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Difficulty: MediumAnalysis of Figures of Speech and Literary Devices in Unseen Poetry

Read the unseen poem extract below carefully:

'The angry tempest roared across the bay,
And beat its heavy fists against the shore;
The trembling ocean bowed in quiet dread,
Submitting to the tyrant's ruthless reign.'

Which literary device is prominently used throughout the stanza to describe the natural elements?

  1. A
    Metaphor
  2. PersonificationAnswer
  3. C
    Paradox
  4. D
    Apostrophe

Answer

Personification
The correct option is Personification because the poet endows the tempest and the ocean with human emotions ('angry', 'quiet dread') and human physical attributes/actions ('heavy fists', 'roared', 'bowed').

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the verbs, adjectives, and actions attributed to the natural forces in the excerpt.
The tempest is described as 'angry' and having 'heavy fists' that 'roared', while the ocean is 'trembling' and 'bowed in quiet dread'.
Identifying the nature of the descriptive language reveals whether human characteristics are assigned to non-human entities.
2
Map these identified textual features to standard literary figures of speech.
Giving human emotions (anger, dread) and physical human attributes/actions (fists, roaring, bowing) to natural elements defines personification.
Personification explicitly invests non-human objects, animals, or natural phenomena with human feelings, intentions, or bodily traits.

Key Concept

Identification of Personification in Unseen Poetry
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Topics

Analysis of Figures of Speech and Literary Devices in Unseen Poetry

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