Ella+Wheeler+Wilcox+Literary Techniques

Key: bold= literary technique

1. Name of Term: personification Definition: the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form Effect: Wilcox often uses personification in her works to make nature come to life. An example would be in her most famous poem Solitude, “Sing, and the hills will answer”. Another would be “And the birds sing all day” from her poem When You Go Away.

Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone. But has trouble enough of its own. Sigh, it is lost on the air. But shrink from a voicing care.
 * For the sad old earth must borrow it’s mirth, **
 * Sing, and the hills will answer; **
 * The echoes bound to a joyful sound, **

Rejoice, and men will seek you; Grieve, and they turn and go. They want full measure of all your pleasure, But they do not need your woe. Be glad, and your friends are many; Be sad, and you lose them all. There are none to decline your nectared wine, But alone you must drink life’s gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded; Fast, and the world goes by. Succeed and give, and it helps you live, But no many can help you die. There is room in the halls of pleasure For a long and lordy train, But one by one we must all file on Through the narrow aisles of pain.

2. Name of Term: rhyme Definition: correspondence of sound between words or the endings of words, especially when these are used at the ends of lines of poetry Effect: Wheeler uses rhyme in majority of her poems, in order to make them appear happier. In her poem //The Farewell,// the last word of every other line rhymes.

‘Tis not the untried soldier new to danger Who fears to enter into active **strife**. Amidst the roll of drums, the cannon’s rattle, He craves adventure, and thinks not of **life**.

But the scarred veteran knows the price of **glory**, He does not court the conflict or the **fray**. He has no longing to rehearse that **gory** And most dramatic act, or wars dark **play**.

He who to love has always been a **stranger**, All unafraid may linger in your **spell**. My heart has known the warfare, and its **danger**. It craves no repetition- so **farewell**.

3. Name of Term: Hyperbole Definition: exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally Effect: Wilcox uses hyperboles in her poem //When You Go Away// in order to make it more dramatic and for emphasis. Since she was writing about mourning, she wanted to be as dramatic as she could, since that was likely what she was feeling.

When you go away, my friend, When you say your last good-bye, Then the summer time will end, And the winter will be nigh.

Though the green grass decks the heather,
 * And the birds sing all day, **
 * There will be no summer weather **
 * After you have gone away. **

Thinking that beneath the skies
 * When I look into your eyes, **
 * I shall thrill with deepest pain, **


 * I may never look again. **

You will feel a moment’s sorrow, You forgetting on the morrow, I to mourn with no relief.
 * I shall feel a lasting grief; **

When we say the last sad word, And you are no longer near, And the winds and all the birds Cannot keep the summer here,


 * Life will lose its full completeness --- **
 * Lose it not for you, but me; **
 * All the beauty and the sweetness **
 * Each can hold, I shall not see **