GETTING INTO THE THINGS

RHETORIC

Simile- It is a definite expression of likeness between different objects and events. It is introduced by words as – like, so, as etc.

Illustrations-

(i) He stood firm like a rock.(ii) I wandered lonely as a cloud.

Metaphor- It is an implied simile. Here the comparison between two different objects is implied and not formally expressed.

Illustrations-

(i) Hope is the anchor of the soul.(ii) Out, out, brief candle of life.

Allegory- It is a figure by which a detailed comparison is made between two different objects for giving a wholesome moral lesson. Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is its notable example. In Hindi of can be cited as an example.

Parable- It is a short story narrated in fifty to two hundred words; it is intended to illuminate, or illustrate an idea or to point out a moral. The parable of The Good Samaritan can be cited as an example. In Hindi translated by servers as its fitting example.

Fable- It is a short imaginary story with a moral. The characters in a fable are generally drawn from the world of animals, birds and inanimate objects. They are all made to behave like human beings. The Fables of Aesop are famous all over the world. In Sanskrit is an example of it.

Metonymy- It consists in substituting the name of one thing for that of another to which it has a certain relation.

Illustrations-

(i) The pen (writer) is mightier than the sword (soldier).(ii) He drank the fatal cup (contents of the cup)

Pathetic Fallacy- It is a figure by which nature or inanimate objects are represented as echoing the feelings of man, or showing interest in human action.

Illustrations-

(i) Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll.(ii) O Cuckoo! Shall I call thee Bird,

Or but a wandering voice.

Vision- By this figure an object, absent or imaginary, is so described that it appears to be present before the senses.

Illustrations-

(i) I see the hands of nation’s lyre that strung, The eyes that looked through life and gazed on God!

(ii) Hark! The question of despair: `Where is my child?’ – an echo answers, ‘Where?’

Hyperbole- It magnifies objects beyond their natural bounds in order to make them more impressive or more vivid; Astons of money, a thousand thanks.

Illustrations-

(i) Never saw I, never felt, a calm so deep.(ii) From the east to western Ind

No jewel is like Rosalind

Innuendo- It signifies an indirect reference or intimation.

Illustrations

(i) His friends are rich but honest (Rich persons are dishonest)(ii) My friend arrived and my book was missing (My friend is a thief)

Irony- When we mean the opposite of what we state, we use irony.

Illustrations-

(i) ‘This is a great book-it weighs nearly four pounds’.(ii) I fear I wrong the honourable men

Whose daggers have stabb’d Caesar.(Here honourable stands for dishonourable).

Sarcasm- It is a bitter sneer, a satirical remark in scorn or contempt.

Illustrations-

(i) ‘He saved others; himself he cannot save’.(ii) God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.

Periphrasis- By this figure we express a thing in a round about way.

Illustrations-

(i) The sleep that knows no waking (=death).(ii) Moving isles of winter (=ice-bergs).

Litotes- It is a figure of speech in which a negative is used before a word. It gives affirmative meaning in the opposite direction.

Illustrations-

(i) He is no fool (=wise).(ii) Patna is no mean city (=good).

Euphemism- It is a figure by which an unpleasant thing is designated by an indirect and milder term.

Illustrations-

(i) He was relieved of his crown(i.e. dethroned).(ii) You are telling a fairy tale (i.e. a lie).

Paronomasia (Pun)- It is nothing but play upon words, having similar sounds, but different meanings. The same word used in two different senses also gives this figure. Hence it can be said to be a play on the different meanings of a word.

Illustrations-

(i) We can weather (brave) any weather (climate).(ii) ‘if a woman loses her husband, she pines for a second

(i. another ii. Sixtieth part of a minute).

Onomatopoeia- This figure consists in the use of words whose very sound suggests their meaning.

Illustrations-

(i) (a) The rain patters.(b) The gun booms.

(ii) He was lured by the jingling of coins.

Erotesis- This figure consists in the affirmation or denial of something in the form of a question; the answer implied is its contrary.

Illustration-

(i) If you prick us, do we not bleed?(ii) Shall we receive good at the hand of God; and evil not receive?

Exclamation- It consists in the sudden expression of an emotion, contemplation or wish.

Illustrations-

(i) Oh sleep! It is a gentle thing.(ii) Dear God! The very houses seem asleep.

Chiasmus- It is ‘contrast by parallelism in reverse order’.

Illustrations-

(i) Beauty is truth, truth beauty.(ii) Life is activity, activity is life.

Zeugma- It consists in the use of only one verb for two nouns to each of which a separate verb should properly be supplied.

Illustrations-

(i) The moment and the vessel passed.(ii) ‘Some bear live on fish and some on the rocky mountain’.

‘Figures add force and beauty to a composition more often than clearness’.

ROWE AND WEBB

RHETORIC: AN INTRODUCTION

Rhetoric is the science of oratory or persuasive speaking. In the good old days when Greece was the cradle of civilization, oration was a ‘must’ for men aspiring to attain dizzy heights. This art of effective delivery of speech wielded great influence; it made one ‘sit high in all people’s hearts’/ Great pains were taken to cultivate it. Of late, the word ‘Rhetoric’ has begun to mean the whole art of elegant and effective composition, both written and spoken.

We know, the ordinary form of expression generally lacks strength and vividness. If it is too familiar, it fails to attract; if it is too remote, it loses its force. This necessitates the use and arrangement of words in a manner different from the ordinary. This device is known as the Figure of Speech. It makes our language attractive and proposition, forceful. A great deal, however, depends

upon its apt use. For then alone we can justifiably claim that ‘what oft was thought but never so well expressed.’

Let us take a few specimens of figurative expression in order to bring home the point stated earlier; as

(i) Life is as tedious as a twice told tale.(ii) All the world’s a stage.(iii) Sceptre and Crown

Must tumble down,And in the dust be equal made,With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

The first example signifies the monotony of life, the second the transitoriness of this earthly life and the last one the all-pervading death. These are all departures from the ordinary way of expression for the sake of greater effect. In the third example, the words, Sceptre, Crown, scythe and spade have not been used in their literal sense, but in the figurative sense to mean kings and commoners. Thus in common parlance, a figure of speech is language bedecked with jewels and ornaments. It makes the language sparkle with added luster. What is insipid and dull becomes suggestive, pointed and polished.

Quite a few people contend that effective employment of the figures is an inborn quality and can never be cultivated. In fact, they err, for a lot can be acquired through diligent application. We know that ‘natural abilities are like natural plants that require pruning by study’. It is also eminently true of language. It can be chiseled in no small measure by the effective use of different figures of speech. Let there be no doubt about the intelligibility and utility of figures of speech.

The ability to write plain, bare English is absolutely indispensable. The ability to write figuratively is an enviable, but not a necessary, possession. A figure that is not in good taste is incomparably worse than no figure at all.”

Figures of speech, varied as they are, can be classified in the manner suggested below-

1. Figures based on Similarity … SimileMetaphorAllegoryParableFable

2. Figures based on Association .. MetonymySynecdocheHypallageAllusion

3. Figures based on Difference.. AntithesisEpigram; Oxymoron; paradoClimaxAnti-climax

4. Figures based on Imagination … PersonificationPathetic FallacyApostropheVisionHyperbole

5. Figures based on indirectness… innuendoIrony; SarcasmPeriphrasisEuphemism

6. Figures based on Sound… ParonomasiaOnomatopoeiaAlliterationAssonance

7. Figures based on Construction.. InterrogationExclamationChiasmusZeugma

8. Minor Figures… LitotesProlepsis or AnticipationHendiadysAsyndetonPolysyndetonAposiopesisParaleipsisEpanaphoraEpistropheHyperbaton or InversionClichéAnastropheHypocorismaPesiflageHysteron ProteronMeiosis.

FIGURES BASED ON SIMILARITY

Simile –(Latin, similes, like)-

‘A simile is the discovery of likeness between two objects or two actions in their general nature dissimilar, or of causes terminating by different operations in some resemblance of effect’. DR. JOHNSON

‘It consists in giving formal expression to the likeness existing between two different objects’. NESFIELD

‘It may be compared to lines converging at a point, and is more excellent as the lines approach from greater distance’.

It, then, consists in likening one thing to another formally or expressly. Generally, though not always, this contrast is expressed by as, so, such, like similarly etc. Two things must be borne in mind; viz,-

(i) The things compared must be different in kind – A mere resemblance is no figure of speech. If we compare Shyam with Hari, we do not get a simile; whereas when we say, ‘Alexander swept everything that came his way like a whirlwind’, we get an example of simile. Here the two things compared – Alexander and whirlwind – are different in kind.

(ii) The likeness between the two things must be clearly stated – Let us explain it with the help of an example – ‘The rider passed like an arrow’. Here the rider has been compared with the arrow. Both the objects are in their general nature dissimilar. The likeness between the two is limited to their speed and it has been distinctly stated. Its aptness cannot be doubted.

Similes serve twofold purpose. They instruct as well as please. A simile addressed to our sense of understanding gives us wholesome instruction, while the one addressed to the heart serves for delight. While the former can be used in any species of composition, the latter is invariably used in poetry. As a simile is an illustrative figure calculated to promote clearness of thought and expression and not adapted to force and passion, its natural place is in prose and discourse of less emotional kind. In a good simile the resemblance between the things compared is neither too faint nor too remote.

There are various kinds of similes. Some are explanatory in nature, other decorative and yet others illustrative. In other words, the author seeks to elucidate the less known by the better known or draws an illustration from a complex abstract conception or explains a subject more fully or develops it into a descriptive picture. When a lengthened comparison instituted between two objects differing in kind is

developed into a descriptive picture we get a Homeric or Sustained Simile. It is so called because it was first used by Homer and later on adopted by classical writers. It is also called Epic Simile for it is found in the epic poetry of Homer, Virgil and Miltorn, as-

But as a troop of pedlars, from Cabool,Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,That vast sky-neighbouring mountain of milk snowCrossing so high, that as they mount, they passLong flocks of traveling birds dead on the snowChoked by the air, and scare can they themselvesSlake their parch’d throats with sugar’d mulberriesIn single file they move, and stop their breath,For fear they should dislodge the o’erhanging snows.So the pale Persians held their breath with fear.

Sohrab and Rustam: ARNOLD

Illustrastions-

(i) Laws are like cobwebs which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets let through. J. SWIFT

(ii) Natural abilities are like natural plants that need pruning by study.F. BACON

(iii) Flase friends are like shadows, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade.

(iv) W e are taught to fly in the air like birds, and swim in the water like fish, but how to live like men on earth, we do not know.

DR. RADHAKRISHNAN(v) Nightfall, which in the frost of winter comes as a fiend, and in the warmth

of summer as a lover, came as a tranquilizer on this March day.Tess: HARDY

(vi) But I am constant as the northern starOf whose true-fixed and resting qualityThere is no fellow in the firmament.

JULIUS CAESAR: SHAKESPEARE(vii) As a parasol with many flounces, as a peacock with many feathers, shuts

its flounces, folds its feathers, so the subsided and shut herself as she sank down in the leather armchair. V. WOOLF

(viii) Beauties as ethereal as clouds, created by the magic of your poet and geniuses, have visited me at night, and have whispered in my ears wonderful tales that have set my brain in a whirl. TCHEKHOV

(ix) …that his original Tess had spiritually ceased to recognize the body before him as hers – allowing it to drift, like a cropse upon the current, in a direction dissociated from its living will. Tess: HARDY

(x) ‘The mind of Bacon was like the tent the fairy Paribanu had given to Prince ahmad. Fold it and it seemed a toy for the hand of a lady; spread it and the armies of a powerful Sultan might repose under it’.

(xi) Manner must adorn knowledge and smooth its way in the world. Without them it is like a great rough diamond very well in a closet by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic value, but most prized when polished.

CHESTERFIELD(xii) Let us go, then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky.Like a patient etherized upon a table. T.S. ELIOT

(xiii) O my Love’s like a red, red roseThat’s newly sprung in June. R. BURNS

(xiv) Friendship without freedom is as dull as love without enjoyment or wine without toesting.

(xv) His tears run down his beard, like winter’s drops From leaves of reeds.SHAKESPEARE.

Classified Illustrations-

Humorous Simile – ‘The wrinkles on his forehead due to momentary passion slowly melted away like the mars of a black lead-pencil beneath the softening influence of India rubber’.

Disparaging Simile- ‘the beautiful proportion and noble symmetry make the Taj a joy for ever; the tawdryness of the Chhota Imambara makes her look like a wedding cake’.

Satiric Simile- The minds of some of our statesmen, like the pupil of the human eye, contract themselves the more, the stronger light there is shed upon them! MOORE

HOMERIC (OR Epic) Simile- So said he and the barge with oar and sailMoved from the brink like some full-breasted swanThat fluting a wild carol ere her death.Ruffles her pure cold plume and takes the flood TENNYSONWith swarthy webs.

Common Similes- White as snow; light as a feather; hard as stone; deaf as adder, ferocious as a lion; ugly as a toad; brittle as a glass; blind as a bat; swift as lightning; gay as a lark; dumb as a statue; quiet as a lamb.

Metaphor- (Gk., meta, beyond; and phero, I carry)-

It is ‘the transfer of a name or descriptive term to an object different from, but analogous to; that which it is properly applicable”.

It is a figure of speech in which the comparison between two objects is implied, not expressly stated. Here the resemblance between the two objects is not expressed through any introductory words like, so, as, like or similarly. It is a compressed or condensed simile. Instead of saying a thing is like another, we say a thing is another

thing. While in a simile both the sides of the comparison are stated, in a metaphor they are identified.

1. A simile can be compressed into a metaphor and a metaphor can be expanded into a simile.

Let us compare the two sets of expressions-

Set A- (i) The camel is the ship of the desert.(ii) The Camel is like the ship of the desert.

Set B- (i) The ship ploughs the sea.(ii) As a plough turns up the land, so the ship acts on the sea.

In each set, the first sentence contains a metaphor and the second, a simile. Let us analyse the first set of sentences. A ship in the literal sense is a vessel that travels on the sea. A desert is a wate or a sea of sand. The camel crosses the desert as a ship crosses the sea. By metaphor or transference of meaning, the camel is called the ship of the desert.

