--- title: Poetry: simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Poetry: simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration», a lesson of the english course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Poets paint pictures with words, and they have a few favourite tricks: the simile, the metaphor, personification a --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/) / Poetry: simile, metaphor, personificat… # Poetry: simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration Lesson 46 of the english course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/0/) — Poets paint pictures with words, and they have a few favourite tricks: the simile, the metaphor, personification and alliteration. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/1/) — A simile compares two things using "like" or "as" ("The sun is like a golden coin"); a metaphor says one thing IS another ("The sun is a golden coin"), not as a lie but to make you see what they share: round, shiny, gold. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/2/) — Personification gives a human action or feeling to something that is not human: the wind screams, the moon watches, the eagle has hands. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/3/) — Alliteration repeats the first sound of words close together, like "slithering snakes slide silently", where the hissing s even sounds like the snake; onomatopoeia is different: a word that sounds like what it means, such as buzz, bang or splash. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/4/) — Picture Kai in Liverpool writing "The wind's screamin' through the streets, like": the "like" at the end is just Scouse filler (Scouse is the Liverpool way of talking), so the trick there is personification, not a simile. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/5/) — A simile compares two things using "like" or "as": "as brave as a lion", "like a golden coin". - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/6/) — A metaphor says one thing is another for effect, such as "The city is a beast at night"; it is not meant literally, and it is not a lie. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/7/) — Everyday talk is full of metaphors: "a heart of gold", "a night owl", "my room is a pigsty". - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/8/) — Personification gives human actions or feelings to non-human things: "the wind screamed", "the moon smiled". - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/9/) — Alliteration is the same first sound repeated in words close together: "big brown bear", "slithering snakes slide silently". - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/10/) — Onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like its meaning, such as buzz, hiss, crash and pop; "buzz" on its own is not alliteration. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/11/) — Tennyson's poem "The Eagle" (public domain) says "He clasps the crag with crooked hands": alliteration of the hard c sound, and personification, since an eagle has talons, not hands. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/12/) — Good readers name the effect, not only the trick: the hard c sounds make the eagle seem strong, and the "hands" make it seem almost human. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/13/) — "As cold as ice" is a cliché, a comparison used so often it has gone stale; a fresh one, like "as cold as a metal slide in January", makes a clearer picture. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/14/) — In Boston and New England "wicked" means "very", so "wicked good" means very good; in Liverpool a "like" at the end of a sentence is a filler word, not a comparison. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/15/) — More similes do not make a better poem: a few strong ones beat a crowd of weak ones. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/46-poetry-simile-metaphor-personification-alliteration/16/) — When you personify the moon, one or two human actions (it watches, it whispers) work better than giving it a job and a car. - ← previous: [Poetry: rhyme and rhythm](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/45-poetry-rhyme-and-rhythm/) - next →: [Poetry forms: haiku, limerick, kenning, acrostic, performing](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/47-poetry-forms-haiku-limerick-kenning-acrostic-performing/) - ↑ back to [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/)