Figurative Language & Figures of Speech

Figurative language is language with a deeper and often aesthetic meaning and “cannot be taken literally” (Compare with connotation); a figure of speech is “any way of saying something other than the ordinary way,” (Sound & Sense, p. 71).
Figurative language contributes to poetry in four major ways (Sound & Sense, p. 79, 80):

1. Figurative language affords us imaginative pleasure by linking different things in interesting ways.
2. Figures of speech bring additional imagery into verse, making the abstract more concrete, and making poetry more sensuous.
3. Figures of speech add emotional intensity to otherwise informative statements.
4. Because figures of speech are so rich in meaning, they can say more in a small space.