the entire poem to compare two things, where the pattern of what is named and what is represented holds throughout the piece, developing the equivalence point by point: