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Tropes. Insert creative subtitle here. (Seriously, please help me think of a creative subtitle. I like alliteration, if that helps.). Tropes of Comparison. You should know these by now, so write out your own definitions on the practice sheet. Simile Metaphor
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Tropes Insert creative subtitle here. (Seriously, please help me think of a creative subtitle. I like alliteration, if that helps.)
Tropes of Comparison You should know these by now, so write out your own definitions on the practice sheet. • Simile • Metaphor • Allegory (Can you think of an example? Think back to ninth grade. . .) • Parable (Again, can you think of an example?)
Tropes of Comparison • Synecdoche = A whole is represented by naming one of its parts (genus named for species), or vice versa (species named for genus). Ex: The rustler bragged he'd absconded with five hundred head of longhorns. Both "head" and "longhorns" are parts of cattle that represent them as wholes. • Metonymy = Reference to something or someone by naming one of its attributes. Ex: The pen is mightier than the sword. The pen is an attribute of thoughts that are written with a pen; the sword is an attribute of military action.
Tropes of Word Play • Puns (or, Ms. Sensing’s favorite trope) • Antanaclasis = the repetition of a word or phrase whose meaning changes in the second instance. Ex: Your argument is sound...all sound. —Benjamin Franklin The meaning of "sound" first appears to be "solid" or "reasonable"; in its repetition, it means something very different, "all air" or "empty." • Paranomasia= Using words that sound alike but differ in meaning. (You know these. Most clever example in class tomorrow wins a prize. A real prize!) • Syllepsis = When a single word that governs or modifies two or more others must be understood differently with respect to each of those words. Ex: You held your breath and the door for me. —Alanis Morissette (Do y’all even know who she is? Very big in the nineties, people.)
Tropes of Word Play • Zeugma = A general term describing when one part of speech (most often the main verb, but sometimes a noun) governs two or more other parts of a sentence (often in a series). Ex: "He carried a strobe light and the responsibility for the lives of his men."(Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried) • Anthimeria = Substitution of one part of speech for another (such as a noun used as a verb). (I love to do this. That’s why I included this otherwise obscure term.) Ex: I always feel better after a good cry, don’t you? • Periphrasis (circumlocution) = The substitution of a descriptive word or phrase for a proper name; or, conversely, the use of a proper name as a shorthand to stand for qualities associated with it. Ex: He's no Fabio to look at; but then, he's no Woody Allen, either. *Come up with a clever example of periphrasis, please, and write it out on your practice sheet. Appropriate humor encouraged, and possibly rewarded.
Take a Minute • That last slide was crowded. Here’s a nice uncrowded one.
Tropes of Word Play I bet you know these, too. In fact, give your own examples (one of each, please) on the practice sheet. (Yes, you may look up definitions if you need to.) Personification (fancy name = prosopopoeia) Apostrophe (no, not that thing that makes words possessive)
Tropes of Word Play • Euphemism = The substitution of an inoffensive term (such as "passed away") for one considered offensively explicit ("died"). • Innuendo = A subtle or indirect observation about a person or thing, usually of a salacious, critical, or disparaging nature; an insinuation. • Malapropism = Absurd or humorous misuse of a word, especially by confusion with one of similar sound. *Oh, now this happens all the time with celebrities and politicians (among others, of course, but it’s more fun when someone famous does it, no?), doesn’t it? Find an example and email it to me. Print or video is fine. We’ll laugh at the best ones in class.
Tropes of Exaggeration • Hyperbole = Rhetorical exaggeration. Hyperbole is often accomplished via comparisons, similes, and metaphors. Ex: I’ve told you a million times not to exaggerate. • Conceit = an extended metaphor. You see this primarily in poetry. You’ll find one of the most famous on the next slide. Read and enjoy.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate.Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer's lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimmed;And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed. But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Tropes of Comparison • Litotes = Deliberate understatement, especially when expressing a thought by denying its opposite. Ex: Running a marathon in under two hours is no small accomplishment. • Meiosis = Reference to something with a name disproportionately lesser than its nature (a kind of litotes). Ex: “shrink” for psychiatrist *I bet you can come up with three (classroom appropriate) examples. Do so on the practice sheet. • Rhetorical Question (fancy name “erotema)= The rhetorical question is usually defined as any question asked for a purpose other than to obtain the information the question asks. Ex: Why wouldn’t you do your homework? (Don’t answer that.)
