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What are the literary devices used in the poem The Gift of India?

What are the literary devices used in the poem The Gift of India?

1 Answer

  1. Following literary/poetic devices or figures of speech have been used in the poem The Gift of India:

    1. Personification: It is the attribution of human characteristics to non-human things (living or non-living). In the poem India is personified as a mother who has feelings. She is Mother India. She is proud of those who sacrificed their lives for their country. At the same time she weeps because she cannot bear their separation.
    2. Metaphor: It is a literary device that is used to make a comparison between two things that aren’t alike e.g. Indian soldiers are called pearls (precious stones).
    3. Simile: It is a. literary device that involves comparison of two different things using “as’ or “like”. e.g. “Gathered like pearls in their alien gravès”, “Scattered like shells on Egyptian sands”, “They are strewn like blossoms mown down by chance”.
    4. Alliteration: It is a poetic devices that involves the use of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words that are close together. e.g.Rich gifts of raiment”, “grain or gold”, “Priceless treasures torn”, “Silent they sleep”, “pale brows and brave, broken hands”, “the blood-brown meadows”, “Flanders and France”, “the woe of the watch”, “thrills thro’ my heart’s despair”, “the terror and tumult”, “the deeds of the deathless ones,”, “my martyred sons”.
    5. Oxymoron: It is a poetic device that combines two words that seem to be the opposite of each other e.g. “sad glorious vision”.

    Read summary of this poem.

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