ShmoopTube

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Here's your shmoop du jour, brought to you by Figurative Language.

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We are LITERALLY so excited about this question our heads are exploding.

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Which of the following BEST describes the figurative language used in lines 5-6?

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And here are the potential answers...

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Okay, so there's some language in lines 5 through 6 that is figurative... in other words,

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NOT literal... and we need to determine if it's some kind of metaphor, simile or personification.

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The lines in question are:

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Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen;

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Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.

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Don't worry... a degree in horticulture is not required to answer this question.

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Okay, well... we know that for similes, we either have to have a "like" or an "as" in

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there somewhere.

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If it said "beauty, strength, youth are LIKE flowers..." for example...

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But... no "like" or "as" in sight, so we can scratch both answers C and D.

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The "personification" option is tempting... since the qualities being assigned to flowers

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and roots can also be used to describe people...

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But the flowers and roots aren't DOING anything... which is kind of a necessary component of personification.

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If the flowers were conducting a business transaction or going sky-diving, it would

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be a totally different story. Which leaves us with the two metaphor options,

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A and B...

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So it's either a metaphor comparing human qualities to different parts of a plant, or

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to different shades of green.

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We do get a mention of the color green here... but the qualities are being directly compared

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to the plant parts...

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...so we're going to go with answer A.

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Well... that was LITERALLY the most fun we've ever had solving a test question.

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