Figures 101

Literally just a list of all the figures that were mentioned in class or were included on the reviews (with a brief explanation for memory purposes).

1. Simile: comparison that uses like, as, than, appears, or seems
2. Metaphor: implicit comparison.
3. Explicit metaphor: obvious identification
4. Implied metaphor: more subtle
5. Extended or controlling metaphor: part or all of a poem consists of a series of related metaphors or similes
6.— Conceit: extended metaphor that is particularly clever, witty, and surprising. Used especially by John Donne ("the fly" guy) and Emily Dickinson.
7. Pun
8. Synecdoche: a form of metaphor where one part stands for the whole, or the whole is substituted for one part.
9. Metonymy: a play on words based on association. With metonymy, an object is referred to in terms of something closely related to it, yet not actually a part of it
10. Personification: attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman things
11. Apostrophe: address to someone who is absent or to something nonhuman. (Is this actually an attitude?)
12. Hyperbole: exaggeration
13. Litote or understatement: opposite figure of speech that says less than intended, but still intensifies.
14. —Hyperbaton: departure from ordinary word order.
15. Anaphora: repetition of the same word at the beginning of successive sentences, clauses or lines
16.— Epiphora: repetition of closing word or words at the end of clauses, sentences or lines
17. Isocolon: the use of similar grammatical structures in two or more clauses or phrases
18. Paradox: statement that initially appears self-contradictory, but turns out to make sense.
19.— Oxymoron: condensed form of paradox in which two contradictory words are used together
19.1. Catachresis: when the oxymoron is of the senses, E.g. “blind mouths”
20. Symbol: word that suggests more than its literal meaning, culturally-bound
20.1. Conventional symbol: rose, night, laurel, spring
20.2. Literary or contextual symbol: goes beyond traditional meanings and can have multiple interpretations
21. Allegory: Narration or description usually restricted to a single meaning, emphasis on meaning
22. Irony
23. Epithet: an adjective or adjectival phrase that serves to emphasize a distinctive quality of a person or thing
24. Onomatopeia: use of a word that resembles the sound it denotes—
25. Alliteration: repetition of consonant sounds. Based on sound rather than spelling—
26. Assonance: repetition of the same vowel sound in nearby words
27. Euphony: agreeable sound 28. Cacophony: unpleasant sound
29. Aphaeresis and Apocope: Omitting the beginning or last syllable or letter of a word, respectively.
30. Aposiopesis: stopping suddenly in midcourse, leaving a statement unfinished
31. Chiasmus: figure where the sense of a line or clause is inverted, as in a mirror
32. Climax: mounting by degrees through linked words or phrases, usually in increasing weight and in parallel construction
33. Enallage: an effective grammatical mistake
34. Asyndeton: the omission of an expected conjunction
35. Metalepsis: metonymy twice removed from the original
36. Tmesis: rhetorical device in which a word or a phrase is divided into two parts, or another word is inserted in between the two parts of the word already separated
37. Parenthesis: explanatory or qualifying clause or sentence which is inserted into a paragraph or stanza, generally presented between parenthesis, square brackets, commas and lines
38. Ellipses:the umbrella term for the figure of omission
39. Syllepses: one verb used for two or more clauses
40. Praecisio: all words are omitted, the refusal to speak at all (why is there even a name for this?)
41. Metaplasmus: misspelling words on purpose (by adding or subtracting)
42. Prosthesis: addition to the beginning
43. Epenthesis: addition to the middle
44. Proparalepsis: addition to the end
45. Aphaeresis: subtraction from the beginning
46. Syncope: subtraction from the middle
47. Apocope: subtraction from the conclusion
48. Synaloepha: elimination of a vowel/contraction of two words
49. Antisthecons: substitutions
50. Metatheses: rearrangements
51. Hendiadys: adding a conjunction between adjective-plus-noun/verb+verb and invert the order, usually creating a noun-and-noun construction