not figurative

I did get a small chuckle at 20th century hip-hop being referred to in one scene as “classical music,” but the sheer temerity it took to sit down and write on the page that rock ‘n’ roll would effectively save the day — in a literal, not figurative sense — leaves one to ponder if all those hippies and their counterculture were onto something they could never even comprehend.

But the recent work is in a different style, and most of it is not figurative.

“He wanted to imbue his art with an ‘object quality,’ neither abstract not figurative, the thing in itself.”

Not figurative ones, real ones.

Literal, lit′ėr-al, adj. according to the letter: plain: not figurative or metaphorical: following the letter or exact meaning, word for word.—v.t.