Transcript Rhetorical Devices - Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy

Rhetorical Devices
Advanced Syntax Devices
Zeugma
• Unexpected items are linked together by
a shared word.
– The man ran a hundred miles but out of
time.
Asyndeton (a-SIN-deh-tawn)
• a string of words not separated by
normally occurring conjunctions
"He was a bag of bones, a floppy doll, a
broken stick, a maniac."
(Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957)
Polysyndeton
• style that employs a great many
conjunctions (opposite of "asyndeton").
• "In years gone by, there were in every
community men and women who spoke
the language of duty and morality and
loyalty and obligation." -- William F.
Buckley
Anaphora (uh-naf-er-uh)
• Repetition of the same word or phrase at
the beginning of successive clauses or
verses.
• "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all
the world, she walks into mine."
(Rick Blaine in Casablanca)
Alliteration
• Repetition of initial consonant sound
• Alliterative slogan of Country Life butter
Anadiplosis (an-uh-di-ploh-sis)
• Repetition of the last word of one line or
clause to begin the next.
• Henry James, “The Middle Years”
Assonance
• Repetition of identical or similar vowel
sounds in neighboring words
Allusion
• direct or indirect reference to something
which is commonly known such as an
event, book, myth, place, or work or art
• can be historical, literary, religious,
mythical
Big Brother is a
character in
George Orwell’s
1984.
Epistrophe
• Repetition of a word or phrase at the end
of successive clauses
• "For no government is better than the
men who compose it, and I want the best,
and we need the best, and we deserve
the best."
-Senator John F. Kennedy, speech at
Wittenberg College, Oct. 17, 1960
•
Epanalepsis [ep-uh-nuh-lep-sis]
• Repetition at the end of a clause or
sentence of the word or phrase with
which it began
• The word(s) at the beginning and the end
of a clause/sentence are the same.
• "Next time there won't be a next time."
(Phil Leotardo in The Sopranos)
Antimetabole (an-tee-meh-TA-boe-lee) or
Chiasmus (ky-AZ-mus)
• figure of emphasis in which the words in one
phrase or clause are repeated, exactly or
closely, in reverse grammatical order in the
next phrase or clause; (A-B, B-A).
• a reversal in the order of words in two
otherwise parallel phrases.
• "I flee who chases me, and chase who
flees me."
(Ovid)
•
Antithesis (an-TIH-theh-sis)
• two contrasting ideas are intentionally
juxtaposed
• a contrasting of opposing ideas in
adjacent phrases, clauses, or sentences.
"We must learn to live together as brothers
or perish together as fools."
-Martin Luther King, Jr., speech at St.
Louis, 1964
•
hyperbole
• Exaggeration is used for emphasis or
effect
• "O for the gift of Rostand's Cyrano to invoke the
vastness of that nose alone as it cleaves the
giant screen from east to west, bisects it from
north to south. It zigzags across our horizon like
a bolt of fleshy lightning."
(John Simon, review of Barbra Streisand, 1976)
Epizeuxis
• Repetition of a word or phrase for
emphasis usually with no words in
between.
• "I undid the lantern cautiously--oh, so
cautiously--cautiously."
(Edgar Allan Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart,"
1843)
•
Synecdoche/metonymy
synecdoche
[si-nek-duh-kee]
• Part is used to represent
the whole or vice versa
• All hands on deck.
•
Metonymy
[mi-ton-uh-mee]
• One word or phrase is
substituted for another
with which it is closely
associated
• The White House asked
the television networks
for air time on Monday
night.
The difference between synecdoche and metonymy is that in
metonymy the word you employ is linked to the concept you are
really talking about, but isn’t actually a part of it.
Litotes [lahy-tuh-teez]
• affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.
• "'Not a bad day's work on the whole,' he muttered, as
he quietly took off his mask, and his pale, fox-like eyes
glittered in the red glow of the fire. 'Not a bad day's
work.'"
(Baroness Emmuska Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel,
1905)
apostrophe
• Some absent or nonexistent person or
thing is addressed as if present and
capable of understanding
• "Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky."
(Jane Taylor, "The Star," 1806)
•
Oxymoron
• Contradictory or incongruous terms
appear side by side
• Jumbo shrimp
Irony: contrast between what appears to be
and what actually exists; what is expected
and what is actually experienced
• Verbal: A character says one thing but means another.
Teiresias says to Oedipus, “I say that you, with both your eyes are
blind” (Episode I). (Actually, Teiresias is literally blind but wiser.
• Situational: What happens is different from what’s
expected to happen.
The murderer whom Oedipus seeks to cast from Thebes is,
in reality, himself.
• Dramatic: The audience is aware of critical information
of which the characters are unaware.
Oedipus states in the Prologos that “by avenging the murdered King I protect
myself.” The audience is aware from the beginning that by avenging the murder
of Laios, Oedipus, in fact, destroys himself.
hypophora
• A writer/speaker raises a question and
then immediately answers it.
• "What shall Cordelia speak?
Love, and be silent."
Cordelia in King Lear by William
Shakespeare
paradox
• A statement which appears on the
surface to contradict itself
• "The swiftest traveler is he that goes
afoot."
(Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854)
anachronism
• refers to when a story that is set in a
particular time period contains some
element that is from a different time
period. It can happen accidentally, or on
purpose, often to some kind of comedic
effect.
-In the Disney Movie Aladdin, the genie
changes appearance becoming people
from the 20th Century.