Meataphor is the most spontaneous of the figures. I.A. Richard tells us that human thought works basically through metaphor. It is the most powerful device of creating images. The image usually gets itself expressed through one of the five senses of men. Thus, when Shakespeare says, ‘Life is a walking shadow’, he makes us use our eyes in order to grasp the meaning and purpose of this metaphor.

‘Metaphor imparts graphicness to language, throws light on a description, gives individuality to objects and makes ideas palpable and visible by imparting to them colour, form and substance’. As a condensed simile, it is meant to produce a forceful and vivid impression. Hence it is more suited to impassioned discourse and dramatic poetry.

Illustrations-

(i) ‘Peace and power are two jealous women and always refuse to stay in the same house’.

(ii) Money is a bottomless sea in which honour, conscience, and truth may be drowned. KOZLEY

(iii) The tree of liberty only grows when it is watered by the blood of tyrants.(iv) Not in utter nakedness.

But trailing clouds of glory do we come. WORDSWORTH.(v) “The ship of state weathered the storm, thanks to the skilful pilot at home

and the brave armies abroad’.(vi) Stand fast, good Fate.

To his hanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage. SHAKESPEARE

(vii) ‘Here was I thinking you a new-sprung child of Nature; there were you, the exhausted seed of an effete aristocracy’. Tess: HARDY

(viii) Tragedy is an arbitrarily isolated eddy on the surface of a vast river that flows majestically, irresistibly, around, beneath, and to either side of it.

A.HUXULY(ix) Amd why should Caeser be a tyrant, then?

Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf,But that he sees the Romans are but sheep:He was no lion, were not Romans hinds.

Julius Caesar: SHAKESPEARE(ix) Life is mostly froth and bubble:

Two things stand like stone:Kindness in another’s trouble.Courage in your own. A.L. GORDON.

(xi) Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. WORDSWORTH(xii) Hope is brightest when it dawns from fear. W.SCOTT.(xiii) The Lord is my rock and my fortress. Book of Psalms(xiv) Life is not gig lamps symmetrically arranged. V. WOOLF.(xv) The sun of Rome is set.

Classified Illustrations-

Animal Metaphors- swan song: crocodile tears; lions; share; a mare’s nest; to play ducks and drakes.

Colour Metaphors-blud blood; blue moon, white lie, a bolt from the blue; red-letter day.

Classical Metaphors- the sword of Damocles; the Achilles heel; the Gordian knot; Stygian gloom; Fabian tactics.

Biblical metaphors- a scapegoat; a Judas; the curse of Cain;

A broken reed; the writing on the wall.

A broken reed; the writing on the wall.

Common Metaphors-a flash of wit; a ray of hope; the shade of doubt; the ghost of a chance; food for thought; a lame excuse; a flight of fancy; the fire of passion.

A metaphor differs from a simile only in form, but not in substance. A metaphor is a compressed simile, whereas a simile is an expanded metaphor. In a simile the point of similarity is clearly expressed, while in a metaphor it is only suggested.

For the poet the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor….. it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.

ARISTOTLE

Points to Remember- The principal caution needed in the use of metaphor is to avoid mixing of one metaphor with another. When two or more metaphors of different kinds are used together in dealing with the same subject, we get an example of Mixed metaphor; as-

This pillar of the stateHath swallowed hook and bait.

(Here the two metaphors are confused for no pillar could possibly swallow anything.)

Again, we sometimes find the point of similarity much too forced and far-fetched. In such a case we get an instance of Strained Metaphor; as-

Here lay Duncan,His silver skin laced with his golden blood.(Here the similarity of blood to gold laces is far-fetched).

And lastly, when personal attributes and qualifications are attributed to inanimate objects, we get an instance of Personal Metaphor; as-a prattling brook; the angry ocean; the thirty ground; a thundering cloud; frowning mountain, etc.

‘Metaphors and similes are concrete; they create images which appeal to your senses. Therefore, when well-chosen they are easily visualized and remembered; when well-phrased, they are richly connotative. Being comparisons, they fuse the original experience with other experience, thus compounding the physical, emotional, and even intellectual values’

Allegory- (Gk., allos, other; and agoreuo, I speak)-‘An Allegory exists when one or more meanings, additional and parallel to the

literal sense, and distinct from it, are embodied in story or image’.S.H.STEINBERG

It is a figure by which a long and detailed comparison is drawn between two different subjects, usually for the purpose of giving some moral instruction. An allegory, therefore, is nothing but an elaborately worked out similitude. It is a detailed description of one thing under the image of another. However, it differs from simile in that it presents only the secondary object and all the assertions that apply to it. Generally, in an allegory the story has an interest apart from the allegorical significance.

Thomas Aquinas has made a clear distinction between theological and merely literary allegory……. ‘The theory of literary allegory was differently derived, namely from the rhetoricians of an ancient world. But both theological and literary allegory were said to give aesthetic pleasure through the discovery, with surprise, of a multiplicity of unsuspected relationships. Theological allegory could have, according to some, three, and according to others, four levels of meaning. Four-fold allegory is treated at length by Thomas Acquinas, and summarized in the tag;

Littera gesta docet; quid credas, allegoria;Moralis quid agas; quo tendas, anagogia.

A burning example is that of Jerusalem, which is on the literal or historical plane, the holy city; allegorically, the church militant; tropologically or morally, the just soul; and anagogically or analogically, the church triumphant’. In the like manner Piers Ploughman is a four-fold allegory, at least in parts.

The most widely known allegory in English prose literature is Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. It deals with the experiences of a Christian in quest of spiritual salvation. Doubts and difficulties assail him. He has to pass through various obstacles and temptations, from the city of Destruction to the celestial city. In fact, it is a journey from our material world to the spiritual world, from suffering to salvation. The moral is that the way to God or religion is not a primrose path. It is beset with doubt, despair diffidence. However, hope springs eternal in man. Indeed, this allegory is a happy blend of rhetorical meaning and story interest.

Another allegory of note is Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. It is a satirical allegory. It is a satire on the whole of mankind. Swift uses surprise and circumstantial evidence as well as humour to enliven his narrative. But the moral of the story is horrible. Swift thinks of his fellow creatures as monsters, wicked and ignorant. His Tale of the Tub is an allegory, crude and abusive. Here he castigates the Church of Rome and all Protestant organizations. Dryden allegorises false politics, religion and stupidity in Absalom and Achitophel, Mackflecknoe and The Hind and Panther. Spenser’s faerie Queen was written with the avowed aim of fashioning a gentleman by a virtuous and noble discipline. Like all other allegories, it also imparts moral lesson.

Among the words of recent years Orwell’s animal Farm, and C.S. Lewis’s Pilgrim’s Regress, conform very much to the form of allegory.

‘The advantage of an allegory is twofold. It makes the thought concrete by representing it in the guise of the objects of sense, and secondly, it lends to it the form of a story which is the easiest and most interesting of the literary forms. Fulicher points out that in an allegory the comparison of the two stories is detailed, and the coincidence elaborately worked out’.

‘An allegory differs from parable in its greater length and its elements of personification’.

Parable- (Gk., para, beside; and ballo, I throw)-

It is ‘a fable or story of something which might have happened, told to illustrate some doctrine, or to make some duty clear’. Chamber’s Dictionary.

‘It is a brief fictional work which concretely illustrates an abstract idea or ideas’.

It is often described as an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. But the phrase though very neat needs qualification; for all parables are not earthly stories not have all parables heavenly meaning. We can define it from our actual study as ‘an allegorical story intended to enforce some high moral or religious lesson’. It is really an expanded simile.

The parable originated in the East. In Hebrew, it is called Mashal; in Greek it was equated by parable. Among the Jews it indicated a saying illustrated by popular story; in Greece it came to mean a popular story from which a moral could be drawn.

Let us distinguish between a parable, a fable and an allegory. In a fable birds and beasts are personified. In a parable it is not so. In an allegory a set of events and incidents is used to correspond to another set of events and incidents. In fact, a story is told to symbolize some truths. But in a parable no such effort is made.

Take the parable of The Good Samaritan. It is a story told to illustrate the meaning of the word neighbour, and how to love him. On the other hand the Parables of Christ are lively and picturesque. They present Jewish life in the first century, in all its beauty and sordidness.

“It may fairly be said that parable is extended metaphor and allegory extended simile”.

Fable- (Fr., Fable-L. fibula, fari, to speak)-

It is ‘a narrative in which things irrational, and sometimes inanimate, are, for the purpose of moral instruction, feigned to act and speak with human interest and passions: any tale in literary form, not necessarily probable in its incidents, intended to instruct or amuse’. Chamber’s Dictionary

It is a short imaginary story with a meaning or moral. Its characters are generally drawn from the world of animals, birds and inanimate objects. It throws some light on life and affairs of the human world. It is didactic in nature. The moral is inextricably woven round the story.

We can call it an indirect method of giving advice. We know, people are averse to advice given. They feel offended. It is something detestable and generates ill will. Thus, in order to avoid this unpleasantness, men of letters have found it convenient to present sugar-coated pills. It has certain advantages over other forms of giving advice. ‘The moral insinuates itself imperceptibly; we are caught by surprise and become wiser and better unawares.’ Moreover, ‘the natural pride and ambition of the soul is very much gratified in the reading of a fable; for, in writing of this kind, the reader comes in for half of the performance; everything appears to him like a discovery of his own; he is busied all the while in applying characters and circumstances, and is in this respect both a reader and composer’.

According to S.H. Steinberg, ‘The portrayal of human beings in animal guise- the characteristic of literary fable (unlike the fable still told among primitive peoples)-presupposes a certain cultural level; human qualities must have been recognized in animal behaviour before human indiosynrasies could be caricatured in animal expression’.

Swift’s The Spider and Bee, T.F. Powys’s The Withered Leaf and the Green, and John Gay’s The Fox at the point of death are its notable examples. However, Aesop’s fables are milestones in the literary evolution of this form.

Here is a modern version of one of the fables of Aesop-

A wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his gods. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside; so it put it on its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the wolf was wearing, began to follow the wolf in the sheep’s clothing; so leading the lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal of her, and for some time succeeded in deceiving the sheep and enjoying a hearty meal.

Moral- Appearances are deceptive.

FIGURES BASED ON ASSOCIATION

Metonymy- (Gk, meta, change; and anoma, name;-change of name)-

It is the ‘substitution of an attributive or other suggestive word for the name of the thing meant, as when the crown, Homer, Wealth, stand for the sovereign, Homer’s poems, and right people’. H.W. FOWLER.

It is substitution of the thing named for the thing meant. NESFIELD.

It is a figure of speech in which an attribute is used for that of the thing meant by the attribute. This figure consists in substituting the name of one thing for that of another to which it has certain relation. The two things are separable; their connection is external.

Let us illustrate it with an example ‘The pen(writer) is mightier than the sword (soldier)’. Here the belief in the ultimate supremacy of intelligence over brute force is conveyed in a more concrete and, therefore, more realizable form if we substitute the pen and the sword for the two abstract terms. To say, `Beware of drinking’, is less effective than to say, `Beware of the bottle’.

The different kinds of substitution used in metonymy are as follows-

(a) The symbol for the thing symbolized.(b) The instrument or organ for the agent.(c) The effect for the cause and vice versa.(d) The container for the thing contained.(e) The act for the object of the act.(f) The maker for his work.(g) The place for the production.(h) The name of a passion for the object inspiring it.

Illustrations-

A. (i) He was raised to the bench (the office of a judge) (ii) From the cradle (childhood) to the grave (death).B. (i) Dick is a good oar (rower)

(ii) J.F. Kennedy is soon to address the press (journalists).C. (i) Let us bask in the sun (sunshine)

(ii)‘Swiftly files the feathered death’ (arrow)D. (i) All the city (inhabitants of the city) rose to a single man against

His highhandedness. (ii) The kettle (i.e., water in it) is boiling.E. (i) The principles of liberty were the scoff (object of ridicule) of

Every grinning courtier.The people’s prayer, the glad diviner’s theme.

F. (i) I have read very little of Shakespeare (i.e., his plays).(ii) Euclid (Euclid’s geometry) has been my pet aversion.

G (i) All Arabia (the perfume of Arabia) breathes from yonder box.POPE.

(iii) Roger deals in Havana (the cigars of Havana).G. (i) Jawaharlal Nehru is the pride (one of whom Indians feel proud)

Of India.(iii) ‘Lycidas, your sorrow(object of sorrow) is not dead’.

Synecdoche-(GK., understood along with); ‘inclusive extended acceptation’.

‘It is a figure by which a part of a thing is put for the whole, or the whole for the part, or the species for the genus, or the genus for the species, or the name of the material for the thing made.’

‘It is a figure of speech by which a more comprehensive term is used for a less comprehensive or vice versa, as whole for part, or part for the whole’.

Oxford Companion to English Literature.

It is thus a figure of speech whose literal meaning is the understanding of one thing by another. When we substitute the name of one thing for that of another closely related to it, the figure of speech used is Synecdoche.

If instead of saying a fleet of ten ships we say, ‘a fleet of ten sails’, the picture of a group of vessels at sea is more readily suggested because the sails constitute the most conspicuous parts of vessels. Again, to say All hands to the pump’ is better than to say, ‘All men to the pumps’, as it suggests all men in the special attitude intended.

‘In Synecdoche the two images are much more directly and intimately associated; the relation is practically one of identity or coincidence, not as in Metonymy, a connection in the thought between two different things’. The different modes of substituting one thing by means of another are as follows-

(a) A part for the whole.(b) The whole for a part.(c) The material for the thing made.(d) The abstract for the concrete.(e) The concrete for the abstract.(f) A species for the genus.(g) The genus for the species.(h) An individual for the class (called Antonomasia).

Illustrations-

A. (i) A fleet of twenty sails (ships) glided away majestically.(ii)As an austerity’ measure, no new hands (persons) are to be employed in

this office. (iii)She is a girl of fourteen summers (years).B. (i) For us, it remains only to say that in F. Roosevelt there died the greatest

American friend we have ever known, and the greatest champion of freedom who has ever brought help and comfort from the new world (America) to the old (Europe and Asia). W. CHURCHILL

(ii) The lavish moisture of the melting year (the rainy season). THOMPSON (iii) Dust thou (body only) art, to dust returnest. - LUNGFELLOWC. (i) Grace this cold marble (monument) with a tear.

