How Does Alfred Noyes Use Figurative Language In The Highwayman

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A vital part of writing a poem is using figurative language. That is what makes a strong poem. In “The Highwayman” written by poet Alfred Noyes, a thief falls in love with a certain girl and she falls in love with him also. Someone turns the highwayman in for being a thief and they meet up at the girl’s house to catch him because he will be coming back to get her soon. The girl kills herself to warn the highwayman not to come. He doesn’t think anything of the gunshot. He rides up to the house and he gets shot and he also dies. He then realizes that she died. I think that this is a very strong poem in figurative language. Alfred Noyes uses metaphors, similes, alliteration, repetition, rhyming, onomatopoeia, consonance, and assonance. …show more content…

In my opinion, this is what Alfred Noyes is best at. There are metaphors everywhere throughout the poem. Metaphors are like similes, but metaphors don’t use like or as. Some examples in the poem are “The moon is a ghostly galleon, the road was a ribbon of moonlight, his eyes were hollows of madness, and the road was a gypsy’s ribbon.” These metaphors really helped me visualize what is going on during these …show more content…

In the poem, the phrase, “Look for me by moonlight, watch for me by moonlight, I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.” I think that Noyes repeated this phrase multiple times to exaggerate how the highwayman reassured his love that he would eventually come back for her. Rhyming is an often used type of figurative language in poetry. Rhyming is when two or more words end with the same sound. There are many times when you notice rhyming words in the poem. The words I noticed were, “ Trees and seas, chin and doeskin, innyard and barred, creaked and peaked, instead and bed, and jest and breast.” Onomatopoeia isn’t used commonly in poetry. Onomatopoeia is when you write a word that is associated with what its sound is, such as bang or moo. I could only find one example of it in, “ The Highwayman.” That is, “ tlot-tlot-tlot-tlot.” When I read that line, I can hear that without having to actually hear the sound. Another form of figurative language used is consonance. Consonance is when the same consonant sound is repeated in 2 or more words. I think that consonance is something that people don’t always remember what it is. In the poem Noyes wrote, “ Clatters and clangs.” I think that this shows consonance. I think this because the “cl” sound is used in both