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Definition of Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like" or "as," but can also... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often... read full definition
Act 2, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Three Phases of Marriage:
In Act 2, Scene 1, Beatrice uses a simile to express her cynicism about marriage to Hero:
The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time. If the Prince be too important, tell him there is measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For hear me, Hero, wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinquepace. The first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and with his bad legs falls into the cinquepace faster and faster till he sink into his grave.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Warring Words:
In Act 2, Scene 1, Benedick uses personification, metaphors, and similes in order to highlight the intensity of his frustration about failing to defend himself against Beatrice's insults. After Beatrice unknowingly insults him to his face at the masked ball, Benedick laments to the Prince:
Unlock with LitCharts A+O, she misused me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her. My very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince’s jester, that I was duller than a great thaw, huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs.
Related Themes:
Act 4, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Dian and Venus:
Claudio's use of allusions to Roman goddesses highlights what he perceives as the contradictory nature of women. While berating Hero for her purported infidelity in Act 4, Scene 1, he tells her:
Unlock with LitCharts A+You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown.
But you are more intemperate in your blood
Than Venus, or those pampered animals
That rage in savage sensuality.
Related Themes:
