A simile is a direct comparison between two objects or attributes that, although essentially different, do have some similarity. These direct comparisons are easy to identify, as they use words such as "like" or "as" to denote the comparison being made.
To illustrate the majesty of a war horse, William Shakespeare wrote this in "Henry V": "His neigh is like the bidding of a monarch."
Contemporary writers, like James Patterson, also make good use of simile. In "Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment," Patterson described the feeling in an injury as "a stinging ache that radiated out like a starburst."
Like the simile, the metaphor makes a comparison between two objects or attributes. The difference is that the comparison is implied rather than directly stated. This means the words "like" or "as" are omitted. For instance, "You are like the sun" is a simile, but "You are my sunshine" is a metaphor.
William Shakespeare made use of metaphor in "Henry V," writing about the feeling of riding a horse: "When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk."
Susan Kay, in her retelling of the "Phantom of the Opera," described Christine from the Phantom's point of view as "a lovely, wilting flower that I longed to rescue from the strangling creep of weeds."
Any parent is intimately familiar with the hyperbole, as is anyone who has interacted with a "drama queen." This figure of speech is simply an overexaggeration of the facts, and in literature, it is used to emphasize a point or illustrate a character's personality.
William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is almost a case study in hyperbole. In one scene, Shakespeare used hyperbole to illustrate the vast difference between man's essence and Hamlet's perception: "What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals---and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?"
Storyteller and humorist Patrick McManus uses hyperbole often to create humor. In his essay "Just Like Old Times," McManus concluded a part of the story about an encounter with a dog by writing, "Norm says later it took him two weeks to brush the taste of dog off his teeth."
In literature, applying human characteristics to things that are not human is called personification. Often, this device is used with inanimate objects or animals, but it can also be applied to forces of nature or even abstract ideas.
In "Henry V," William Shakespeare used personification to describe how people fled from London by writing, "How London doth pour out her citizens."
Susan Kay used personification to illustrate the power of emotion that her Phantom had for Christine in her retelling when she wrote, "The world would crush her under its heel."
The word oxymoron is derived from two Greek words meaning "sharp" and "dull." Likewise, an oxymoron in literature pulls together two unrelated or contradictory words into one idea. An oxymoron is sometimes called a condensed paradox.
William Shakespeare used an oxymoron in "Henry V" when Henry says, "But thy speaking of my tongue, and I thine, most truly-falsely..."
Oxymorons are common in everyday language. Phrases like "girlie man," "icy hot" and "black light" are all oxymorons.
Rather than pairing two contradictory words, like the oxymoron, the paradox combines two self-contradictory ideas into one statement. Despite the apparent contradiction, however, the statement remains essentially true.
Emily Dickinson made use of paradox when she wrote, "Success is counted sweetest/By those who ne'er succeed." Henry David Thoreau used paradox when he wrote, "I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."