| “I am your spaniel, and, Demetrius,/The more you beat me I willfawn on you.” (2.1.210-211) | metaphor |
| “O, how ripe in show/ thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!” (3.2.141-143) | metaphor |
| “for my heart/Is true as steel.” (2.1.204) | simile |
| “So we grew together/Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,/But yet an union in partition,/Two lovely berries molded on one stem” (3.2.213-216) | simile |
| “Vile thing, let loose,/Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent” (3.2.271) | simile |
| “To her, my lord,/Was I betrothed ere I saw Hermia./But like a sickness did I loathe this food/But, as in health, come to my natural taste,/Now do I wish it, love it, long for it,/And will forevermore be true to it.” (4.1.178-183) | simile |
| “These things seem small and undistinguishable,/Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.” (4.1.194-195) | simile |
| “The story shall be changed:/Apollo flies and Daphne holds the chase;/The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind/ Makes speed to catch the tiger.” (2.1.237-240) | allusion |
| “That pure congealed white, high Taurus’ snow,/Fanned with the eastern wind, turns to a crow/When thou hold’st up thy hand.” (3.2.144-145) | allusion |
| “And yonder shines Aurora’s harbinger/At whose approach, ghosts wand’ring here and there/Troop home to churchyards.” (3.2.401-404) | allusion |
| “The lover, all as frantic,/Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.” (5.1.10-11) | allusion |
| “The moon, methinks, looks with a wat’ry eye,/And when she weeps, weeps every little flower,/Lamenting some enforced chastity.” (3.1.205-207). | personification |
| “The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.” (5.1.380) | personification |
| “Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,/And finds his trusty Thisbe’s mantle slain./ Whereat, with blade, with bloody, blameful blade,/He bravely broached his boiling, bloody breast.” (5.1.153-156) | alliteration |
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Shakespeare’s Unusual Usage (Literary Terms)
August 1, 2019