(ii) Just for a handful of silver (money) he left us. BROWNING(iii) In that rich earth a richer dust (body) concealed. R. BROOK

D. (i) Then Averill went and gazed upon his death(dead body). (ii) All the rank and fashion (people of rank and fashion) came to see the

Sight. (iii) Ambition (ambitions men) should be made of sterner stuff.

SHAKESPEAREE. (i) I am afraid, there is a good deal of the fox (cunning) in his character. (ii) The father (fatherly affection) years in the true prince’s breast.

DRYDEN (iii) There is a mixture of the tiger and the ape (tigerly and apish instincts)

In the character of a Frenchman. VOLTAIREF. (i) Silver and gold (riches) we have none.

(ii) The rickshaw-pullers earn their bread(food) by the sweat of their brow.

(iii) Man cannot live by bread (food) alone.G. (i) To tread a measure (dance) with you in the grass.

SHAKESPEARE(ii) Drink, pretty creature (lamb), drink!

H. (i) Don’t pretend to be a Solomon (as wise as King Solomon).(ii) Some new Arminius (deliverer of his country) shall awake.

SCOTT(iii) Among all the heroes of the Iliad and the Odyssey there is

No Sir Galahad.

HYPALLAGE OR TRANSFERRED EPITHET – (Gk, hypo, under; allassein, to change); ‘exchange’.

The transferring of an epithet from the more to less natural part of a group of nouns, as when Virgil speaks of ‘the’ trumpet’s Tuscan blare’ instead of ‘the Tuscan trumpet’s blare’.

‘It is a figure of speech in which the relations of things in a sentence are mutually interchanged, but without obscuring the sense.

Chamber’s Dictionary

It is a figure of speech in which the epithet or the qualifying adjective is transferred from a person to a thing. Thus in the sentence,-‘He took up that dishonest calling’. – the qualifying adjective ‘dishonest’ is transferred from the person to the calling (profession). Again when we say, ‘Prometheus talks too much of his uneasy postures’ here the epithet ‘uneasy’ which is strictly applicable to Prometheus, is transferred from him to the posture.

Expressions like ‘dusty death’ (Macberth), ‘blind months’ (Milton) ‘Sansfoy’s dead dowry’ (Spensar); ‘a learned book’, ‘a foolish observation’, ‘a virtuous indignation’ and ‘a mortal wound’ are its telling examples.

Illustrations-

(i) The slow foot-step of the guard pacing his sober roundSCOTT

(ii) And drowsky tinklings lull the distant fold.(iii) To scorn delight and live laborious days.(iv) With patient angle trolls the finny deep, Or drives his venturous ploughshare to the steep. GOLDSMITH(v) ‘The fond companions of his helpless years.(vi) We have to go to the criminal court.(vii) They had to spend an anxious day watching the patient.(viii) ‘A suit being filed, the reluctant accounts had to be produced in court.’(ix) We continued our journey and marched a weary way.

(x) The bellman’s drowsy charm. MILTON(xi) He neither cracked his whip nor blew his horn

But gazed upon the Spoil with silent joy. WORDSWORTH(While gazing he was silent).

(xii) You are engaged in a dishonest calling.(xiii) The prisoner was placed in the condemned cell.

Allusion- It is a figure of speech wherein reference to some well-known past incident or the saying of some great man is made. It aims at illustration of a thing with the help of a still more known fact. Let us take an example, viz-

‘In such a nightMedea gathered the enchanted herbsThat did renew old aeson’.

The Merchant of Venice.

The allusion here is to the famous story of Medea and Jason. Medea helped Jason to win the golden fleece by her magic art. She then fled to Greece with Jason. Soon they were married. By means of magic herbs she renewed the youth of Jason’s old father, Aeson. This picture of her going by moonlight to gather herbs has been presented by Shakespeare to paint the moonlight scene. Thus allusions open before our mind’s eye, vistas of well-known incidents. They add richness and variety o a piece of writing. Shakespeare’s plays are full of allusions to Greek mythology and legend.

Illustrations-

(i) In such a nightStood Dido with a willow in her handUpon the wild sea banks, and waft her loveTo come again to Carthage. SHAKESPEARE

(ii) Was this the face that launched a thousand ships. And burnt the topless towers of Illium? MARLOWE(iii) The ungainly Irishman was called to make sport for the Philistines. BLACK(iv) He said, but his last words were scarcely heard, For Bruce and Longvile had a trap prepared, And down they sent the yet declaiming bard, Sinking he left his druggist robe behind, Borne upwards by a subterranean wind. DRYDEN(The allusion is to an amusing scene in Shadwell’s Virtuoso, Act III where

Bruce and Longville, urged on by Miranda and Clarinda, cut short Sir Formal Trifle’s loquacity by making him disappear through a trapdoor.)

(v) The mantle fell to the young prophet’s part. With double portion of his father’s art.

(In II Kings, we are told that when Elijah the prophet went up by a whirlwind into Heaven, his son Elisha rested on him. Similarly, the mantle of Flecknoe fell upon MacFlecknoe, and he became twice as dull as his father.

(vi) Jove’s lightning, the precursors. O’ the dreadful thunder-claps, The Tempest: SHAKESPEARE(vii) … the fire and cracks. Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune. Seem to besiege. The Tempest: SHAKESPEARE(viii) ‘Which bards in fealty to Appllo hold’.(ix) Among the farthest Hebrides. WORDSWORTH(x) Three superb glass jars – red, green and blue – of the sort that led Rosamund to parting with her shoes – blazed in the broad plate-glass windows.

KILPING

A writer who abounds in literary allusions necessarily appeals to a small audience, to those acquainted with about the same set of books as himself; they like his allusions, others dislike them. Writers should decide whether it is not wise to make their allusions explain themselves.

H.W. FOWLER & F.G. FOWLER.

FIGURES BASED ON DIFFERENCE

Antitheses- (Gk., anti, against; and tithemi, I place); ‘Placing opposite’.

‘It is a figure of speech in which thoughts or words are set in contrast’Chamber’s Dictionary.

‘It is such choice or arrangement of words as emphasizes a contrast’.H.W. FOWLER

‘This figure consists in an explicit statement of an implied contrast’.NESFIELD

It is a figure in which contrasted words or ideas are set against each other in a balanced from with a view to making our statement emphatic and forceful. Contrasted pictures when set against each other heighten their effects. A streak of lightning in a dark cloud is much more luminous than otherwise. Likewise in composition, antithesis strengthens the effect. Thus, when we say, ‘Man proposes, God disposes’, here the explicit statement of the contrast serves to render the proposition more forceful. Hence the efficacy of contrast cannot be doubted.

Illustrations-

(j) Man is not the master but the slave of circumstance.(ii) The worst that can happen to you is to break stones, and not to be broken by them. RUSKIN(iii) Stronger by weakness, wiser men become. WALLER(iv) Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. MILTON(v) You followed the letter but not the spirit of the law.(vi) we live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breath. BEILEY(vii) Without economy, none can be rich, and with it few will be poor.(viii) “The prodigal robs his heirs, the miser robs himself’.(ix) The Puritan prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker, but he set his foot on the neck of his king. MACAULAY(x) Shadwell alone my perfect image bears(xi) Mature in dullness from his tender years. DRYDEN(xii) ‘Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment’.(xiii) A golden rule is that there is no golden rule. – G.B. SHAW(xiv) ‘Where law ends, tyranny begins’.(xv) ‘Eat to live, and not to live to eat’.(xvi) Crafty men contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise

men use them. BACON(xvii) One man’s meat is another man’s poison.(xviii) He is everybody’s friend and his own enemy.(xix) Prosperity doth best discover vice, but advertisit doth best discover

virtue.(xx) Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.

SHAKESPEARE.

Epigram- (Gk, epi, upon; and gramma, a writing; originally an inscription);`on writing’.

‘Four distinct meanings, naturally enough developed. First, now obsolete, an inscription on a building, tomb, coin. Secondly, (inscriptions being often in verse, and brief) a short poem, and especially one with a sting in the tail. Thirdly, any pungent saying. Fourthly, a style full of such sayings’. – H.W. FOWLER

‘It is an apparent contradiction in language, which by causing a temporary shock, rouse our attention to some important meaning underneath’. NAIN

‘It is riginally an inscription, usually in verse, e.g., on a tomb; hence a short poem ending in witty turn of thought; hence a pointed or antithetical saying’.

Oxford companion to English Literature.Thus in an epigram there is a verbal contradiction which arrests attention. An

examination of the contradiction discloses some important truth. This figure employs in a modified form the principles of contrast or antithesis in order to give point to a thought.

To be epigrammatic, an expression must be brief and it must give some unexpected turn to the idea. S.T. Coleridge says-

What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole:Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

It is attained in four different ways-

A. Apparent contradiction-

(i) The child is father of the man. WORDSWORTH(ii) Language is the art of concealing thoughts. ROCHEFONCAULD(iii) The chief guest was conspicuous by his absence.(iv) In the midst of life we are in death. T.S. ELIOT

B. Sudden turn of thought-

(j) Marlborough’s services had been so splendid that they were no longer necessary.

MACAULAY(ii) Love is a secondary passion in those who love most and a primary in those

who love least. LANDOR(iii) The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none. CARLYLE(iv) ‘What man does not know is not worth knowing, and what he does know

is not worth knowing either’.

C. Seeming irrelevance-

(i) No man teaches well who wants to teach. RUSKIN(ii) ‘Where snow falls, there is freedom’.(iii) The blessedness of being little. SHAKESPEARE(iv) Speech was given to man to conceal his thoughts. VOLTAIRE

D. Play on words-

(i) ‘The ease of America is her disease’.(ii) The orator mistook perspiration for inspiration’.

N.B.- ‘In Antithesis, the contrast is between one expression and another; in Epigram, the contrast is between the expression and the underlying meaning. In an Antithesis we have an explicit statement of a contrast and its effect depends upon the clearness of the contrast. On the other hand, an Epigram keeps the meaning hidden and its effect depends upon the brevity of expression’.

Oxymoron- (Gk. Oxys, sharp; moros, foolish), ‘Sharp, dull’ –

It is ‘the combining in one expression of two terms that are ordinarily contradictory, and whose exceptional coincidence is therefore arresting’.

‘It is a rhetorical figure by which two incongruous or contradictory terms are united in an expression so as to give it point.’

Oxford Companion to English Literature

‘It is a figure of speech by means of which two ideas of opposite meaning are combined, so as to form an expressive phrase or epithet, as cruel kindness, falsely true……’ Chamber’s Dictionary

It is the extreme form of Epigram. In this figure, we get a juxtaposition of contradictory words, i.e., two words, opposite in meaning are placed side by side to heighten the effect; as unwilling volunteer; cruel kindness; aching joys; lawless laws; idly busy; waking dream; a cheerful pessimist, harmonious discord.

Illustrations-

(i) ‘Life is bitter sweet’.(ii) ‘It is an open secret’.(iii) Juna Khan was the wisest fool.(iv) This pleasing anxious being. GRAY(v) So loathed the bright dishonour of his love. TENNYSON(vi) If the freshening sea

Made them a terror – it was a pleasing fear. BYRON(vii) And in that glorious error, calmly went

To death without a word. DOYLE(viii) With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,

The melting voice through mazes running MILTON(ix) Thus idly busy rolled the time away.(x) His honour rooted in dishonour stood,

And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. TENNYSON(xi) … She enjoyed treading a measure purely for its own sake, little divining

when she saw ‘the soft torments, the bitter sweets, the pleasing pains, and the agreeable distresses’ of those girls who had been wooed and won, what she herself was capable of experiencing in that kind. Tess: HARDY

Paradox – It is a saying which seems to contradict itself; its seeming nonsense, however, emphasizes a truth.

A paradox is a statement which, though outwardly contradictory, is perhaps really well founded. NESFIELD

It is, then, a self contradictory statement which aims at stating the truth emphatically. Let us illustrate it with an example, viz.-‘ …. Povery in the land of plenty’. On the surface, it may sound absurd, but on closer examination a great truth is revealed. Here India’s grinding poverty despite her proverbial wealth and rich resources has been hinted at. Paradoxical statements are shocking but not without truth at their bottom. Hence Paradox has been rightly described as a ‘truth doing somersault’.

Illustrations-

(i) There is no one so poor as a wealthy miser.He that loseth his life shall save it. New Testament

(ii) The child is father of the man.(iii) Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing badly.

G.K.CHESTERTON(iv) ‘He who goes against the fashion is himself its slave’.(v) Attack is the best form of defence.(vi) Poets are liars.(vii) All philosophers are fools(viii) Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.

Climax-(Gk. Klimax, a ladder)-

‘Arrangement of a series of notions in such an order that each is more impressive than the preceding’. H.W. FOWLER.

‘It is a series of statements, in gradually increasing order of importance’.T.H. HEWSON

It is a figure of speech in which words or sentiments are so arranged that the least impressive comes in the beginning and the most impressive in the end. Thus it is an ascent from the lower to the higher. Here, subsequent words are stronger than the preceding ones. It is likened to the speed of a train, which in the beginning creeps at a snail’s pace, works up speed and then attains the limit set.

Illustrations-

(i) Keep wherever your course may lie – the company of great thoughts, the inspiration of great ideals, the example of great achievements and the consolation of great failures.

(ii) Handkerchiefs were pulled out; smelling bottles were handed round; hysterical sobs and screams were heard; and Mrs.Sheridan was carried out in a fit.

(iii) What a piece of work is man? How infinite in faculties? In form and motion how express and admirable? In action how like an angel? In comprehension how like a god. SHAKESPEARE

(iv) By it the purity and virtue of the family tie are touched; the tone and viour of the dominant classes are sapped; the body politic becomes weak and languid; and the state itself too crumbles to pieces. MUIR

(v) ‘What was at first an idle amusement had now become a serious pursuit and was fast developing into a passion.’

(vi) Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires and a touch that never hurts. DICKENS

(vii) How has expectation darkened into anxiety, anxiety into dread, and dread into despair!

(viii) ‘We’ll hear him, we’ll follow him, we’ll die with him’.

(ix) ‘We grieved, we sighed, we wept’.

(x) ‘That consolation, that joy, that triumph was afforded him’.

(xi) Hat for him a virtue, vengeance a duty, pardon an infamy’.

(xii) For his country he faced poverty, shame, persecution, even death’.

