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Definition
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A sustained metaphor continued through whole sentences or even through a whole discourse. |
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The most obvious use of allegory is work-length narratives such as the medieval Everyman or Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. |
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Repetition of the same letter or sound within nearby words. Most often, repeated initial consonants. |
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Note: The term "alliteratio" was coined by Giovanni Pontano in 1519 as a further specification of the term annominatio. Current usage of this term is in its most restricted sense (repeated initial consonants), aligning it with the vice known as homoeoprophoron or paroemion. |
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Why not waste a wild weekend at Westmore Water Park? |
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Term
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Definition
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Repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines. |
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This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world, |
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Term
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Definition
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Juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas (often, although not always, in parallel structure). |
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This is closely related to the Topic of Invention: Contraries, and is sometimes known as the similarly named figure of thought, antitheton. |
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"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues." —Abraham Lincoln
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Term
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Definition
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Turning one's speech from one audience to another. Most often, apostrophe occurs when one addresses oneself to an abstraction, to an inanimate object, or to the absent. |
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Since this figure often involves emotion, it can overlap with exclamatio. |
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Antony addresses Caesar's corpse immediately following the assasination in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: |
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Term
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Definition
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Repetition of similar vowel sounds, preceded and followed by different consonants, in the stressed syllables of adjacent words. |
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The seargant asked him to bomb the lawn with hotpots. |
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Term
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Definition
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The omission of conjunctions between clauses, often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect. |
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Veni, vidi, vici (Caesar: "I came; I saw; I conquered") |
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Term
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Definition
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An extended metaphor. Popular during the Renaissance and typical of John Donne or John Milton. Unlike allegory, which tends to have one-to-one correspondences, a conceit typically takes one subject and explores the metaphoric possibilities in the qualities associated with that subject. |
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Robert Herrick's "The Vine" |
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Term
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Definition
| [image] The repetition of consonants in words stressed in the same place (but whose vowels differ). Also, a kind of inverted alliteration, in which final consonants, rather than initial or medial ones, repeat in nearby words. Consonance is more properly a term associated with modern poetics than with historical rhetorical terminology. |
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Term
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Definition
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Speaking in such a way as to imply the contrary of what one says, often for the purpose of derision, mockery, or jest. |
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When in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing the constable Dogberry says "redemption" instead of "damnation" (itself a malapropism), the fact that he means precisely the opposite of what he so passionately exclaims makes this a comical use of irony: |
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Term
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Definition
[image] Substituting a more favorable for a pejorative or socially delicate term.
Example
In Shakespeare's King Richard II Richard inquires after John of Gaunt: |
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Term
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Definition
Amplifying a point by providing a true or feigned example.
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Term
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Definition
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A series of similarly structured elements having the same length. A kind of parallelism. |
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Veni, vidi, vici (I came, I saw, I conquered)
Note: This example also demonstrates asyndeton, tricolon, and (in the Latin), alliteration and homoioptoton.
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Term
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Definition
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A comparison made by referring to one thing as another. |
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No man is an island —John Donne
For ever since that time you went away
I've been a rabbit burrowed in the wood —Maurice Sceve
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Term
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Definition
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Reference to something or someone by naming one of its attributes. |
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The pen is mightier than the sword
The pen is an attribute of thoughts that are written with a pen; the sword is an attribute of military action
We await word from the crown.
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Term
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Definition
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Using or inventing a word whose sound imitates that which it names (the union of phonetics and semantics). |
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The buzzing of innumerable bees
The "zz" and "mm" sounds in these words imitate the actual sounds of bees. |
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Term
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Definition
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Placing two ordinarily opposing terms adjacent to one another. A compressed paradox. |
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...Yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe.
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Term
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Definition
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Similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses.
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Examples
parallelism of words:
She tried to make her pastry fluffy, sweet, and delicate.
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Term
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Definition
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Reference to abstractions or inanimate objects as though they had human qualities or abilities. The English term for prosopopeia or ethopoeia.
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Examples
O beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.
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Term
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Definition
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I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't know who killed him but he's dead all right," and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights and windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Key and she was all right only she was full of water. |
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Term
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Definition
| The rhetorical question is usually defined as any question asked for a purpose other than to obtain the information the question asks. |
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Term
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Definition
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An explicit comparison, often (but not necessarily) employing "like" or "as." |
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My love is like a red, red rose |
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Term
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Definition
Three parallel elements of the same length occurring together in a series.
Example
Veni, vidi, vici. —Julius Caesar |
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Definition
| An instance of indirect reference: an allusion to classical mythology in a poem. |
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| Something of doubtful meaning: a poem full of ambiguities. |
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| A short account of an interesting or humorous incident |
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| A brief statement of a principle. |
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| An idea or meaning suggested by or associated with a word or thing: Hollywood holds connotations of romance and glittering success. |
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| Something signified or referred to; a particular meaning of a symbol. |
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| A language considered as part of a larger family of languages or a linguistic branch. Not in scientific use: Spanish and French are Romance dialects. |
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| Choice and use of words in speech or writing. |
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| Characterized by or expressive of the action or emotion associated with drama or the theatre: a dramatic rescue at sea. |
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| Readily affected with or stirred by emotion: an emotional person who often weeps. |
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| I am going to punch you in the head with my clenched fist. |
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Definition
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Term
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| is an expression for example, a listener knowing only the meaning of kick and bucket would be unable to deduce the expression's actual meaning |
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Definition
| Imagery is any of the five senses(sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste). |
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| Denunciatory or abusive language; vituperation. |
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| the act of positioning close together (or side by side); "it is the result of the juxtaposition of contrasting colors |
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Term
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Definition
| the logical fallacy of using as a true premise a proposition that is yet to be proved |
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Definition
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| A state of mind or emotion. |
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| Rules or habits of conduct, especially of sexual conduct, with reference to standards of right and wrong: a person of loose morals; a decline in the public morals. |
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| A dominant theme or central idea. |
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| Consisting of or characterized by the telling of a story: narrative poetry |
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| A simple story illustrating a moral or religious lesson |
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| External or material reality. |
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| Something so bad as to be equivalent to intentional mockery; a travesty: The trial was a parody of justice |
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| The feeling, as of sympathy or pity, so aroused |
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| A position from which something is observed or considered; a standpoint |
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| a play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words |
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Term
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| The act or process or an instance of repeating or being repeated. |
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| The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively |
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| A manner, way, or method of doing or acting: modern modes of travel. |
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| A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound. |
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| A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit. |
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| The position, direction, or way in which something, such as an automatic control, is set. |
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| One that is regarded as embodying or conforming to a set image or type |
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| Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision. |
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| A subtle or specious piece of reasoning. |
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| Revelation or suggestion of intangible conditions or truths by artistic invention. |
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| the description of one kind of sense impression by using words that normally describe another. |
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| The study of the rules whereby words or other elements of sentence structure are combined to form grammatical sentences. |
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| A topic of discourse or discussion |
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| A proposition that is maintained by argument. |
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| A sound of distinct pitch, quality, and duration; a note |
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| A disclosure or statement that is less than complete. |
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| A specified quality, condition, or pitch of vocal sound: a hoarse voice; the child's piping voice. |
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