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 ...

Seen as a swirl of activity, the performances taking place within a courtroom are much more complex than what is popularly thought of merely as the lawyers acting out roles, says Randy D. Gordon, the ...

"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 ...

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 ...

Hyperbole, similes and metaphors are all types of figurative language that help to make your writing more interesting. They can be particularly helpful for creating an image of what you are writing ...

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 ...

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 ...

Marble bust of Aristotle. Public domain. Metaphors are not user-friendly. They are hard to find and hard to use well. Unfortunately, metaphor is a mainstay of good lyric writing; indeed, of most ...

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 ...