A comparison is a trope in which the text contains a basis for comparison and an image of comparison; sometimes a sign can be indicated. So, in the example “God’s name is like big bird"(O.E. Mandelstam) God's name (the basis of comparison) is compared with a bird (the image of comparison). The characteristic by which the comparison is made is wingedness.
Literary scholars distinguish several varieties.
Types of comparisons
1. Comparison expressed using comparative conjunctions as, as if, as if, exactly, like and others.
For example B.L. Pasternak uses the following comparison: “The kiss was like summer.”
2. Comparison expressed using adjectives in comparative degree. You can add words to such phrases seems, seems, looks like and others.
For example: “Girls’ faces are brighter than roses” (A.S. Pushkin).
3. Comparison for which it is used. For example: “A wounded beast suffers from the frost” (N.N. Aseev).
4. Comparison expressed by the accusative without. For example: “The living room was decorated with expensive red gold wallpaper.”
5. Comparison expressed in a descriptive non-union phrase. For example: “The nightmares of the night are so far away that a dusty predator in the sun is a naughty man and nothing more” (I.F. Annensky).
6. There are also negative comparisons. For example: “The sun is not red in the sky, the blue clouds do not admire it: then the formidable Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich sits at a meal in a golden crown” (M.Yu. Lermontov).
To the question of what a comparison is in literature, the short answer is that it is a trope, that is, a special one. This technique is based on displaying certain properties of the described object or phenomenon by comparing these characteristics with others, based on how they are seen or perceived by others or individually the author himself.
Components of comparisons
This trope is characterized by the presence of three components: the object or phenomenon being described, the object with which it is compared, and the basis for the analogy, that is, a common feature. An interesting fact is that the name itself, an indication of this general feature, may be omitted from the text. But the reader or listener still perfectly understands and feels what the author of the statement wanted to convey to the interlocutor or reader.
However, the very understanding of the definition, which explains what comparison is in the literature, does not yet give a complete picture without examples. And here a clarification immediately arises: with the help of what parts of speech and in what forms do authors form these tropes?
Types of comparisons in literature for nouns
Several types of comparisons can be distinguished.
Comparisons of modus operandi in the literature
Typically, such constructions involve verbs and adverbs, nouns or whole phrases and
Why are comparisons needed in literature?
Having understood the question of what comparison is in literature, it is necessary to understand: are they necessary? To do this, you should do a little research.
This is where comparisons are used: “ Dark forest stood as if after a fire. The moon was hiding behind the clouds, like a shy girl covering her face with a black scarf. The wind seemed to have fallen asleep in the bushes.”
And here is the same text in which all comparisons have been removed. “The forest was dark. The moon was hiding behind the clouds. Wind". In principle, the meaning itself is conveyed in the text. But how much more figuratively the picture of the night forest is presented in the first version than in the second!
Are comparisons necessary in ordinary speech?
Some may think that comparisons are necessary only for writers and poets. And here ordinary people in their ordinary life they are not needed at all. This statement is absolutely false!
At a doctor’s appointment, the patient, describing his feelings, will definitely resort to comparisons: “The heart hurts... It’s as if it’s cutting with a knife, and then it’s as if someone is squeezing it into a fist...” A grandmother, explaining to her granddaughter how to make dough for pancakes, is also forced to compare : “Add water until the dough looks like thick sour cream.” Mom wearily pulls back the overly amused baby: “Stop jumping around like a hare!”
Probably, many will object that the article is devoted to comparisons in literature. What does our everyday speech have to do with it? Be proud, common people: many people speak using literary speech. Therefore, even vernacular is one of the layers of literature.
Comparisons in the specialized literature
Even technical texts cannot do without comparisons. For example, so that in a cooking recipe fried fish not to repeat the process already described above, for shortening, the author often writes: “Fish should be fried in the same way as cutlets.”
Or in a manual for people learning the basics of construction from plywood or wood, you can find the phrase: “You screw in self-tapping screws with a drill in the same way as you screw them out. Just before work you should set it to the desired mode.”
Comparisons - necessary appointment in literature the most different directions. The ability to use them correctly distinguishes a cultured person.
A figurative simile is a figure of speech that compares two different things in an interesting way. The purpose of a comparison is to create an interesting connection in the mind of the reader or listener. Comparison is one of the most common forms figurative language. Figurative similes can be found anywhere from poems to song lyrics and even in everyday conversations.
Similes and metaphors are often mixed together. The main difference between a simile and a metaphor is that a simile uses the words "as" to compare, while a metaphor simply states the comparison without using "as". An example of a comparison is: she is as innocent as an angel. Example of metaphor: She is an angel.
