Literary Device Examples Alliteration: ​ Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.) He was four times a father, this fighter prince: one by one they entered the world, Heorogar, Hrothgar, the good Halga and a daughter, I have heard, who was Onela´s queen, a balm in bed to the battle­scarred Swede. (Beowulf, trans. Seamus Heaney) ​ ​ From forth the fatal loins of these two foes; A pair of star­cross’d lovers take their life. (Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare) ​ ​ Anaphora: ​ “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” (A Tale of Two Cities by Charles ​ ​ Dickens) “We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.” (Winston Churchill) “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings [. .] This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,” (Richard II by William Shakespeare) ​ ​ Metaphor: The assignment was a breeze. ​ “All the world’s a stage…” The Heart is a Lonely Hunter She quickly became boiling mad. Simile: My heart is as cold as ice. ​ This well is dry as a bone! “I would have given anything for the power to soothe her frail soul, tormenting itself in its invincible ignorance like a small bird beating about the cruel wires of a cage.” (Conrad) “Elderly American ladies leaning on their canes listed toward me like towers of Pisa.” (Nabokov) .