Emotion in Poetry: Analogy

According to Prentice Hall's Writer's Companion, "an analogy is an lengthy comparison in which one particular issue, commonly additional familiar, is compared to a thing significantly less familiar. A striking analogy can make a commonplace topic come alive with new which means."

Thus, if I compare a college with a hill of ants, I've made an analogy, if I make the comparison extended adequate.

On the other hand, we should not confuse analogy with metaphor or simile. An analogy is an long comparison, not a single of just two or a handful of far more words. In poetry, an analogy is generally the comprehensive poem. Some persons look at an analogy an long metaphor.

Let's evaluate a poem by Amy Lowell which makes use of the analogy of mares with evening clouds. By describing the imagery of mares, she creates the word image of clouds on a moon lit evening.

Evening Clouds

by Amy Lowell

The white mares of the moon rush along the sky

Beating their golden hoofs upon the glass Heavens;

The white mares of the moon are all standing on their hind legs

Pawing at the green porcelain doors of trhe remote Heaves.

Fly, Mares!

Strain your utmost.

Scatter the milky dust of stars,

Or the tiger sun will leap upon you and destroy you

With 1 lick of his vermilion tongue.

(from Prentice Hall's Literature Platinum)

Also note the comparison of the sun with a tiger.

A handful of of my poems are analogies. I would like to share at least two with you:

Dreary Day

The dreary day outdoors is gray

Devoid of even a hint of sun.

Clouds drag exactly where our dreams after lay,

Attempting to destroy everyone's exciting.

With no even a hint of sun,

No rainbow can grace the sky.

Attempting to destroy everyone's entertaining,

The storm drives laughter awry.

No rainbow can grace the sky

With drab rain falling, under no circumstances performed.

The storm drives laughter awry

Ahead of the tears have begun.

With drab rain falling, never ever accomplished,

Clouds drag exactly where our dreams when lay

Just before the tears have begun.

The dreary day outdoors is gray.

(copyright 2005 by Vivian Gilbert Zabel)

"Dreary Day" compares the dreary day to sorrow. Tears are rain; grayness and lack of sunshine equals missing joy.

Day's Journey

The day dawns as a journey.

1 leaves the station on a train,

Rushing previous other locations

With out a pause or quit,

Watching faces blur as they pass,

No time to say goodbye.

On and on the train does speed

Till the line's end a single sees,

Yet another sunset down

With out any lasting memories.

(copyright 2005 by Vivian Gilbert Zabel)

"Day's Journey" lets us view life as a train ride, a single day's travel at a time.

Hopefully you will now be in a position to use analogy in your poetry, as an help in enhancing emotion, or as a way to boost imagery.

Vivian Gilbert Zabel taught English, composition, and inventive writing for twenty-5 years, honing her abilities as she studied and taught. She is a author on Writers (http://www.Writing.Com/), and her portfolio is http://www.Writing.Com/authors/vzabel. Her books, Hidden Lies and Other Stories and Walking the Earth, can be discovered via Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com.