Comparisons in everyday language
Comparisons are used in literature to make speech more vivid and powerful. In everyday speech they can be used to convey meaning quickly and effectively, since many frequently used expressions are similes. For example, when someone says, “He is as busy as a bee,” it means that he is working hard, as bees are known to be very hardworking and busy.
Some other well-known comparisons that you often hear:
- Happy as an elephant.
- Light as a feather.
- Innocent as a lamb.
- Tall like a giraffe.
- White as a ghost.
- Sweet like sugar.
- Black as coal.
As is the case with a lot of figurative language when you're talking to someone from a different region or don't speak your own native language, they may not understand the meaning of many comparisons.
Comparisons add depth to your speech
Figurative comparisons can make our language more visual and pleasant. Writers often use comparisons to add depth and emphasize the point they are trying to convey to the reader or listener. Comparisons can be funny, serious, mundane or creative.
Figurative comparisons - great tool for use in creative language. Not only do they make what you write or say more interesting, but they can often intrigue the reader. When creating your own comparisons, watch out for clichés and try to go beyond the obvious comparisons.
First, carefully read examples from poems by different poets.
Under blue skies
Magnificent carpets,
The snow lies shining in the sun.
(A. Pushkin.)
It's sad at night. From the lights
The needles stretch out like rays.
From gardens and alleys
Smells like wet leaves.
(M. Voloshin.)
Let the bird cherry trees dry like laundry in the wind,
Let the lilacs fall like rain -
I'll take you away from here anyway
To the palace where pipes are played.
(V. Vysotsky.)
I erected a different monument for myself!
Turn your back to the shameful century.
Face your lost love.
And the chest is like a bicycle wheel.
(I. Brodsky.)
Find similes in each of the four passages. Let us give you a little hint: what is lying snow compared to? lantern lights? cherry blossom? chest of a monument (which, of course, does not exist) to the poet Brodsky? Was it easy for you to complete this task? Try to explain why the comparisons were not immediately visible, why there were difficulties in finding them? Is this related to the form of their expression?
In Pushkin, the fallen snow looks like magnificent carpets. In Voloshin, the rays from the lights are drawn to needles (however, it should be noted that the comparison itself is inverted here: it would be less unexpected to read that “the rays are drawn by needles”). Vysotsky compares blooming trees bird cherry trees with linen drying and fluttering in the wind. IN last example What’s interesting is that Brodsky revives the linguistic comparison of chest with a wheel, which has become so worn out that we no longer perceive it as a comparison. Adding cycling makes the comparison come alive again.
All comparisons in these passages are expressed in the instrumental case of the noun. The instrumental case creates difficulties: we cannot recognize the comparison “in person” immediately, because we do not see the clue words as, as if, as if, similar to others.
Exercise. The poet Bella Akhmadulina has a poem that is dedicated to... it’s very difficult to say what and to whom. Formally, at first glance, one day of life, one morning, one of the Arbat lanes - Khlebny Lane, Moscow...
Beginning of the poem:
I went out into the snow of the Arbat courtyard...
1. Of course, you can easily name the time of year. But think about it: is it only in winter that you can go out into the snow? For what purpose is this detail emphasized? What was this snow like? Describe it.
B. Akhmadulina’s poems list the most ordinary, long-familiar objects, in which, it seems, there is no poetry... Excuse me, did we say “listed”? This is wrong:
Here is the snow, here is the janitor, here is the child running -
everything exists and can be sung...
Have you noticed the word chant? Read one line from this poem that “glorifies” the dog:
Irish Setter, as playful as fire...
2. Describe how you imagine this setter. What role does the comparison with fire play? What do the meanings of the words fire and dog have in common?
1. You can, of course, go out into the snow not only in winter, but also in autumn - the main thing is that the snow is unexpected, that there is a lot of it, that it is not dirty, gray, familiar, boring, but, on the contrary, new, white, clean , fluffy. To remember how it was in childhood, when each of us, more than ever, was carefree and kind...
2. Comparison like fire allows you to turn on your imagination and see what the setter was like: firstly, frisky, fast (this is in the text), secondly, bright red, and thirdly, most likely, long-haired: probably While running, his fur fluttered and looked like tongues of flame...
This is confirmed by the encyclopedic dictionary: “Setters are long-haired pointing dogs, used for hunting game birds.” The comparison invented by B. Akhmadulina is remarkable; it includes three meanings that unite the words dog and fire: movement, color and shape. This is a very accurate comparison: we even know people who did not know this breed of dog before, but suddenly they began to recognize setters after reading B. Akhmadulina’s poems.
