![]() Pawned with the other, for the poor rude world ![]() Why, if two gods should play some heavenly matchĪnd Portia one, there must be something else An example is the following passage describing Portia: Hyperbole is common in love poetry, in which it is used to convey the lover’s intense admiration for his beloved. ![]() HYPERBOLE a figure of speech that is an intentional exaggeration for emphasis or comic effect. Robert Herrick, writer of such graceful examples as the following: 54 bc) originated the Latin epigram, and it was given final form by Martial (ad 40–103) in some 1,500 pungent and often indecent verses that served as models for French and English epigrammatists of the 17th and 18th centuries. By extension, the term is also applied to any striking sentence in a novel, play, poem, or conversation that appears to express a succinct truth, usually in the form of a generalization. Personified and made practically assailable inĮPIGRAM, originally an inscription suitable for carving on a monument, but since the time of the Greek Anthology applied to any brief and pithy verse, particularly if astringent and purporting to point a moral. Thought all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly In it all that cracks the sinews and cakes theīrain all the subtle demonisms of life and Stirs up the lees of things all truth with malice The following passage from Melville’s Moby Dick (1851) is an example:Īll that most maddens and torments all that In rhetoric, the climax is achieved by the arrangement of units of meaning (words, phrases, clauses, or sentences) in ascending order of importance. He lost his family, his car and his cell phone.ĬLIMAX, (Greek: “ladder”), in dramatic and nondramatic fiction, the point at which the highest level of interest and emotional response is achieved. She is a great writer, a mother and a good humorist. Unlike climax, anticlimax is the arrangement of a series of words, phrases, or clauses in order of decreasing importance.Įg. In poetry, the effect of antithesis is often one of tragic irony or reversal.īut never cam’ he! -“Bonnie George Campbell,” anonymousĪNTICLIMAX refers to a figure of speech in which statements gradually descend in order of importance. The opposing clauses, phrases, or sentences are roughly equal in length and balanced in contiguous grammatical structures. “He was a Good Samaritan yesterday when he helped the lady start her car.”ĪNTITHESIS, (from Greek: antitheton, “opposition”) a figure of speech in which irreconcilable opposites or strongly contrasting ideas are placed in sharp juxtaposition and sustained tension, as in the saying “Art is long, and Time is fleeting.” “I was surprised his nose was not growing like Pinocchio’s.” The word is from the late Latin allusio meaning “a play on words” or “game” and is a derivative of the Latin word alludere, meaning “to play around” or “to refer to mockingly.” Most allusions are based on the assumption that there is a body of knowledge that is shared by the author and the reader and that therefore the reader will understand the author’s referent.Īllusions to biblical figures and figures from classical mythology are common in Western literature for this reason. An allusion is distinguished from such devices as direct quote and imitation or parody. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s line: “The City’s voice itself is soft like Solitude’s.”ĪLLUSION in literature, an implied or indirect reference to a person, event, or thing or to a part of another text. William Shakespeare’s line: ”When I do count the clock that tells the time.” In languages (such as Chinese) that emphasize tonality, the use of alliteration is rare or absent. As a poetic device, it is often discussed with assonance and consonance. Sometimes the repetition of initial vowel sounds (head rhyme) is also referred to as alliteration. ![]() A figure of speech is sometimes called a rhetorical figure or a locution.ĪLLITERATION, in prosody, the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words or stressed syllables. However, clarity may also suffer from their use, as any figure of speech introduces an ambiguity between literal and figurative interpretation. Figures of speech often provide emphasis, the freshness of expression, or clarity.
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