(xiii) They smiled, they laughed, they roared.

(xiv) Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared; three progressive stages of strangeness.

(xv) Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand.They rave, recite, and madden round the land POPE

(xvi) ‘Companionship produces mutual esteem; esteem leads to friendship; and friendship blossoms into love.’

(xvii) Some books are to be tasted, other swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. BACON

(xviii) As Caesar loved me I weep for him, as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him; but as he was ambitious, I slew him.

SHAKESPEARE

Anti-climax or Bathos – ‘It is a ludicrous descent from the elevated to the mean in writing or speech’.

Chamber’s DictionaryThis figure consists in a sudden descent from lofty to the common place thoughts.

The words are so arranged that the most striking ones come at the beginning and the lesser at the end. This figure serves to excite a sense of the ludicrous.

Illustrations-

(i) ‘Here the great Anna! Whom three realms obey,Dost sometimes counsel take –and sometimes tea’. POPE

(ii) No louder shricks to pitying heaven are cast,When husbands or when lap dogs breathe their last. POPE

(iii) Q-‘How do you like shakespeare’s Hamlet?A- O mighty excellent! I think there ae not even twelve men in Boston

who could write such a work!(iv) If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined,

The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind’.(v) ‘There mark what ills the scholar’s life assail,

Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail’.(vi) ‘He lost his wife, his child, his goods and his dog in one fell sweep’.(vii) Poets and Pigs are not appreciated until they are dead.

Italian Proverb(viii) ‘The soldier fights for glory and a dollar a day’.(ix) A man so various, that he seem’d to be,

Not one, but all mankind’s epitome;Who in the course of one revolving moonWas lawyer, statesman, fiddler, and buffoon. DRYDEN.

(x) ‘The rest of all the acts of Asa, and all his might, and the cities which he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? Nevertheless in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet’.

(xi) It is magnificent, it is grand, it is pretty well!(xii) ‘He risked the loss of his life and of a considerable sum of money’.(xiii) So passed the strong heroic soul away’

And when they buried him, the little portHad seldom seen a costlier funeral.

(xiv) True Jedwood justice was dealt out to him. First came the execution, then the investigation, and last of all the accusation. MACAULAY

(xv) O, life me from the grassI die! I faint! I fail! SHEELEY

(xvi) Who does not know him? He is famous all over the world. He is Mr. Pen.

FIGURES BASED ON IMAGINATION

Personification (Lat. Persona, a person)-

It is a figure of speech in which life is attributed to inanimate objects. When we invest abstract ideas or inanimate objects with the attributes of a living being, we are said to personify them. The use of this figure arises from an inherent tendency in man to endow inanimate things or abstract ideas with activities, and passions, all human. It gives concreteness to abstract ideas. They acquire added significance. There are three different ways of attaining it, as-

A. By giving an inanimate object the qualities of an animal or a human being; as-

(i) The oaks forgot their whispering, The pines their reverie.

(ii) The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare. WORDSWORTH(iii) The Pyramids themselves, doting with age, have forgotten the names of their

founders.(iv) The earth shook with terror.(v) The wind howled.

B. By giving an animal the attributes of a human being; as-

(i) My dog laughed to see this spectacle.(ii) The birds are making merry.(iii) The cow is in a thoughtful mood.(iv) Have you ever seen a fox dinning into the ears of his offspring.(v) The donkey sighed and sobbed for its lost companion.

C. By giving human qualities to an abstraction; as-(i) Grey Superstition’s whisper dread

Debarred the spot to vulgar tread. SCOTT(ii) Smiles on past Misfortune’s brow

Soft Reflection’s hand can trace. GRAY(iii) Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding Adieu. KEATS

(iv) Chill Penury repressed their noble rageAnd froze the genial current of the soul. GRAY

(v) Death lays his icy hands even on king.(vi) ‘Do you but look for Truth? She is not the inhabitant of cities nor delights

in glamour; she steals upon the calm breast of chastity, encouraging a modest and requiting a faithful love’.

Miscellaneous Examples-

(i) The mute procession of trees and hedges became attached to fantastic scenes, outside reality, and the occasional heave of the wind became the sigh of some immense sad soul, coterminous with the universe in space, and with history in time.

Tess: HARDY(ii) She knew that Time was chanting his satiric pslam at her then.

Tess: HARDY(iii) When sorrow ceases to be speculative, sleep sees her opportunity.

Tess: HARDY(iv) So does Time ruthlessly destroy his own romances.

Tess:HARDY(v) Once a beautiful flower put its head out from the grass, but when it saw

the notice-board it was so sorry for the children that it slipped back into the ground again and went off to sleep.

OSCAR WILDE(vi) A road will give one less trouble if it winds about and feels the contours of

the land.(vii) The river flows at its will.(viii) The field smiles with green crops.(ix) (a) …. Let’st they fortune sleep.

(b) …..that even Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond.(c ) ….. open-eyed conspiracy.(d) …. Time goes upright with his carriage.

The Tempest: SHAKESPEARE

Pathetic Fallacy (Gk., passion or violent emotion)-

It is an extreme form of personification in which an external object is made to express sympathy or antipathy to the emotions of the agent. When we credit Nature with human emotion so much so that Nature seems to share it, we are said to have employed Pathetic Fallacy.

‘It has been so called by Ruskin, because it is a fallacy cause by an excited state of the feelings, when the mind is borne away, overclouded or over-dazzled by emotions’.

Let us cite the example of Carlyle’s description of Cromwell’s death- Cromwell is on his death bed. A fierce storm is raging outside. Carlyle paints this scene in this way- The Earth is weeping and crying for her mighty son. Similarly, in the example given below Nature is mourning when Eve plucked and ate the forbidden fruit-

‘Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe,That all was lost’.

Illustrations-

(i) When he got in and the boat was under way, the rain-swollen river, like a stream of tears welling up form the earth, swirled and sobbed at her bows, he felt a sort of pain at heart ….. the grief-stricken face of a village girl seemed to represent for him the great unspoken pervading grief of Mother Earth herself.

TAGORE(ii) Orpheu’s magic music waked the sleeping earth from her winter

rest; it calmed the wildest tempests and made the tossing waves of the ocean civil and gentle.

(iii) Armour rustling in the halls.On the blood of Clifford calls. WORDSWORTH

(iv) ‘Call it not vain; they did not err,Why say that when the poet dies,Mute Nature mourns her worshipperAnd Celebrates his obsequies?

(v) Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe. GOLDSMITH

(vi) Her fate whispered by the gentle breeze,And told in sighs to all the trembling trees;The trembling trees, in every plain and wood,Her fate remurmur to the silver flood;The silver flood, so lately calm, appearsSwell’ with new passion, and o’erflows with tears. POPE

(vii) Nature might stand up and say to all the world, ‘This was a man’.SHAKESPEARE

(viii) And their great pines groan aghast.(ix) But here will sigh thine alder tree,

And here thine aspen shiver; TENNYSON

N.B.- ‘It personification the object is treated as a person; in Pathetic Fallacy inanimate objects think, feel and act like human beings. The main difference between them is that the element of nature’s interest in man’s destiny is not present in personification, whereas in Pathetic Fallacy it is very much there’.

Apostrope- (Gk., apo, aside; and strepho, I trun); ‘a turning away’.

‘Words addressed to a present or absent person or thing and breaking the thread of discourse’. H.W.FOWLER

‘It is a sudden turning away from the ordinary course of a speech to address some person or object present, explained by Quintilion as addressed to a person present, but extended by modern use to the absent or dead’.

Chamber’s Dictionary.

It is a sudden turn given to a theme. When the speaker or writer changes the course of his theme and makes a short impassioned address to a person who is absent or dead or to an inanimate object or even to an abstraction, it is termed as Apostrophe. In the case of inanimate objects and abstract ideas, an Apostrophe must be accompanied by personification. They are supposed to listen to us passively and be affected. Hence the name passive personification.

Illustrations-

(i) O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth;That I am meek and gentle with these butchers. SHAKESPEARE

(ii) My mother! When I learnt that thou wast dead,Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shead? COWPER

(iii) And is this all the world has gained by thee,Thou first and last of fields? King-making victory BYRON

(iv) And vainly pierce the solemn gloomThat shrouds, O Pitt, thy hollowed tomb.

(v) O Death, where is thy sting?O Grave, where is thy victory?

(vi) Why, why was I born a man, and yet see the sufferings of wretches I cannot relieve? Poor houseless creatures! The world will give you reproach, but will not give your relief’

GOLDSMITH(vii) ‘England, with all thy faults, I love thee still’.(viii) Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll’.(ix) O Cuckko! Shall I call thee Bird

Or but a wandering voice! WORDSWORTH(x) O wild west wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being - SHELLEY(xi) O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet!

Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swordsIn our own proper entrails. Julius Caesar: SHAKESPEARE

(xi) O hateful error, melancholy’s child.Why doest thou show to the apt thought of menThe things that are not? O error, soon conceived,Thou never comest unto a noble birth,But Kill’st the mother that engender’d there!

Julius Caesar: SHAKESPEARE(xii) I know where I will wear this dagger then;

Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius:Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong;

Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat.Julius Caesar: SHAKESPEARE

(xiii) I know where I will wear this dagger then;Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius:Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat.

Julius Caesar: SHAKESPEARE(xiv) O constrancy, be strong upon my side,

Set a huge mountain, ‘tween my heart and tongue!I have a man’s mind, but a woman’s might.

Julius Caesar: SHAKESPEARE(xv) O most gentle Jupiter! What tedious homily of love have you wearied your

parishioners withal, and never cried, ‘Have patience, good people!’As your Like It: SHAKESPEARE

(xvi) Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death! HEMANS(xvi) Frailty, thy name is Woman!(xvii) You gods, look down,

And from your sacred vials pour your graces upon my daughter’s head.

SHAKESPEARE(xviii) ‘You temptress, Tess; you dear damned witch of Babylon-

I could not resist you as soon as I met you again!” Tess: HARDY(xx) There is not wind enough to twirl

The one red leaf, the last of its clan.That dances as often as dance it can,Hanging so light, and hanging so high,On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.Hush, beating heart of Christable!Jesu, Maria, shield her well!She folded her arms beneath her cloak,And stole to te other side of the Oak. COLERIDGE

(xxi) Swiftly walk over the Western wave Spirit of Night! SHELLY

Vision – (Lat. Video, I see)-

‘Vision is the art of seeing things invisible’. SWIFT

It is a figure of speech by which the writer or speaker visualizes some imaginary or absent pictures and represents them with such graphic reality that ‘a willing suspension of disblief’s is effected. It embodies strong emotion, which does not lend itself in plain narrative. It is often allegorical. Swift’s Temple of Fame can be cited as an example.

Illustrations-

(i) Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,

I see the lords of human kind pass by. GOLDSMITH(ii) ‘Yes, in my mind these mountains rise,

Their perils dyed with evening’s rose’.(iii) See, see the murdered geese appear!

Why are these bleeding turkeys there?Why all round this cackling trainWho haunt my ears for chicken slain. JOHN GAY

(iv) My thoughts sped across the centuries to a different land and different age when a similar drama was enacted and another divine and gentle teacher was crucified for speading a kindred gospel with a kindred courage. I realized now that the lowly Jesus of Nazareth, cradled in a manger, furnished the only parallel in history to this invincible apostle of Indian liberty who loved humanity with unsurpassed compassion, and to use his onw beautifl phrase ‘approached the poor with the mind of the poor’.

SAROJINI NAIDU(v) High over hose venerable graves towers the stately monument of

Chatham, and from above, his effigy, grave by a cunning hand, seems still with eagle face and outstretched arm, to bid England be of good cheer, and to hurl defiance at her foes.

MACAULAY(vi) ….for it permitted me to contemplate the road with common sense and

with Faith, which is common sense transfigured, and I could see Legionaries climbing the hill.

HILAIRE BELLOC(vii) Hark! Forth from the abyss a voice proceeds

Along less distant murmur of dread sound. BYRON.(viii) ‘I see the hands of nation’s lyre that strung,

The eyes that looked through life and gazed on God!”(ix) “Methings I see her (England) as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and

kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam.MILTON

(x) Even now methings, as pondering here I stand,I see the rural virtues leave the land. GOLDSMITH

(xi) Behold her single IN THE FIELDYon solitary highland lass. WORDSWORTH

(xi) Lo! In that house of miseryA lady with a lamp I see LONGFELLOW

Hyperbole- (Gk, hyper, beyond; and ballo, I throw); ‘over-shooting’.

‘Use of exaggerated terms for the sake not of deception, but of emphasis, as when ‘infinite’ is used for ‘great’, or ‘a thousand apologies’ for ‘an apology’.

‘It is a rhetorical figure which produces a vivid impression by representing things as much greater or less than they really are – not expecting to be taken literally: an obvious exaggeration’. Chamber’s Dictionary.

Its literal meaning is over-shooting. It magnifies objects beyond their natural bounds in order to make them more impressive or more vivid. The aim of the figure is to impress the emotion. When it overdoes this, it becomes bombastic and when it is employed where no proper emotion exists, it becomes ludicrous.

There are two types of this figure: impassioned and descriptive. In an impassioned hyperbole, our statements are heightened owing to the strong and earnest feelings based on the contemplation of the sublime and the sad. The descriptive heperbole results from the vivid conception of some characteristic of an object which the writer wants to describe. It invariably produces humour.

A. Descriptive Hyperbole-

(i) I saw their chief tall as a rock of ice; his spear as the blasted fur; his shield like the rising moon; he sat on the shore, like a cloud or mist on the hill. OSSIAN

(ii) Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus; and we petty menWalk under his huge legs, and peep about To find ourselves dishonourable graves! SHAKESPEARE

(iii) Such a peal of laughter enough to have awakened the Seven Sleepers.CARLYLE

(iv) I have lamps that gild the luster of the moon. DAVIDSON(v) Belinds smiled and all the world was gay.(vi) The groom swore he would do anything I wished; and when the time

arrived, he went upstairs to bring my trunk down. This, I feared, was beyond the strength of any one man. However, the groom was a man of Atalantean shoulders fit to bear the weight of mightiest monarchies; and he had a back as spacious as Salisbury plains.

