IXL | Analyze the effects of figures of speech on meaning and tone

Select the hyperbole in the passage.

Ann-Margret brought George Burns along to see Peter perform. George Burns was older than the century, older than time.

To Peter, George's date with Ann-Margret represented Hollywood's last gasp of glamour. The star of Kitten With a Whip also liked Peter. "I remember someone had said something about me," Ann-Margret would explain in her Hollywood-mystic whisper, "and he got after that person. And I said thank you for standing up for me."

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question

Select the hyperbole in the passage.

In a time without film or television or recorded music, live performances provided the only opportunity for people to hear and appreciate music. What we now call "classical" music was an art form that was enormously important in lives of the privileged and unfortunate alike, and composers like Beethoven often were seen as little less than gods. Newspapers wrote obsessively about musicians and composers, and huge crowds gathered outside concert halls when a new work was being performed.

key idea

Figures of speech are words or phrases that use language in a nonliteral or unusual way.

An allusion is a brief reference to something or someone well known, often from history or literature.

The patriot, Barsad, was a hired spy and traitor, an unblushing trafficker in blood, and one of the greatest scoundrels upon earth since accursed Judas—which he certainly did look rather like.

—Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Antithesis involves contrasting opposing ideas within a parallel grammatical structure.

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

—Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism

Hyperbole is an obvious exaggeration that is not meant to be taken literally.

The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could.

—Edgar Allan Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado"

A paradox is a statement that might at first appear to be contradictory, but that may in fact contain some truth.

Much Madness is divinest Sense -

To a discerning Eye -

—Emily Dickinson

A simile uses like or as to compare two things.

A writhing horror twisted itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them.

—Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Verbal irony involves saying one thing but implying something very different. People often use verbal irony when they are being sarcastic.

Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.

—Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

solution

The author describes composers as little less than gods, which is clearly an exaggeration. This is an example of hyperbole.

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