Title: 
Headings: 

Content: This example
                     shows the expansive power of poetic language. Much of what we read can be taken as literal. The evening sky was dark; he looked up; he
                        felt sick. Figurative language refers to language not used literally—it is used
                     abstractly, indirectly, and often evocatively. The evening is spread out against the sky
                        like a patient etherized upon a table. Here we have an evening (a thing), spreading (an
                     action), a patient (thing), etherizing (an action), and a table (thing). But an evening
                     is not
                     a drugged patient spread out upon a table, perhaps ready to be operated upon; this
                     description
                     cannot be literally true (there is no patient, no etherizing, no table, and evenings
                     don’t
                     literally spread out against skies);