DE QUICEY

B. Impassioned Hyperbole

(i) to see her is but to love her,And love but her for ever;For Nature made her what she is,And never made another. BURNS

(ii) So frowned the mighty combatants that hellGrew darker at their frown. MILTON

(iii) Here’s the smell of blood still; all the perfumes of ArabiaWill not sweeten this little hand! SHAKESPEARE

(iv) I thought ten thousand swords must have leapt from their Scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.

(v) No pen can record, no volume can contain the details of the daily

And hourly sufferings of a whole people, endured without intermission.(vi) Then ensured a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart

conceived, and which no tongue could adequately tell. All the horrors of war before known or heard of, were mercy to the new havoc’.

(vii) Not all the water in the rough rude seaCan wash the balm off from an anointed king.

SHAKESPEARE

Miscellaneous Examples-

(i) Darkness more clear than noon-day holdeth her,Silence more musical than any song, ROSSETTI

(ii) Danger knows full wellThat Caesar is more dangerous than he!

JULIUS CAESAR: SHAKESPEARE(iii) Sethonour in one eye and death in the other

And I will look upon both indifferently.JULIUS CAESAR: SHAKESPEARE

(iv) From the east to western Ind,No jewel is like Rosalind. As You Like It: SHAKESPEARE

(v) ‘Upon my carcass!’ cried he, ‘there was never before such a beautiful Thing in Nature or Art as you, ‘cousin’ Tess’.

(vi) ‘in that dreadful half-hour she died a hundred deaths’.(vii) I loved Ophelia; forty thousand brothers

Could not with all their quantity of loveMake up the sum. SHAKESPEARE

(viii) ‘by Heaven methinks it were an easy leapTo pluck bright honour from the pale faced moon……

(ix) Why man, if the river were dry, I am able to fill it with tears.HOSTPUR

(x) Go, go, good countrymen, and for this fault,Assemble all the poor men of your sort;Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears Into the channel, till the lowest streamDo kiss most exalted shores of all.

Julius Caesar: SHAKESPEARE(xi) The sky shrunk upward with unusual dread

And trembling Tiber dived beneath his bed. DRYDEN(xii) He is stronger than lion and swifter than Jet planes.

FIGURES BASED ON INDIRECTNESS

Innuendo – (Lat, Innuendo, by making a nod, i.e., by an oblique hint).

It is a figure of speech by which a thing is hinted at instead of being plainly stated. It is a mild form of sarcasm. It is an insinuation: an indirect reference or intimation’. In other words, it is an art of passing disparaging remark without making any direct charge. It pertains to the character and reputation of a person. It is always prompted by hostile feelings. However, it lacks the double meaning of irony. Let us illustrate it with an example; as- “Sir’, said an incautious person to Johnson, ‘drinking drives away care, and makes us forget whatever is disagreeable. Would you not allow that man to drink for that reason? ‘Yes’, was the reply, ‘if he sat next to you”. Here Johnson means to say that the company of the said questioner was so repelling that drinking was necessary to make one forgetful of his (questioner’s) existence.

Illustrations-

(i) Seven years, my lord, have passed since I waited in your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at least to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.

JOHNSON(This is an innuendo against indifferent patrons.)

(ii) There are no brigands in this country now; they have all become hotel-keepers.(This means that hotel-keepers are brigands).

(iii) You have been treated by four doctors and you are still alive.(It implies that doctors are grave-diggers).

(iv) De Levis is a Jew but not a Shylock.(It means that all Jews are Shylocks i.e., miser)

(v) My great friend was here and no wonder I lost my Parker pen.(It is an indirect hint at the theft committed by a friend)

(vi) He is a Chinese but not a perfidous.(It implies that all Chinese are treacherous.)

(vii) There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate; when he cannot afford it, and when he can.(That is, never speculate at all.)

MARK TWAIN(viii) He did not consult physicians, for he hoped to die without them.

(Doctors are not to be relied on.) BAIN(ix) I marvel at your good fortune. Four doctors are attending on you and you

are still alive! (Doctors are grave diggers.)(x) ‘There are no fraudulent persons in this town now; they have become

politicians’.(Here the speaker means to say the politicians are fraudulent.)

Irony- (Gk, eiron, a dissembler)-

‘It is a figure by which we speak contrary to what we think by way of derision or mockery to him we agree or talk with’. BAILEY

‘That faculty of irony consists chiefly in a certain superficial distortion or reversal of objects’. CARYLE

It is a figure of speech which consists in the use of words the natural meaning of which is the very opposite of what is expressed. When we mean the opposite of what we state, we use irony. It is a powerful figure particularly employed for the purpose of mockery or contempt. When we use irony there is always something in our tone and manner which shows our real meaning. While using this figure, the speaker assumes a peculiar manner and tone indicative of his on a cold, rainy afternoon, ‘This is a fine day!’ We indicate by our tone rather than by our words what we mean. It is clear, then that irony is a kind of statement which has double meaning-surface meaning and inner meaning-the inner meaning (made clear by the tone of the speaker) is opposed to the surface meaning.

It is by means of irony that the satirist secures the necessary emotional detachment. The strength of this figure consists in its being so unanswerable that no doubt can exist of the falsity of what it assumes as true. It is a kind of reduction ad absurdum.

Cordelia (in King Lear) speaks ironically of her unnatural sisters as the ‘Jewes of our father’. Mark Antony (in Julius Caesar) makes repeated reference to Brutus as an honourable man when he actually means the opposite of it.

Illustrations-

(i) “Justice” was done, and the president of the Immortals (in Aeschylean phrase) had ended his sport with Tess.

-Tess: HARDY(ii) No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.

The Book of Job(iii) They were abandoned without reserve to the tender mercies of the

Of satirists.(iv) A good father! A good husband! Ample apologies for fifteen years

of persecution, tyranny and falsehood.MACAULAY

(v) The brotherly love of our enlarging Christianity is provided by the multiplication of murder.

RUSKIN(vi) O Masters! If I were disposed to stir

Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,

SHAKESPEARE

(vii) A very fine friend you were to forsake me in my trouble.

(viii) ‘The Porte, with its usual promptitude (=dilatoriness), has not yet replied to the note’.

(ix) Things are come to a pretty (=bad) pass.(x) With his usual punctuality he entered the station after the train had left.(xi) Tat should undoubtedly have been your ‘great’ career – you were born for

it – made for it!. You would have been as brute-souled as you are now…..CORELLI

(xii) The much-prated-of ‘kindness of heart’ and ‘generosity’ possessed by millionaires, generally amounts to this kind of thing.

CORELLI(xiii) Helen of Greece was innocent. She never ran away with Paris, the

dangerous young Trojan. So was Bluebeard’s were innocent. She never peeped into the closet where the other wives were with their heads off. Yes Caroline of Brunswick was innocent; and Madame Laffrange never poisoned her husband; and Mary of Scotland never blew up hers; and poor Sophia Dorothea was never unfaithful, and Eve never took the apple – it was a cowardly fabrication of the Serpent’s.

THACKERAY(xiv) ‘Fair Sir, you spat on me on Wednesday last;

You spurned me such a day; another timeYou called me dog; and for these courtesies I’ll lend you thus much moneys?(Here Shylock ironically refers to the insults heaped upon him by Antonio as courtesies). SHAKESPEARE

(xv) The time comes when the banker thinks it prudent to contract some of his accounts, and this may be one which he thinks it expedient to reduce: and then perhaps he makes the pleasant discovery, that there are no such persons at all as the acceptors, and that the funds for meeting all these bills have been got from himself.!

H.D. MACLEOD(xvi) An argument to prove that the abolition of Christianity may, as things now

stand, be attended with some inconveniences, and perhaps not produce the many good effects proposed thereby.

(xvii) I was content to be snubbed and harassed and worried a hundred times a day by one or other of the ‘great’ personages who wandered at will all over my house and grounds, and accepted my lavish hospitablity. Many people imagine that it must be an ‘honour’ to entertain a select party of aristocrats, but I…… CORELLI

KINDS OF IRONY

1. Tragic Irony- It is the device of making a character use words which mean one thing to him and another to those acquainted with the real issue. It can be also called Verbal Irony. The funeral speech of Mark Antony in Julius Caesar is the most exquisite bit of verbal irony. His iteration, reiteration of the sentence, “Brutus is an honourable man’, is so effective that it makes Brutus appear to be the most dishonourable man in the end. The mob sees through the irony in the end and cries out:

‘They were traitors: honourable men!’

2. Dramatic Irony- It is the irony of situation. A situation is so invented that the characters by their unconsciously innocent speeches put themselves into a situation which is going to happen and thus intensify the tragic movement of the play; as when Macbeth requests Banquo, asking him ‘not to fail our feast’, when he has already made arrangement for his murder, the situation develops into an irony. Again, in Julius Caesar, Brutus kills Caesar and finds that he has given immortality to him. Caesar lives in the heart of men where he cannot die.

3. Socratic Irony- In argumentation Socrates used his favourite device of feigning ignorance and perplexing his antagonists with a volley of questions although Socrates knew everything about the point in issue.

Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear, and shall not understand, and another party that, when more is a meant than meets the ear, is aware both of that more, and of the outsiders’ incomprehension’.

Sarcasm- (Gk, Sarcasmos- sarkazein, to tear flesh like dogs, to speak bitterly)-

It is a ‘bitter sneer: a satirical remark in scorn or contempt’.Chamber’s Dictionary

It is one of the variations of Irony but quite distinct from it. In Irony we mean the opposite of what we state, but here we mean what we say. It is a straightforward trenchant remark uttered with a certain degree of scorn or contempt. It is flung so as to wound feelings. Unlike irony the attack is not veiled in words. Here the apparent meaning and the real meaning are the same.

Illustrations-

(i) Certainly God did not make a man and leave it to Aristotle to make him rational.

LOCKE(ii) The chief priests mocking him (Christ), with the scribes and th elders,

said, ‘He (Christ) saved others; himself he cannot save’. The Bible(iii) Is not a Patron, my lord, one who looks with inconcern on a man

struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached the ground, encumbers him with help? JOHNSON

(iv) “Winsor – Really De Levis, if this is the way you repay hospitality.De Levis – Hospitality that skins my feelings and costs me a thousand pounds.”

(v) ‘If a man never makes a fool of himself, it is because nature has saved him the trouble’.

(vi) ‘Christianity does not mean carrying the cross on the bosom and crucifying Christ at every step’.

(vii) He is always borrowing money and always expecting a remittance (i.e. he always says that he is expecting a remittance when asked to repay the loan).

(viii) A being erect upon two legs and baring the semblance of a man.DICKENS

(ix) ‘Once God visited the city of London. All day long he wandered about, went from street to street, knocked at various doors, and was repulsed everywhere. No one offered even to give him water to drink. Tired and hungry, He at last went to a house, announced that He was God, and asked for a glass of water. This was refused, and He had to walk about again. He entered another house, when he was desperately thirty, and said: ‘Give me some water to drink. I am the father of Jesus Christ’. On hearing this, the house-owner received Him with great courtesy, and overwhelmed Him with attention.’

Periphrasis or Circumlocution- (Gk, peri, around; and phrases, saying).

‘People prefer circumlocutions – words that mean or imply the same idea but don’t come right out and say so’. NORMAN LEWIS

It is a figure of speech which consists in ‘putting things across’ in a roundabout way. Thus when we say, ‘The shifting orbs which deck the skies’, we mean the stars. This figure is more common in poetry than in prose. Trite and commonplace periphrasis

such as the fair sex, the softer sex, the weaker vessel for ‘womankind’, better half for ‘wife’; the flowing bowl for ‘wine’, and the staff of life for ‘bread’ should be avoided. According to Leacock there is always danger of substituting for what was bad something that is worse, of making dullness duller by expanding it and obscurity obsecurer by adding a light that fails.

Illustrations-

(i) The great fierce fish that thirsts for blood (the shark) - DOYLE(ii) Moving isles of winter (icebergs) - TENNYSON(iii) Shroud of sentient clay (the body). - SCOTT(iv) The knightly growth that fringed his lips (the moustache).TENNYSON(v) Green robed senators of mighty woods (oak trees) - KEATS(vi) That orbed maiden with white fire laden (moon) - SHELEY(vi) A glory has departed and the sun that warmed and brightened our lives has

set (refers to the death of Mahatma Gandhi)J. NEHRU

(vii) Sleep that knows no waking (=death).

In all ages pompous people use pompous language, half-educated people an over-educated speech, and people of small intellect run to words a size to large. The search for novelty joins with the vanity of self expression to produce new and worthless forms.

Euphemism- (Gk, eu, well; and phemi, I speak); ‘decorous speech’ ‘ It is a pleasant way of describing an unpleasant truth’.

‘It is a figure by which an unpleasant or offensive thing is designated by an indirect and milder term’.

Chamber’s Dictionary

This figure consists in taking away the edge of pungent remark passed. The writer aims at stating something in a manner inoffensive and agreeable. It is a sugar-coated pill or offensive statement made agreeable by clothing it differently. Unlike Innuendo, it is prompted by feeling of sympathy and kindness. The attitude is to spare and not to hurt.

Illustrations-

(i) Goldsmith was little, pitted with the small-pox, and awkward; and schoolboys are amazingly frank (i.e., they unadvisedly blurt out the truth without regard for the feeling of others). BLACK

(ii) ‘Discord fell on the music of Cowper’s soul’ (i.e., he became mad).(iii) ‘How sleep the brave who sink to rest

By all their country’s wishes blest’.

(iv) Don’t you know his younger brother perished on the scaffold (was hanged).

(v) He was relieved of his crown (dethroned).(vi) The light-fingered gentlemen (pickpockets) are very much active specially

at the railway station.(vii) He was Her Majesty’s guest (in prison) for five years.(viii) You are telling fairy tales (lies).

N.B. In Euphemism the roundabout statement is made to soften the harsh statement, whereas Periphrasis aims at verbal beauty.

FIGURES BASED ON SOUND

Paronomasia or Pun- (Gk., para, beside; onoma, name); ‘Word shunting.’

‘Puns, plays on words, making jocular or suggestive use of similarity between different words or of a word’s different senses’. H.W.FOWLER

‘It is a rhetorical figure in which words similar in sound but different in meaning are set in opposition to each other: a play upon words’.

Chamber’s Dictionary

‘It is a play upon words, either on two meanings of the same word, or on words sounding alike’.

