Literary comparison resources

Literary figures (also called literary resources) are all those linguistic mechanisms through which we can modify the natural use of language to achieve beautifying or stylistic effects. They are used, especially, in lyrical compositions, where they are especially emphatic and striking, although they are also we can find literary figures in newspaper articles or advertisements, and even in speech political. In this lesson from a TEACHER we will analyze a concrete literary device: the comparison.

Comparison is a literary device which is based on highlighting or highlighting the similarities that exist between different objects, elements, people or situations. It is also called a simile. When comparing two different elements with each other, the order can vary, placing one of the terms first and then the other or vice versa, the comparative meaning is the same.

For there to be a comparison, a linguistic particle indicating comparison, the best known and most used is "as", but we can also find others: "as well as", "such as", "as... as "either there may not be any particle but there is a comparative value between both terms, in which case we would also be facing a comparison.

In this other lesson from a TEACHER we are going to show you a complete list of literary resources in Spanish.

In the introduction to this lesson we have said that literary devices are not only present in poetic texts but can also appear in everyday language. However, here we are going to focus on the analysis of different examples of comparisons drawn from literary texts, Well, we are studying the comparison as a literary resource:

• Oh loneliness sonorous! My serene heart /it opens, like a treasure, to the blowing of your breeze

In these two verses by Juan Ramón Jiménez we can observe a comparison between the heart of the poet and a treasure.

• His cheeks, rough like the bark of an old oak

Pío Baroja establishes a relationship between the cheeks and the bark of a tree to convey that the skin is as old as the tree.

• Murmur that in the soul /rises and grows /like a volcano that deaf /announces that it is going to burn

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer compares the murmur of the soul with the eruption of a volcano, because he wants to convey to us that the soul has life and can react just as a volcano can erupt even though it appears to be slept.

• Like the bird without warning /or like the fish, it comes to give /to the claim or to the hook

Lope de Vega uses, this time, two different comparisons that he separates based on the lines of the poem.

And, as we said before, we do not always find the comparative particle "as" explicitly but we can infer the comparative sense, as in the following text by Espronceda, where he establishes a relationship of similarity between women and flowers:

• The woman and the flowers /they are similar: /much gala in the eyes /and thorns to the touch.

Finally, another literary example by Salvador Rueda, in which he compares the strength and hardness of a tree with the attitude of a person when faced with adverse situations:

• Like the flowering almond tree /you have to be with the rigors: yes /a rude blow receives loose /a shower of flowers.