Schemes and Tropes

1. Schemes and Tropes Stylistics 551 Lecture 24

2. Schemes and Tropes • Figures involving repetition • Figures involving semantic irregularities • Figures involving comparison • Figures involving substitution • Figures involving addition or amplification

3. 3. Figures involving comparison • In these figures of speech the author transfers a word into a foreign semantic field to illustrate or picture his thought and evoke the appropriate feeling in his readers. In this way the writer draws a comparison between two things of unlike nature that yet have something in common. The subject matter is real but that to which it is compared is present in the imagination. That which the subject and things compared have in common is not stated and must be discussed and validated by the interpreter from other indications in the composition. The interpreter must also try to articulate the mood evoked by the figure.

4. i) Metaphor • Metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one object or idea is applied to another, thereby suggesting a likeness or analogy between them. • It is a figurative comparison between two rather unlikely things, resulting in an image in the mind’s eye. This comparison aids the reader, usually in understanding the comparison. If a poet says “My loves a red rose” that statement would be a metaphor because there is a comparison between love and red rose. As a result the reader knows that like a rose, love is often thorny, fragile and beautiful.

5. Metaphor • A metaphor establishes a relationship at once and it leaves more to the imagination. Metaphors are closely related to our imagination. As Wordsworth said “poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” a poet transfers his feelings. • A metaphor implies that one thing is another rather than it being like another, as is the case in a simile. That is why we often refer to metaphor as a direct comparison. • It is a figure of speech in which a word or a phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another. Thus making an implicit comparison.

6. Metaphor • “All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players” (Shakespeare, As you Like It) • “Leaves of life keep falling one by one” (Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam), • “I fall upon the thorns of life I bleed” (P.B. Shelley, Ode to the West Wind)

7. Kinds of Metaphor • Concrete metaphor: attributes physical existence to an abstraction. E.g. pain of separation, the light of learning, fruits of grief. • Animistic metaphor: attributes animate characteristics to the inanimate. E.g. angry sky, shoulder of hill.

8. Kinds of Metaphor b) Humanistic metaphor: attributes characteristics of humanity to what is not human. E.g. friendly river, wandering clouds, quiet forest. c) Synthetic metaphor: transfers meaning form one domain of sensory perception to another. e.g. “Of a beaker full of warm south” (Keats) “with blue, uncertain, stumbling, buzz”(Dickinson)

9. II) Simile: Simile is also a comparison between two things of unlike nature by using “like” or “as” that yet have something in common. e.g. silence settled on the audience like a block or granite” Silence is compared to a block of granite or stone, something heavy which is difficult to be removed. The image is of sadness and absoluteness, as if after hearing something sad they have become silent.

10. Simile • “O my Love's like the melodieThat's sweetly played in tune.” (Robert Burns) • “As fresh as the month of May” (Chaucer) • How like the winter hath my absence been –” (William Shakespeare) • “As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean –” (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

11. III) Personification: • Personification means the investment of non-human subjects e.g. abstractions, inanimate objects or animals with human qualities or abilities. Here too the things compared are of unlike nature, but the thing to which the comparison is made is always a person. The figure is used to stir emotions and to create an empathy with the subject.

12. Personification • E.g. the land mourns, the soil languishes” • The human attributes of mourning and languishing are attributed to the land, thus making a comparison. But the thought is the extreme agricultural disaster, and the feeling is of sadness and loss.

13. iii) Conceit Conceit is a figure of speech in which two vastly different objects are likened together with the help of similes or metaphors. Conceit develops a comparison which is exceedingly unlikely but is, nonetheless, intellectually imaginative. A comparison turns into a conceit when the writer tries to make us admit a similarity between two things of whose unlikeness we are strongly conscious and for this reason, conceits are often surprising.

14. Conceit • For example, it will not surprise us to hear someone saying, “You are a snail” or “You are slow as a snail,” as we understand that the similarity is drawn on a common quality “slowness”. We, however, will definitely be surprised to hear someone comparing “two lovers with the two legs of a draftsman’s compass.” Thus, conceit examples have a surprising or shocking effect on the readers because they are novel comparisons unlike the conventional comparisons made in similes and metaphors.

15. Figures involving addition or amplification • Hyperbole: Hyperbole, derived from a Greek word meaning “over-casting” is a figure of speech, which involves an exaggeration of ideas for the sake of emphasis. It is a device that we employ in our day-to-day speech. For instance, when you meet a friend after a long time, you say, “Ages have passed since I last saw you”. You may not have met him for three or four hours or a day, but the use of the word “ages” exaggerates this statement to add emphasis to your wait. Therefore, a hyperbole is an unreal exaggeration to emphasize the real situation.

16. i)Hyperbole From William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”, Act II, Scene II, “Neptune’s ocean wash this bloodClean from my hand? No. This my hand will ratherThe multitudinous seas incarnadine,Making the green one red.” Macbeth, the tragic hero, feels the unbearable prick of his conscience after killing the king. He regrets his sin and believes that even the oceans of the greatest magnitude cannot wash the blood of the king off his hands. We can notice the effective use of hyperboles in the given lines.

17. Hyperbole • In American folk lore, Paul Bunyan’s stories are full of hyperboles. In one instance, he exaggerates winter by saying: • “Well now, one winter it was so cold that all the geese flew backward and all the fish moved south and even the snow turned blue. Late at night, it got so frigid that all spoken words froze solid afore they could be heard. People had to wait until sunup to find out what folks were talking about the night before.” • Freezing of the spoken words at night in winter and then warming up of the words in the warmth of the sun during the day are examples of hyperbole that have been effectively used by Paul Bunyan in this short excerpt.

18. ii)Litotes Litotes, derived from a Greek word meaning “simple”, is a figure of speech which employs an understatement by using double negatives or, in other words, positive statement is expressed by negating its opposite expressions. For example, using the expression “not too bad” for “very good” is an understatement as well as a doublenegative statement that confirms a positive idea by negating the opposite.

19. Litotes Similarly, saying “She is not a beauty queen,” means “She is ugly” or saying “I am not as young as I used to be” in order to avoid saying “I am old”. Litotes, therefore, is an intentional use of understatement that renders an ironical effect.