"Narcissus" by Caravaggio (c. 1598). Source: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain What is an allegory? An allegory (Greek, "a speaking about something else") is a complete and cohesive narrative, for ...

No matter if you're in school or well past your days in English class, figures of speech are used every day in our lives. From songs and television shows to conversations and advertisements, we often ...

Source: Francesco Bini/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0 The most famous of all allegories is the Allegory of the Cave, in which Plato compares unphilosophical people to prisoners who, having spent their ...

This lesson is as fun as recess! Join Ms. Randi House as she talks about similes and metaphors and how they make reading a lot more interesting. Rise and Shine is available to stream on pbs.org and ...

Language is not just a tool for communication; it is a medium for thought, imagination, and understanding. Among its many devices, the metaphor stands out as one of the most powerful. Far from being ...

Samuel Taylor Coleridge called metaphor “an act of the imagination,” whereas he relegated simile to “an act of fancy.” Photo from National Portrait Gallery, 1795. Public Domain Samuel Taylor Coleridge ...

The player kicked the ball. The patient kicked the habit. The villain kicked the bucket. The verbs are the same. The syntax is identical. The player kicked the ball. The patient kicked the habit. The ...

We have plumbed the depths of abstract words, but what about abstract ideas? Abstractions are a fact of professional life. The law is littered with them. Think of the legislative process, intellectual ...

If you’ve seen the film “Il Postino,” you probably remember the scene where the actor playing the part of Pablo Neruda explains the meaning of the term “metaphor” to his new friend, the postman. Pablo ...