Apart from creating the tone through language, Tolkien connected with the reader through figurative meaning. Tolkien’s poem covers human qualities and lessons through figurative meaning. Overall, by using figurative language, concrete imagery, and symbolism. Dr. Tolkien himself mentioned that he would be paying “great attention to…diction, idiom, and so on… (Ka Yee 8).” In the eight lines of his poem, Tolkien uses a significant amount of figurative language. Several examples of figurative language in the poem include metaphors, personification, parallelism, and alliteration (Prezi Web). Metaphors are used widely throughout the poem to represent human qualities; in line 1 through 4, Tolkien writes “All that is gold does not glitter, Not…show more content… In line 3, a person walking without any specific destination might seem lost to anyone looking; the same for line 4, older people might look fragile, however, their experience makes them wise and helpful to the next generations. Tolkien is trying to explain that not everything is as we see it (Derek Web). In the same way, after the poem’s shift from stanza 1 to 2, other types of figurative language are included. In lines 5 and 6, “From the ashes a fire shall be woken / A light from the shadows shall spring…” Tolkien presents personification as a new tool (Prezi Web). Apart from this particular figure of speech, the speaker sets up parallelism to support the rhyme scheme. This is seen in lines 1 and 3, towards the end of each line, “…does not glitter / …does not wither….” The same is seen in lines 5 and 8, “…shall be woken / …shall be king….” Lastly, alliteration is presented in several lines; in line 1 and 6, “All that is gold does not glitter / A light from the shadows shall spring…” the reader can see the similar sound in gold and glitter and shadows and shall (Prigotzke Web). However, figurative language is only one part in the overall figurative meaning of the poem. Imagery is another area that aids the reader in creating the image of the