T.H. HEWSON

…. A pun means putting two different meanings that belong to the same word or phrase into unexpected juxtaposition. The clash of sound and sense is supposed to excite our sense of humour by its incongruity, a thing similar to the ‘funny’ effect of a clown in a tiny round hat’.

This figure ‘rests on a duplicity of sense under the unity of sound’. It is simply a play upon words, frequently producing a humorous image. It should, however, be used sparingly, for no good will be served by ‘torturing one poor word ten thousand ways’.

However critics may take offenceA double meaning has double sense

HOOD

The three different ways of employing this figure are as follows:-

(i) By the use of a word having two different meanings.(ii) By using the same word more than once in a sentence in different

senses.

(iii) By using words of similar sound but differing in meaning.

Illustrations-

(i) ‘In cards a good deal depends on good playing, and good playing depends on a good deal.(the expression ‘a good deal’ first means ‘much’ and then ‘a good distribution of cards’.)

(ii) ‘What he hit is history and what he missed is mystery.(his story and my story.) T. HOOD

(iii) an ambassador is a man who lies abroad for the good of his country’.(The word lies first means ‘lives’ and then ‘ tells a lie’).

(iv) He whips his child to make him smart. (either ‘brisk and active or to feel a sharp quick pain’).

(v) Let me give light but let me not be light.(The word light first means ‘to explain’ and then ‘looser’).

(vi) ‘Sportsmen are men of slow perception, who find it easier to follow the hounds than to follow an argument’.(The first follow means ‘to pursue’, and the other ‘to grasp’.)

(vii) ‘Ant: If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not say he lies?‘Seb: Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report’.

The Tempest: SHAKESPEARE(The word pocket first means ‘pocket’ and then ‘to conceal’.)

(viii) But this swift business.I must uneasy make, lest too light winningMake the prize light.

The Tempest: SHAKESPEARE(The first light means ‘easy’, and the other ‘of small value’).

(ix) Was Milan thrust from Milan that his issue should become kings of Naples.

The Tempest: SHAKESPEARE(The first Milan means ‘the Duke of Milan’, and the other ‘a place’.)

(x) ‘So is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father’.

(xi) ‘Is life worth living?-Yes, it depends on the liver’.(either ‘the man who lives’ or ‘the largest gland in the body, which secrets the bile’.)

(xii) The Bank of Bihar is on the bank of the Ganges.(the first bank means ‘an institution for the keeping, lending, and exchanging, etc. of money’, and the other ‘the earthy marging of a river’.)

(xiii) A devil, a born devil, on whose natureNature can never stick; The Tempest: SHAKESPEARE(The first nature means ‘temperament’ and the other ‘Nature objectified in the external world’.)

(xiv) “These are not Angles, they’re angles’, said Pope Gregory on seeing the fair-haired Anglo-Saxon children in the Roman slave-market.

Onomatopoeia – (Gk, onoma, a name; potein, to make)-

‘It is the formation of a word by an imitation of the sound associated with the object or action designated’. Oxford Companion to Eng. Lit.

It is a figure of speech in which there is a harmonious blending of sound and sense. Here ‘the sound must seem an echo to the sense’. In this figure the vocal sounds of the expression reproduce the movements and sounds of nature. This blending of sound and sense is gained partly through the choice of words and partly through the device of rhythm. Thus, in the lines-

‘The moan of doves in immemorial elms

Murmuring of innumerable bees’,The liquid consonants here help to produce the natural sounds of doves and bees.

There are, however, three ways of using this device; as-

(i) When the sounds used directly imitate the meaning; (e.g., ding dong, mew).

(ii) When they indirectly imitate the meaning; (e.g., thunder groan).(iii) When they only suggest the meaning; (e.g., gallop, ripple).

Illustrations-

(i) The ice was here, the ice was there,The ice was all around,It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,Like noises in a swound! COLERIDGE

(ii) Loud were their clamouring tongues, as whenThe clanging sea-fowls leave the fen,And, with their cries discordant mix’d,Grumbled and yell’d the pipes betwixt’.

(iii) When the hounds of Spring are on Winter’s traces,The mother of months in meadow and plainFills the shadows and windy places

With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain….. SWINBURNE(The words echo perfectly the sound of the rustling leaves and falling rain.)

(iv) Most weary seemed the sea; weary the oar,Weary the wandering fields of barren foam. TENNYSON

(v) But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feelsTENNYSON

(vi) And Niagara stuns with thundering sound. GOLDSMITH(vii) Then would be whistle rapid as any lark. TENNYSON(ix) ‘I heard the water lapping on the crag,

And long ripple washing through the reeds’.(The two distinct sounds of water have been produced.)

(x) For men may come, and men may go,But I go on for ever.(Here the movement of the river is suggested through the sound of words.)The following words are Onomatopoeic; they signify the cries of various animals;-cawing (of rooks), mewing (of cats), croaking (of frogs), cackling (of geese).

Alliteration- (‘letter-tagging’)-It is ‘the noticeable or effective use in a phrase or sentence of words

beginning with or containing the same letter of sound’. H.W.FOWLER

It is a consonance or agreement of sounds (not necessarily of letters) usually at the beginning of a word or syllable as in big, bold. Milton defined rhyme as the ‘jingling sound of like endings’. In like manner alliteration is the jingle of like beginnings. It is a device wholly dependent on the poet’s fancy. Most of the poets have been quick in employing it either for humour or emphasis or delicate effects on sound. It is also common in the prose works of Lyly and Carlyle. It gives sensuous pleasure to the ear.

Illustrations-(i) After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well. SHAKESPEARE(ii) Most musical, most melancholy. MILTON(iii) The field of freedom, faction, fame and blood. BYRON(iv) Lying silent and sad in the afternoon shadows and sunshine.

LONGFELLOW(v) How high His Highness holds his haughty head!’(vi) With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain’. SWINBURNE(vii) ‘And how the silence surged softly backward’. DE LA MARE(viii) The bare black cliff clanged round him. TENNYSON(x) ‘Furious prophet of financial phantasy’.(xi) ‘The faint fresh flame of young year flushes

From leaf to flower, from flower to fruit’.(xii) Apt alliteration’s artful aid. POPE(xii) Alone, alone, all, all alone

Alone on a wide sea! COLLERIDGEAssonance- (Fr.- L. Assonare, as = ad-, to, sonare, to sound).

It is ‘a similarity of sound in words, where the vowel sounds agree, but not both (as in rhyme).’

ROWE & WEBB

It is ‘the correspondence or riming of one word with another in accented vowel and those which follow it, but not in the consonants’. In other words, it is the recurrence of the same vowel sound irrespective of the consonantal setting in which it is found. Hence assonance exists between ‘time’ and ‘nine’, ‘ride’ and ‘write’, ‘clean’ and ‘dream’. Often, however, the term is used to indicate any repetition of sounds not exact enough to be classified as rhyme.

It is found more in languages other than English. ‘In Spanish and Portuguese poetry it is a kind of rhyme, consisting in the coincidence of the vowels of the corresponding syllables, without regard to the consonants as in mate and shape, feel and need’.

Illustrations-

(i) And pay who gave thee that jolly red nose?Cinnamon, Ginger, Nutmeg and Cloves,(Here the agreement between the two o’s permits the ear to neglect the discord between s and v.)

(ii) To begird the Almighty throne, MILTONBeseeching or besieging

(iii) Thy Paynim bardHad such a mastery of his mystery. TENNYSON

(iv) ‘There open fanes and gaping graves’.(v) Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. TENNYSON

(Note the similar vowel sound in syllables long, fall, pause and fall).(v) Courage was mine, and I had mastery,

Wisdom was mine and I had mystery…. WILFRED OWEN

Example of cross assonance

Now to be with you, elate unshared,My kestrel joy, O hoverer in wind,Over the quarry furiously at restChaired on shoulders of shouting wind…. C.D. LEWIS

Internal and cross rhyming can impart a subdued, sustained melodic tone to verse, and enable the writer to use rhyme words which have grown stale as end-rhymes. A Hope For Poetry: C.D. LEWIS

The desire for intensity and for freshness of language which leads these poets to syntactical ellipse, produces also that pre-occupation with internal rhyme and assonance which may succeed in re-establishing poetry as a delight for the ear. Owen’s alliterative assonance is constantly employd and delight for the ear. Owen’s alliterative assonance is constantly employperiments are being made on the lines of Hopkin’s internal rhyming and vowel modulation….. A Hope For Poetry: C.D. Lewis.

FIGURES BASED ON CONSTRUCTION

Interrogation or Erotesis or Rhetorical Questions-

‘Interrogation is the most powerful engine in the whole arsenal of oratory’.WALKER.

It is a figure of speech in which something is strongly affirmed or denied. It aims at attracting the attention of persons addressed. It aims at attracting the attention of persons addressed. It is in the form of a question. In an affirmative question, the answer intended is a negative statement and in the negative form of question, it implies an affirmative statement. This figure is employed to express a doubt or unresolved difficulty. It also aims at showing wonder and making a conditional statement.

Illustrations-

(i) He that chastiseth the heathen, shall he not correct? He that teacheth a man knowledge, shall he not know? PSLAMS

(ii) But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded!

OLD TESTAMENT(iii) If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you

poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?SHAKESPEARE

(iv) Can you drive a nail into wood? Go and mend the parish fences. Can you lay a brick? Mend the walls of the cottages where the wind comes in. can you lift a spadeful of earth? Turn this field up three feet deep all over.

RUSKIN(v) Will you take wantonly from your poor brother, this little all of his life,

and make his brief hours long with pain? Will you be more prompt to the injustice which can never be redressed?

RUSKIN(vi) Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished

like a blossom from her arms, though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament?”

(vii) Who is here so base that would be a bondman?Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman?

Who is here so vile that will not love his country?SHAKESPEARE

(viii) Can the Ethopian change his skin, or the leopard his spot?Old Testament

(ix) And when you saw his chariot but appear,Have you not made a universal shout,That Tiber trembled underneath her banksTo hear the replication of your soundsMade in her concave shores? Caesar: SHAKESPEARE

(x) O wind,If winter comes, can spring be far behind? SHELLY

Exclamation-

‘This point is used to denote any sudden emotion of the mind, whether of joy, grief, surprise, fear or any other sensation’.

BEADNELL

It is an abrupt expression of emotion, the language of wish or contemplation. This figure generally begins with some interjection or words like how, what etc.

Illustrations-

(i) How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it isTo have a thankless child! SHAKESPEARE

(ii) What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason!How infinite in faculties! In form and moving, how express and Admirable! In action, how like an angel!In apprehension, how like a god! SHAKESPEARE

(iii) O for the touch of a vanished hand!And the sound of a voice that is still! TENNYSON

(iv) Oh sleep! It is a gentle thing,Beloved from Pole to Pole! COLERIDGE

(v) Oh that these lips had language!’(vi) Alas! I am undone.(vii) ‘Oh the grave! – the grave! – It buries every error, covers every

Defect, extinguishes every resentment!’(viii) O, I have suffer’d

With those that I saw suffer!….. O, the cry did knockAgainst my very heart! Poor souls, they perished!

The Tempest: SHAKESPEARE(ix) O, wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,That has such people in it! The Tempest: SHAKESPEARE

(x) Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!Julius Caesar: SHAKESPEARE

(xi) O God! That bread should be so dear,And flesh and blood so cheap. THOMAS HOOD

(xii) How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! SHAKESPEARE

Chiasmus- (Gk, Chiasmos, a placing crosswise); Cross-fashion’.

‘When the terms in the second of the two parallel phrases reverse the order of those in the first to which they correspond’. H.W.FOWLER

It is a figure of speech in which the order of words or phrases is inversed specially when those words are repeated or subsequently referred to in a sentence. It is nothing but the changing of the order of words so as to make them emphatic. In short it is ‘contrast by parallelism in reverse order’. Such Statements get currency and assume a proverbial nature.

Illustrations-

(i) May you stand long and long stand the terror of tyrants.BURKE

(ii) The mind in its own place, and in itself.Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.

(iii) And singing still dost soar and soaring ever singest. SHELLEY(iv) He was a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes.

MACAULAY(v) Beauty is truth, truth beauty. KEATS(vi) Fair is foul, and foul fair. SHAKESPEARE(vii) Temple was a man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters among men of the world. MACAULAY(vii) Life is activity, activity is life.

Zeugma- (Gk, zeugma from zeugmunai, to join, to combine); ‘yoking’-

It is ‘a figure by which an adjective or verb which agrees with a nearer word is, by way of supplement, referred also to another more remote, whether grammatically corresponding or not’. Chamber’s Dictionary

It is ‘a figure of speech by which a single word is made to refer to two or more words in a sentence, especially when properly applying in sense to only one of them’.

Oxford Companion to Eng. Lit.It is thus a figure of speech wherein one verb is connected with two nouns.

Instead of two separate verbs for two separate nouns, we have one verb. It is chiefly used in poetry.

Illustrations-

(i) Would hide her wrongs and her revenge. SCOTT(ii) ‘When the beggar appealed to him for help, he gave him a sigh and

six pence’.(iii) Mr.Jim took his salary and leave.(iv) ‘kill the boys and (i.e., destroy) the luggage’.(v) The feat and noon grew high. MILTON(vi) banners on high and battles passed below. BYRON(vii) ‘The Pineapple was eaten and the apples neglected’.

(the apples were neglected)(viii) Harris came to my place with weeping eyes and hearts.

(bleeding heart).(ix) ‘See Pan with flocks, with fruits Pomona crowned’.

(Pan surrounded.)(x) Death and the Raven drift above. T.S. ELIOT

MINOR FIGURES

Litotes- (Gk., litotes, simplicity – litos, plain); frugality-

‘The same as, or a variety of, meiosis, sometimes confined to the particular kind of rhetorical understatement in which for the positive notion required is substituted its opposite with a negative’.

H.W. FOWLER

‘It is the use of a negative before some other word, to indicate a strong affirmative in the opposite direction’.

NESFIELD

It is ‘an affirmation made indirectly by the negation of its contrary’.Chamber’s Dictionary

It is a figure of speech in which ‘by denying the contrary more is intended than expressed’. It is intended to increase the effect by contrast. We can call it a deliberate understatement. If we wish to call a man wise, we may be litotes say ‘he is no fool’; similarly not a few means a great number.