Tropes of Exaggeration • Hypophora (This one goes by a host of other names, so you might see it called something else.) = A figure of reasoning in which one asks and then immediately answers one's own questions (or raises and then settles imaginary objections). Reasoning aloud. Sometimes takes the form of asking the audience or one's adversary what can be said on a matter. • Aporia = placing a claim in doubt by developing arguments on both sides of an issue. • Apophasis = The rejection of several reasons why a thing should or should not be done and affirming a single one, considered most valid.
Tropes of Exaggeration • Sarcasm = You know this one, and some of you are quite good at it. . . Use of mockery, verbal taunts, or bitter irony. Ex: If you be the son of God, descend from the cross —Matt. 27 • Irony • Can you name three types of irony? Of course you can! Do you on the practice sheet.
Tropes of Exaggeration • Onomatopoeia (fun to say, fun to spell! And my favorite when I was in fourth grade) = Using or inventing a word whose sound imitates that which it names (the union of phonetics and semantics). Ex: The buzzing of innumerable bees. *The first person to buzz like a bee at me tomorrow will win a fabulous prize. • Paradox = A statement that is self-contradictory on the surface, yet seems to evoke a truth nonetheless. Ex: Whosoever loses his life, shall find it. • Oxymoron = Placing two ordinarily opposing terms adjacent to one another. A compressed paradox. Ex: ...Yet from those flamesNo light, but rather darkness visibleServed only to discover sights of woe. —Milton, Paradise Lost 1.62-64
Tropes of Exaggeration • Antiphrasis = Irony of one word, often derisively through patent contradiction. Ex: Referring to a tall person: "Now there's a midget for you." • Parallipsis = A synonym for antiphrasis!
Other Tropes • Allusion = a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication *On the practice sheet, give two examples of allusion from The Great Gatsby. And be ready to explain how/why Fitzgerald (or any author, for that matter) would use allusion. What’s the effect? • Anachronism = an error in chronology, or placing an event, person, item, or language expression in the wrong period. Ex: In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, an anachronism is used: Brutus: Peace! count the clock.Cassius: The clock has stricken three.Act II, scene i : lines 193 – 194 There were no clocks during Roman times, and the striking clock was not invented until 1,400 years after Caesar’s death! Silly Shakespeare.
Other Tropes • Anecdote = a usually short narrative of an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident *We teachers use anecdotes all the time. • Aphorism = an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic (concise) and memorable form. Ex: You are what you eat. *On the practice sheet, give an example you’ve heard a million times. (That’s hyperbole, of course.)
Other Tropes • Caricature = descriptive writing that greatly exaggerates a specific feature of a person’s appearance or a facet of personality; used for comic effect or criticism. Ex: “One was a woman in a slim black dress, belted small under the armpits, with bulges like a cabbage in the middle of the sleeves, and a large black scoop-shovel bonnet with a black veil, and white slim ankles crossed about with black tape, and very wee black slippers, like a chisel, and she was leaning pensive on a tombstone on her right elbow, under a weeping willow…” Mark Twain • Epigraph = a phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning of a document or component. The epigraph may serve as a preface, as a summary, as a counter-example, or to link the work to a wider literary canon, either to invite comparison or to enlist a conventional context. *If someone were to write your biography, what might the epigraph be? (could be a short passage from a literary work, a Bible verse, a song lyric, etc.) Write it on the practice sheet.
Other Terms • Cliché = • Epithet = • Invective = • Juxtaposition (one of Mrs. Ash’s favorite words) = • Define these last four on your own, please. Do that and you’re finished! See you next class.
