FIGURES OF SPEECH and TROPES

- one of many kinds of word-play,

- focusing either on:
sound
word-order (schemes)
semantics (tropes)
- a figure of speech usually describes one thing in terms of another, but there is no shift in the
meaning of the words i.e. the meaning of the words remains literal
- the function of the figures of speech is mainly aesthetic

A) regarding SOUND REPETITION AND OTHER TYPES OF REPETITION

anaphora – repetition of words or a group of words at the beginning of a line
epiphora - repetition of words or a group of words at the end of a line
assonance
consonance
epanalepsis – repetition of a word or words after other words have come between them
Example: Say first, for Heaven hides nothing from thy view,
Nor the deep tract of Hell, say first what cause
Moved our grand Parents, in that happy state.
antaclasis-repetition of a word in two different senses:

Example: a) Learn a CRAFT so that when you grow older you will not have to earn
our living by CRAFT.
b) Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defie,
Until I labour, I in labour lie.

paronomasia --use of words alike in sound but different in meaning:

Example: It was a foul act to steal my fowl
syllepsis - use of a word understood differently in relation to two or more other words, which it
modifies or governs
Example: Or stain her honour, or her new brocade.
Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball.
onomatopoeia - use of words whose sound echoes the sense:

Example: Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,

And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse shou'd like the torrent roar:
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so when Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.
pleonasm: use of superfluous words
Example: He could see it with his eyes.

B) regarding SYNTAX
asyndeton: omission of conjunctions
Example: He was nice, pleasant, good-natured, envious
polysyndeton: use of many conjunctions
Example: He was nice and pleasant and good-natured and envious
anastrophe: inversion of usual word order
Example: Gracious she was. By gracious I mean full of graces. . . .
parallelism: it consists of phrases of similar construction and meaning
Example: When you are right you cannot be too radical;
when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.
antithesis: contrasting ideas sharpened by the use of opposite or noticeably different meanings, it is
a comparison by contrast
Example: with oaths affirmed, with dying vows denied
chiasmus: a ballanced passage whereof the 2nd part reverses the order of the 1st part (e.g. adjective,
noun/ noun, adjective)
Example: a) sweet home, master dear
b) Flowers are lovely, love is flowerlike

ellipsis: omission of words

Example: So early come?
aposiopesis: breaking off in the middle of a sentence
Example: No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both,
That all the world shall – I will do such things, -
 What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth.
zeugma: a verb or an adjective is applied to two nouns, though appropriate only to one of them
(compare with syllepsis)
Example: Kill the poys and the luggage

C) regarding RHETORIC AND ATTITUDE OF SPEAKER, FEELINGS

rhetorical question - asking a question, not for the purpose of eliciting an answer but for the purpose
of asserting or denying something obliquely:

Example: All this dread ORDER break -- for whom? for thee?
When Nature deviates, and can Man do less?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call;
Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all?
apostrophe: addressing a place, an abstract idea or quality of person who is absent or dead
Example: Oh Milton! thou should´st be living at this hour

personification - investing abstractions or inanimate objects with human qualities or abilities:

Example: Wordsworth when describing daffodils speaks of them thus:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in springly dance.
invocation: an appeal or request for help (e.g. for inspiration) adressed to a muse or deity
- in epic, it is a literary convention
- it usually comes at or near the beginning of a poem
Example: Sing Heav´nly Muse, that on the secter top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shephard, ….
synesthesia – the mixing of sensations, the concurrent appeal to more than one sense, the
response through several senses to the stimulation of one e.g. hearing a colour, seeing a smell:
Example: soft wind, heavy silence, black look
catachresis – the misapplication of a word
Example: blind mouths

hyperbole -the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect:

Example: And open those eyes that must eclipse the day.
litotes - deliberate use of understatement, not to deceive someone but to enhance the
impressiveness of what is said:

Example: Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it
altered her appearance for the worse. (Swift)
euphemism - the substitution of a mild and pleasant expression for a harsh and blunt one
Example: pass away – die

oxymoron - the yoking of two terms which are ordinarily contradictory:

Example: a) I must be cruel in order to be kind.
b) darkness visible

periphrasis – a roundabout speech also known as circulocution – using many or very long words
where a few or simple words would do
Example: a tall house with many storeys – skyscraper

TROPE – a rhetorical device that produces a semantic shift in the meaning of words
- we can identify four major tropes: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony

metaphor -- an implied comparison between two things of unlike nature that yet have something in
common
Example: a) that throws some light on the question;
b) custom came to take me in her arms

simile --an explicit comparison (with the help of words e.g. like, as, than) between two things of
unlike nature that yet have something in common

Example: John is as tall as a lamppost

synecdoche--a figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole:

1. genus substituted for species: weapon for sword, arms for rifles
2. species substituted for the genus: Is the reward of Virtue bread? (bread stands for not only
the genus "food," but also for all necessities and even luxuries of life.)
3. part substituted for the whole: sail for ship, hands for helpers.
4. matter for what is made from it: steel for sword, gold for money, as in "Judges and Senates
have been bought for gold."
metonymy - very closely related to synecdoche
- the substitution of some attributive or suggestive word for what is actually meant:

Example: a) crown for royalty

b) mitre for bishop
c) bottle for wine
d) shou'd vanquished France appear (where "France" stands for the French king.)
e) Fancy and art in gay Petronious please,
The scholar's learning, with the courtier's ease.
(Here the name of the author is used to represent his works.)

irony – see separate handout