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 ...

A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares one thing to another without using “like” or “as.” This guide explains the definition, workings, and impact of metaphors in literature and daily life.

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Jan. 14-20 is Idiom Week, and today we thought we’d have a heart-to-heart about some strange phrases we use. Idioms, metaphors and similes are all types of figurative language. According to ...

"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 ...

Aristotle concluded in the 4th century BC that “the difference is but slight” between similes and metaphors. After all, the metaphor “he’s a bear in the morning,” means the same as the simile “he’s ...

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. By eight o'clock every Saturday morning in winter, there are boys strapping on their footy boots in ...