Illustrations-

(i) In the gloom of November we passedDays not dark at thy side. M. ARNOLD(not dark = very bright).

(ii) No narrow (i.e., very wide) firth he had to cross. MILTON

(iii) Not for nothing was Shad Azimabadi a pupil of Dard and a keen reader of Hindi.

AMARNATH JHA(iv) The recent conquest of Mount Everest by the American Expedition is no

mean achievement.(v) I am not a little surprised at his success.(vi) As a politician Sir Jayaprakash Narain is not unknown.(vii) The man you talked to is no fool.(viii) No maiden’s hand is around thee thrown. SCOTT(ix) I praise you not. (It has the effect of emphatic ‘I blame’).(x) He had no little (= a great deal) difficulty in persuading his father.(xi) She fables not (= speaks the truth).(xii) Not a few (=many men came to receive him.

Prolepsis or Anticipation- (Gk., -pro, before; lambanein, to take); ‘anticipating’

It is ‘anticipatory use of an ephithet, i.e. the applying of it as if already true to a thing of which it only becomes true by or after the action now being stated’.

H.W. FOWLER

It is ‘a figure by which objections are anticipated and answered’.Chamber’s Dictionary

It is a figure of speech which consists in the use of a word in an anticipatory sense. The word used is generally a predicative adjective or a particle. The writer presumes beforehand that something denoted by the verb, has already happened, much before its actual happening. Thus when Scott says, ‘for me that widow’s mate expires’., he calls the wife a widow by anticipation, as she does not become a widow until her ‘mate expires’.

Illustrations-

(i) The unseen snow-beds dislodgeTheir hanging ruin. M. ARNOLD

(ii) And heaped upon the cumbered landIts wreck of gravel, rocks and sand. SCOTT

(iii) So the two brothers with their murdered manRode past fair Florence. KEATS(i.e., the man who was afterwards their victim.)

(iv) Dash three down,To the hazard by the brains and shattered sides.MILTON

(v) He struck him dead.(vi) Fill full the cup.

Hendiadys- (Gr., en dia duoin, one by two); ‘one by means of two’.

‘The expressing of a compound notion by giving its two constitutents as though they were independent and connecting them with a conjunction instead of subordinating one to the other, as ‘Pour libation from bowls and from gold’ (=from bowls of gold).

‘It is a figure of speech by which a single complex idea is expressed by two words joined by a conjunction’. Odford Companion to Eng. Lit.

It is “a figure in which one and the same notion is presented in two expressions, as ‘with might and main’ = by main strength”. – Chamber’s dictionary.

In other words, it is a figure of speech which presents a complex idea with the help of two nouns connected by and in lieu of a noun and a qualifying adjective. It is widely used as poetic ornament in Greek and Latin, but very rarely in English.

Illustrations-

(i) Mysteries and presences (mysterious presences innumerable)RUSKIN(ii) That life is lost to love and me (love-lorn me).(iii) Life and sufferance (suffering life).,(iv) ‘Perfume and flowers (perfumed flowers) fall in showers’.(v) ‘The hall was full of melody and misses’.

(melodious misses)(vi) No product here the barren hills afford,

But man and steel (a race of armed fighters, the soldier and his sowrd.GOLDSMITH

(vii) Your look draws audience and attention (attentive audience).(viii) Vinod drank from the cups and gold (golden cups.)(ix) With joy and song (joyful song).

Asyndeton- (Gk., a, without; syndetos, bound together); Not bound together.

‘The omission, for effect, of conjunctions by which words or sentences would in normal speech be connected’.

H.W. FOWLER

It is a figure of speech in which connecting conjunctions are omitted with a view to imparting energy and vividness. It is often used in pithy and antithetical statements.

Illustrations-

(i) What? Not a line, a tear, a sigh,When valour bleeds for liberty? SCOTT

(ii) From art more various are the blessings sent,

Wealth, commerce, honour, liberty, content. GOLDSMITH(iii) ‘To gossip is a fault; to liberl, a crime; to slander, a sin’.(iv) I came, I saw, I conquered. (also Climax)(v) ‘O, what a noble mind is here overthrown!

The courtier’s, scholar’s, soldier’s eye, tongue, sword.SHAKESPEARE

(vi) Are all they conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,Shrunk to this little measure? SHAKESPEARE

(vi) Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;SHAKESPEARE

(viii) I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy. HAZLITT(ix) Every village has its idiosyncrasy, its constitution, its code of

Morality.TESS: HARDY

(x) ‘The first sort by their own suggestion fell.Self-tempted, a Self depraved; Man falls, deceived.By the other first: Man, therefore,Shall find grace;The other, none’.

(x) I slip, I slide, I gleam, I dance (also Climax).TENNYSON

Polysyndeton- It is the ‘figurative repetition of connectives or conjunctions’. In this figure there is excessive use of conjunctive particles. It is meant to give emphasis to the particulars enumerated.

Illustrations-

(i) Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; SHAKESPEARE

(ii) For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,To stir men’s blood: SHAKESPEARE

(iii) ‘But not to me returnsDay, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal blooms or summer’s rose,Or flocks, or herds or human face divine’,. MILTON

(iv) Contended toil, and hospitable care,And kind connubial tenderness are there,And piety with wishes placed above,And steady loyalty, and faithful love. GOLDSMITH

(v) Most men eddy aboutHere and there – eat and drink,Chatter and love and hate,

Gather and squander. M. ARNOLD

(vi) I have neither the scholar’s melancholy which is emulation; nor the musician’s which is fantastical; nor the courtier’s which is proud; nor the soldier’s which is ambitions; nor the lawyer’s which is politic; nor the lady’s which is nice nor the lover’s which is all these:SHAKESPEARE

(vii) And after one hour more ‘twill be eleven;And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot. SHAKESPEARE

(viii) Neither blindness, nor gout, nor age, nor penury, nor domestic afflictions, nor political disappointments, nor abuse, nor proscription, nor neglect, had power to disturb his sedate and majestic patience. MACAULAY

(ix) That hoard and sleep and feed and know not me. TENNYSON

Aposiopesis- (Gk., apo, keep; siope, silence); ‘falling silent’- ‘Significant breaking off so that the hearers must supply the unsaid word’.

It is ‘a figure by whih the speaker suddenly stops, as though unable or unwilling to proceed’. Chamber’s Dictionary.

It is a figure in which the writer or the speaker breaks off leaving the construction of a sentence incomplete. This device aims at imparting greater effect.

Illustrations-

(i) They fell together all, as by consent; They dropp’d, as by a thunderstroke. What mightWorthy Sebastian? – O’ what might? No more-And yet me thinks I see it in they face,What thou shoudst be. SHAKESPEARE

(ii) In thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood – he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time – nor had the voice of friends or kinsmen breathed through his lattice. His children-but here my heart began to bleed-and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait.

STERNE(iii) ‘Oh thou – by what name can I properly call thee?’(iv) As for his conduct, I believe he is….. but why must I incur your

displeasure by telling it.(v) One fine morning, he came to me with a….. well let this be a secret.(vi) ‘If we should fail- Oh, go to-!’(vii) Oh, how I wish -! But what is the use of wishing?(viii) I could tell you about my – but perhaps you have heard enough by this

time.(ix) ‘And why so late returned? And why-‘

The rest was in her speaking eye. SCOTT

Paraleipsis- (Gk., from paraleipein, to leave on one side – para beside, leipein, to leave).

‘It is a figure by which one fixes attention on a subject by pretending to neglect it’.

Chamber’s DictionaryThis figure consists in profession to pass over something which we really mean

to declare more emphatically.

Illustrations-

(i) I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. SHAKESPEARE(ii) I will not speak of his generosity, his gentlenss of disposition, or his

reverence for sacred things.(iii) I cannot now delay to tell you how political quarrels might be otherwise

settled. But grant that they cannot. Grant that no law of reason can be understood by nations; no law of justice submitted to by them. RUSKIN

(iv) I might say many things of his liberality and kindness to his domestics, his command in the army and moderation during his office in the province; but the honour of the state presents itself to my view, and calling me to it, advises me to omit these lesser matters. CICERO

(v) The atrocious crime being a young man which honourable gentlemen has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall never attempt to palliate or deny. PITT

(vi) You are not wood, you are not stones, but men,And, being men, hearing the will of Caesar,It will inflame you, it will make you mad.‘Tis good you know not that you are his heirs;For, if you should, O, what would come of it!

Julius Caesar: SHAKESPEARE(vii) Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it;

It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you.Julius Caesar: SHAKESPEARE

Epanaphora or Anaphora - (Gk., ana, back; pherein, to bear)-

It means ‘bringing back’. It is marked repetition of a word or phrase in successive clauses or sentence. H.W. FOWLER

It is a figure of speech in which a word or expression is repeated at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences.

Illustrations-

(i) There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,There is a rapture on the lonely shore,There is society, where none intrudes- BYRON

(ii) All made of passion, and all made of wishes;All adoration, duty, and observance;All humbleness, all patience, and impatience;All purity, all trial, all obeisance; SHAKESPEARE

(iii) If ever you have looked on better days;If every been where bells have knolled to church;If ever sat at any good man’s feast;If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear,And know what ‘tis pity, and be pitied; SHAKESPEARE

(iv) Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperature or medicine, but lost time is gone for ever.

SMILES(v) I have summoned you here to witness your work. I have summoned you

here to witness it, because I know it will be gall and wormwood to you. I have summoned you here to witness it, because I know the sight of everybody here must be a dagger in your mean, false heart.

DICKENS(vi) What I spent I had,

What I kept I lost,What I gave I have. Old Epitaph

(vii) ‘At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down; at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead’.

(viii) ‘God bless thy diment eyes! And they waxen cheeks!And thy cherry mouth! And they Cubit’s legs! And every bit o’ they blessed body!’ Tess: HARDY

(ix) Praise God from Whom all Blessing flow;Praise Him all creatures here below;Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host;Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. THOMAS KEN

(x) Gold begets in brethren hate:Gold in families debate;Gold does friendship separate;Gold does civil wars create. ABRAHAM COWLEY

(xi) Ask not of me, love, what is love?Ask what is good of God above-Ask of the great sun what is light-Ask what is darkness of the night-…………………………..Ask what is sweetness of thy kiss-

Ask of thyself what beauty is. P.J. BAILEY(xii) Love is all in fire, and yet is ever freezing;

Love is much in winning, yet is more in leesing;Love is ever sick, and yet is never dying;Love is ever true, and yet is ever lying;Love does dote in liking, and is mad in loathing;Love indeed is anything, yet indeed is nothing.

THOMAS MIDDLETON(xiii) Nothing to do but work,

Nothing to eat but foodNothing to wear but clothesTo keep one from going nude BEN KING

(xiv) Doubt thou the stars are fire;Doubt that the sun doth move;Doubt truth to be liar;But never doubt I love. Hamlet: SHAKESPEARE

(xv) We may live without poetry, music and art;We may live without conscience and live without heart;We may live without friends, we may live without books,But civilized man cannot live without cooks.

OWEN MEREDITH(xvi) They work, they toil, they starve, they did

They sit, they eat, play and lieIs that thy justice? I will put thee downSmash they rod and burn they crown. HAVENA GREEVES

(xvii) It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we are all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of the noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

A Tale of Two Cities: DICKENS

Epistrophe- This figure consists in the repetition of words or phrases at the end of successive clauses or sentences. It is intended to impart energy to the language.

Illustrations-

(i) The poor man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the crown……. The storms may enter, the rain may enter, - but the king of England cannot enter! PITT

(ii) Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man and writing an exact man. BACON

(ii) If you had known the virtue of the ring,Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,Or your own honour to contain the ring,You would not then have parted with the ring,

The Merchant of Venice: SHAKESPEARE(iv) If you did know to whom I gave the ring,

If you did know for whom I gave the ring,And would conceive for what I gave the ring,And how unwillingly I left the ring,When naught would be accepted but the ring,You would abate the strength of your displeasure.

The merchant of Venice: SHAKESPEARE(v) Do all the good you can,

By all the means you can,In all the ways you can,In all the places you can,At all the times you can,To all the people you can,As long as ever you can. JOHN WESLEY

(vi) For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,For the want of a horse the rider was lost,For the want of a rider the battle was lost-And all for the want of a horse shoe-nail. FRANKLIN(It is Anaphora and Epistrophe both).

(viii) Here’s to the red of it,There’s not a thread of it,No, not a shread of it,In all the spread of it,From foot to head,For heroes bled for it,Faced steel and lead for it,Precious blood shed for it,Bathing in red. JOHN DALY

(ix) money is lost nothing is lost,Health is lost something is lost,Character is lost all is lost. Arabic Proverb

(x) You may state them about twice as big as they are, or about half as big as they are, or, if you have skill and complete confidence in your skill, you may state them only just as big as they are.

C.E. MONTAGUE

Hyperbaton or INVERSION- ‘Stepping over’;-

It is a figure by which words are transposed from their natural order’.Chamber’s Dictionary

‘Transposition of words out of normal order, as in Browning’s title ‘Wanting Is – What?” or in Shakespeare’s ‘That whiter skin of hers than snow’.

H.W. FOWLER

This figure consists in securing emphasis by inverting the strictly syntactical order of words in a sentence. We know, every sentence consists of three parts – the beginning, the middle, and the end. Of these, the middle is the least important. In order to give prominence to a word or thought, we must place it at either the beginning or the end of a sentence. It is done with a view to imparting emphasis to a proposition.

The following are the different modes of Inversion-

a. An adjective predicate, placed first; as –(i) Sweet are the uses of adversity. SHAKESPEARE(ii) Blest be the art that can immortalize COWPERb. An adjective placed after the noun it qualifies; as-(i) A woman moved is like a fountain troubled. SHAKESPEARE(ii) Throngs of knights and barons bold. MILTON

c. The finite verb placed before the subject; as-(i) Stood vast infinitude confined. MILTON(ii) Flashed all their sabers bare. TENNYSONd. An object placed before the verb; as-(i) Our literature he was incapable of enjoying or of understanding.

