Figures of Speech Poetry notes

Metaphor

Comparison of two things

Simile

Comparison of two things using “like” or “as”

Metonymy

A substition of a thing for something connected to it (the worthier pen… as to say, a worthier writer (the person holding the pen))

Synechdoche

The substitution of a part for the whole (all tongues…give thee that due)

Personification

endowing things or abstractions with life (by Time’s fell hand defaced)

Apostrophe

Addressing a dead person or someone who can’t respond back as if they were here or capable of understanding. Gives a sense of life and immediacy to the verse

Rhetorical question

Question posed for which no answer is expected (what is your substance, whereof are you made?)

Pun

A play on words that are identical in sound (homonyms) but diverse in meaning

Oxymoron

A compressed paradox (tender churl)

Irony

A dissimulation; there’s usually a double meaning. You say one thing while meaning another. Sometimes sarcastic or antiphrasis, meaning they are saying the opposite of what they really mean.

Anastrophe

A reversal of the usual syntax or word order. ie. “thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings”

Anaphora

Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of the line

Epizeuxis

Multiple repetition of the same word

Polyptoton

Repetition of the same root word with a different grammatical inflection "(“which alters when it alteration finds”)

Antanaclasis

Pun on a word repeated with a second meaning “every fair from fair”

Polysyndeton

too many connectives (we dined on ham and chicken and steak and eggs)

Parallelism

Parallel syntax, “never writ / ever loved” which compares the two things

Antithesis

Parallel syntax with contasting ideas (marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures)

Chiasmus

A parallelism that reverses the word order: “music to hear / why hear’st thou music sadly?”