Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Literary Devices

      • Apostrophe: addressing a non-existent person or an abstract idea in such a way as if it were present and capable of understanding feelings
      “Is this a dagger which I see before me,
      The handle toward my hand?
      Come, let me clutch thee!
      I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.”

      • Assonance: the use of words that have the same or similar vowel sounds


      "summer fun"

      "bright sky"

      "rise high"
      "I feel restless and depressed."

      • Asyndeton: omission of the conjunctions that ordinarily join coordinate words or clauses


      "I came, I saw, I conquered"

      "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle"


      • Catachresis: use of the wrong word for the context


      "blind mouths"

      "Honey, you are a regular nuclear meltdown. You'd better cool off."

      • Chiasmus: an inverted relationship between the syntactic elements of parallel phrases


      "Do I love you because you are beautiful? Or are you beautiful because I love you?"