MACAULAY(ii) Good he refused with future ill to buy. CRABBEe. An adverb (or adverbial phrase) and the verb placed first; as-(i) Smack went the whip, round went the wheel. COWFER(ii) Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep. SHAKESPEARE

Miscellaneous example-

(i) Now more than ever seems it rich to dieTo cease upon the midnight with no pain. KEATS

(ii) Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,But to be young was very heaven. WORDSWORTH

Cliché- (‘Stereotype block’)-

It is ‘a French name for such hackneyed phrases as, not being the simple or natural way of expressing what is to be expressed, have served when first used as real improvements on that in some particular context, but have acquired an unfortunate popularity and come into general use even where they are not more but less suitable to the context than plain speech’. H.W. FOWLER

Examples-

(i) ‘To be made the recipient of = to be given’(ii) ‘The devouring element=fire’(iii) ‘Make the supreme sacrifice=die in battle’(iv) ‘Stand to reason= be obvious’ Adapted

Anastrophe – (‘Reversal’)-

It is the ‘upsetting of effect, of such normal order as preposition before noun or object after verb’. H.W. FOWLER

Examples-

(i) ‘no war or battle’s sound was heard the world around’(ii) ‘Me he restored, and him he hanged’/ Adapted

Hypocorisma-(Child’s prattle’)-

It is the ‘use of pet names, nursery words, or diminutives, or a word of three kinds, either simply, as Molly for Mary, patball for lawn tennis, hanky for handkerchief, 7 c., or by way of euphemism, as fancy man for paramour, story for lie, frillies for under-linen’.

Adapted

Persiflage- (‘Whistle-talk0- It is ‘irresponsible talk’, of which the hearer is to make what he can without the right to suppose that the speaker means what he seems to say; the treating of serious things as trifles and of trifles as serious. ‘Talking with one’s tongue in one’s cheek’, may serve as a parallel. Hannah More, quoted in the O.E.D., described French P. as ‘the cold compound of irony, irreligion, selfishness, and sneer’; irony, parado, and levity, are perhaps rather the ingredients of the compound as now conceived.

AdaptedHysteron Proteron- ‘(later earlier’) - It is ‘putting the cart before the horse in speech as in Dogberry’s, Masters, it is proved already that you are little better than false knaves, and it will go near to be thought so shortly’.

AdaptedMeiosis- (‘lessening’) – It is the use of understatement no to deceive, but to

enhance the impression on the hearer. It is often applied to the negative opposite, but taking many other forms, and contrasted with hyperbole. It is quite common in colloquial and slang English; the emphatic rather (Did you ever hear Caruso? – Rahter!), the American some (This is some war), the schoolboy decent (=first rate & c), the retort I’ll

see you further (i.e., in hell) first, and the strangely inverted hyperbole didn’t half swear (=swore horribly), are familiar instances’.

Adapted

ADDITIONAL TERMS

Malapropism - It implies the wrong use of words with similar sounds. Confusion of words resembling each other in sound, but widely differing in signification, is quite common. Macaulay, in his Essay on Milton, writes ‘the observation of the Sabbath’, instead of ‘the observance of the Sabbath’. Mrs. Malaprop is a famous character of Sheridan’s The Rivals. She is known for her ludicrous misapplication of words. Speaking about a young man, she says:

He is the very pineapple of politeness.

The speaker actually meant to say pinnacle (or highest point) of politeness. Again, she speaks of ‘a nice derangement of epitaphs’, when she actually means ‘a nice arrangement of epithets’. Similarly variance for variation deprecate for depreciate, verbal for verbose, stationery for stationary, popular for populous etc. are cases of Malapropism.

Tautology- (Gk., tautos, the same; and logos, word)-

The figure consists in ‘the use of two or more words or phrases having the same or almost the same meaning, in the same grammatical situation’. This device is a fault in composition, but is at times justifiable for the sake of emphasis.

Illustration-

(i) ‘The very scheme and plan of his life differed from that of other men’.(ii) I prayed and besought but in vain.(iii) He is the principal and head of the institution.(iv) Nor is any blasphemy or impiety, any frantic saying or godless thought

more appalling to me….. RUSKIN(v) Tantological idioms: well and good, kith and kin, bag and baggage, might

and main, house and home.

Pleonasm- This figure consists in ‘the use of unnecessary additional words not in the same grammatical situation’. It is sometimes used to impart emphasis to a statement, as for example:

I have seen it with my own eyes.

Such expressions as ‘round ball’, ‘unmeaning nonsense’, ‘sylvan forest’, foul dirt’ etc. are examples of pleonasm.

Illustrations-

(i) Thou art not born for death, immortal bird.(ii) He returned back again to the same place from whence he came forth.(iii) Bernard Shaw’s mind was full of a great many serious thoughts.(iv) He eyed me with a look of contempt.

N.B. ‘While Tantology adds a superfluous word in the same grammatical place, pleonasm repeats the meaning in different places.’

Neologism (Gk., neos, new; and logos, word)- It consists in the use of words frequently coined to meet new situations. The first and second world wars have added to our vocabulary words such as camouflage, fifth columnist, jeep, bulldozer, etc. Besides these, the following words of more recent coinage merit special attention evacuee, refugee, pin-up-girls, etc. We should, however, be always careful in the use of such words. It is well to remember these words of Dr. Murray: ‘The new word is apt to die almost as soon as it is born, ashamed of its own newness, ashamed of italics or inverted commas which apologise for its very existence, or question its legitimacy’.

RHETORIC: TEST YOURSELF

Q. Point out the figure of speech employed in the following-

1. Fear of Imperial Caesar, the idol you have yourself created, and fear of me, the penniless vagrant, buffeted and mocked, fear of everything except the rule of God; faith in nothing but blood and iron and gold. You, standing for Rome, are the universal coward; I, standing for the kingdom of God, have braved everything, lost everything and won an eternal crown. BERNARD SHAW

2. ‘Society! Do you think I don’t know that I’am only tolerated for my money? Society can’t add injury to insult and have my money as well………..’

3. Somewhere, but I knew not where – somehow, but I knew not how – by some beings, but I knew not by whom – a battle, a strife, an agony was traveling through all its stages – was evolving itself like the catastrophe of some mighty drama.

DE QUINCEY4. Our cities are a wilderness of spinning wheels instead of palaces; the people

have no clothes. We have blackened every leaf of English greenwood with ashes; and the people die of cold. Our harbours are a forest of merchantships; and the people die of hunger.

RUSKIN

5. When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with a compassion; when I see the tombs of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow.

ADDISION6. And this is the race that we know not any more how to govern! And this the

history which we are to behold broken off by sedition! of all others, where life is to become difficult to the honest and ridiculous to the wise.

RUSKIN

7. I am persuaded that neither death nor life; nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers; nor things present, nor things to come; nor height nor depth; nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Epistle to the romans.

8. To-day we love what to-morrow we hate; to-day we seek what to-morrow we shun; to-day we desire what to-morrow we fear.

DEFOE

9. Thy tragic Muse gives smiles, thy comic sleep. DRYDEN10. ‘Home they brought the warrior dead’.11. ‘He that is coming must be provided for’.12. ‘Add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge,

temperance’.13. In their prosperity my friends shall never hear of me; in their adversity

always.14. ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown’.15. ‘The shining orbs which deck the sky’16. Just for a handful of silver he left us Just for a riband to stick in his coat. BROWNING17. Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew, Thou makest they knife keen. SHAKESPEARE18. Like the ocean she (India) received the ttribute of a thousand rivers, and

though she was disturbed often enough, and storms raged over the surface of her waters, the sea continued to be the sea.

19. A sleepless pillow was pressed by both; an anxious morning slowly dawned.REYNOLDS.

20. You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles’ feet. - T.S. ELIOT21. ‘The French Revolution was the explosion of a prodigious volcano which

scattered its lava on every kingdom’.22. It is an outrage to bind a Roman citizen; to scourge him is an atrocious crime;

to put him to death is almost parricide; but to crucify him, what shall I call it. CICERO

23. God made the country but man made the town. COWPER24. Who in the course of one revolving moon, Was lawyer, statesman, fiddler and buffoon. DRYDEN25. Natural beauty, when unadorned, is adorned the most.

THOMSON26. ‘Death lays his icy hands on kings’.27. A little noiseless noise among the leaves, Born of the very sight that silence heaves. KEATS28. Earth felt the wound and Nature from her seat Sighing through all her works gave sign of woe. MILTON29. Who steals my purse steals trash. SHAKESPEARE30. ‘Man cannot live by bread alone’.31. O Solitude! Where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face? COWPER32. Let not ambition mock their useful toil. GRAY33. Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a

strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam.

MILTON34. You spurned me such a day, another time. You called me a dog, and for these courtesies. I’ll lend you thus much moneys.

The Merchant of Venice: SHAKESPEARE35. Put a tongue In every wound of Caesar that should move The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.

Julius Caesar: SHAKESPEARE36. We Christians have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to

make us love each other. SWIFT37. ‘Tom was born of rich but honest parents’.38. ‘The portly presence of potentates goodly in girth’.39. Overhead the plumed members of the winged tribe kept on chattering and

chirping’.40. Drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds. GRAY41. Lord, by this time he smelleth (stinketh), for he hath been dead four day.

ST. JOHN42. If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you

poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?SHAKESPEARE

43. Beauty is truth, truth beauty.44. ‘Ah! What an awful sight it is!’45. The moment and the vessel passed. TENNYSON46. I slip, I slide, I gleam, I dance. TENNYSON47. So the two brothers with their murdered man Rode past fair Florence. KEATS48. A citizen of no mean city. New Testament

49. His look drew audience and attention. MILTON50. ‘We have cars and men and factories and trucks’.51. They fell together all, as by consent; They dropp’d, as by a thunderstroke. What might, Worthy Sebastian? – O,what might? – No more- And yet me thinks I see it in thy face, What thou shoudst be. SHAKESPEARE52. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man and writing an exact

man.BACON

53. ‘I pass by the use of the King’s name in a matter of supply, that sacred and reserved right of the commons’.

54. ‘A Daniel come to judgment’ SHAKESPEARE55. The bright death quivered at the victim’s throat. TENNYSON56. It is an open secret.57. Nor cast one longing, ling’s ring look behind.58. Learn to live, and live to lear.59. Look down, you gods, And on this couple drop a blessed crown! SHAKESPEARE60. Full many a lady

I have eyed with best regard, and many a time The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage. Brought my too diligent ear. The Tempest: SHAKESPEARE61. My library was dukedom large enough. The Tempest: SHAKESPEARE62. …… most poor matters point to rich ends.

The Tempest: SHAKESPEARE63. I pray there, mark me, - that brother should Be so perfidious! – he whom next thyself-

Of all the world I lov’d, and to him put The manage of my state: SHAKESPEARE

64. ‘But, O! how bitter a Thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eye’s.

65. Pile the bodies high a Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work: I am the Grass; I cover all. SANDBURG66. We dream alone, we suffer alone, we die alone. AMIEL67. ‘The whole auditorium laughed’.68. A slumber did my spirit seal. WORDSWORTH69. ‘Look at the frowining sky’.70. The thirsty Earth soaks up the rain, And drinks and gapes for drink again. COWLEY71. O’ what a noble mind is here overthrown! The courtier’s, scholar’s, soldier’s eye, tongue, sword.

SHAKESPEARE72. ‘Whatever his eye beholds, whatever his hand touches, turns to music’.73. ….Oh!

The difference to me!’74. ‘Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thoughts’.75. A load of learning lumbering in his head. POPE76. Ten thousand saw I at a glance. WORDSWORTH77. Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home? What tributaries follow him to Rome To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels? SHAKESPEARE78. Cowards die many times before their death. SHAKESPEARE79. O for a beaker full of the warm South. KEATS80. He closed his busy life at the age of seventy.81. Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. LA ROCHEFOUCAULD82. A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire.

G.K. CHESTERTON83. ‘His prominent feature was like an eagle’s beak’.84. ‘He is condemned to a living death’.85. ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’.86. Thou, too, Sail on, O ship of state! Sail on, O union, strong and great! LONGFELLOW87. ‘Here lies a king whose word no man relies on; Who never said a foolish thing, and never did a wise one!’88. ‘We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves at the foot of the throne!’89. Their’s not to make reply, Their’s not to reason why, Their’s but to do and die. TENNYSON90. O What a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I and you and all of us fell down, Whilst bloody treason flourished over us. SHAKESPEARE91. ‘It is chemical union that constitutes what we call burning or combustion’.92. ‘he voluntarily offered to help me in my distress’.

A good style should show no sign of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

One should write in the manner of one’s period. The language is alive and constantly changing; to try to write like the authors of a distant past can only give rise to artificiality. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

KEY

1) Sarcasm (2) Sarcasm (3) Antithesis4) Hyperbole (5) Anaphora (6) Anaphora7) Polysyndeton (8) Antithesis (9) Antithesis10) Inversion (11) Euphemism (12) Climax13) Sarcasm; balance; (14) Metonymy (15) Periphrasis Antithesis16) Anaphora; (17) Pun (18) Simile Synecdoche19) Hypallage (20) Allusion (21) Metaphor22) Climax (23) Antithesis (24) Anticlimax25) Epigram (26) Personification (27) Oxymoron28) Pathetic Fallacy (29) Metonymy (30) Synecdoche31) Apostrophe (32) Synecdoche (33) Vision34) Irony (35) Hyperbole (36) Sarcasm37) Innuendo (38) Alliteration (39) Periphrasis40) Onomatopoeia; (41) Euphemism (42) Interrogation43) Chiasmus (44) Exclamation (45) Zeugma46) Asyndeton (47) Prolepsis (48) Litotes49) Hendiadys (50) Polysyndeton (51) Aposiopesis52) Epistrophe (53) Paraleipsis (54) Antonomasia55) Metonymy (56) oxymoron (57) Alliteration58) Chiasmus (59) Apostrophe (60) Hyperbaton, Inversion.61) Metaphor (62) Epigram (63) Hyperbole64) Exclamation (65) Personification (66) Climax67) Metonymy (68) Inversion (69) Personal Metaphor.70) Personification (71) Asyndeton (72) Hyperbole73) Exclamation (74) Epigram (75) Alliteration76) Hyperbole (77) Rhetorical (78) Epigram

Question79) Metonymy (80) Hypallage (81) Epigram82) Alliteration (83) Periphrasis (84) Oxymoron85) Antithesis (86) Apostrophe (87) Epigram88) Climax (89) Anaphora (90) Exclamation91) Tautology

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