Antithesis: opposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a A List of Rhetorical Terms balanced or parallel construction. and Examples *Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Barry Goldwater *Brutus: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Alliteration: repetition of the same sound beginning several Rome more. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar words in sequence. *The vases of the classical period are but the reflection *Let us go forth to lead the land we love. J. F. Kennedy, of classical beauty; the vases of the archaic period are Inaugural beauty itself." Sir John Beazley *Viri validis cum viribus luctant. Ennius *Demosthenes, Olynthiac 2.26 *Veni, vidi, vici. Julius Caesar Aporia: expression of doubt (often feigned) by which a speaker Anacoluthon: lack of grammatical sequence; a change in the appears uncertain as to what he should think, say, or do. grammatical construction within the same sentence. *Then the steward said within himself, 'What shall I do?' *Agreements entered into when one state of facts exists - Luke 16 - are they to be maintained regardless of changing *Demosthenes, On the Crown 129 conditions? J. Diefenbaker Aposiopesis: a form of ellipse by which a speaker comes to an Anadiplosis: ("doubling back") the rhetorical repetition of one abrupt halt, seemingly overcome by passion (fear, excitement, or several words; specifically, repetition of a word that ends one etc.) or modesty. clause at the beginning of the next. *Demosthenes, On the Crown 3 *Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the Apostrophe: a sudden turn from the general audience to sovereign or state; servants of fame; and servants of address a specific group or person or personified abstraction business. Francis Bacon absent or present. *Senatus haec intellegit, consul videt; hic tamen vivit. *For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel. Vivit? Immo vero etiam in senatum venit. Cicero, In Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him. Catilinam Shakespeare, Julius Caesar *Aeschines 3.133 Archaism: use of an older or obsolete form. Anaphora: the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning *Pipit sate upright in her chair of successive phrases, clauses or lines. Some distance from where I was sitting; T. S. Eliot, "A *We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We Cooking Egg" shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and Assonance: repetition of the same sound in words close to each oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and other. growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, *Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, *O fortunatam natam me consule Romam! Cicero, de we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in consulatu the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We Asyndeton: lack of conjunctions between coordinate phrases, shall never surrender. Churchill. clauses, or words. *Nihil agis, nihil moliris, nihil cogitas, quod non ego non *We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any modo audiam, sed etiam videam planeque sentiam. hardships, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure Cicero, In Catilinam the survival and the success of liberty. J. F. Kennedy, *Lysias, Against Eratosthenes 21 Inaugural *Demosthenes, On the Crown 48 *But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot Anastrophe: transposition of normal word order; most often consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. Lincoln, found in Latin in the case of prepositions and the words they Gettysburg Address control. Anastrophe is a form of hyperbaton. *Demosthenes, On the Crown 200 *The helmsman steered; the ship moved on; yet never a Brachylogy: a general term for abbreviated or condensed breeze up blew. Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient expression, of which asyndeton and zeugma are types. Ellipse is Mariner often used synonymously. The suppressed word or phrase can *Isdem in oppidis, Cicero usually be supplied easily from the surrounding context. *Demosthenes, On the Crown 13 *Aeolus haec contra: Vergil, Aeneid Antistrophe: repetition of the same word or phrase at the end *Non Cinnae, non Sullae longa dominatio. Tacitus, of successive clauses. Annales I.1 *In 1931, ten years ago, Japan invaded Manchukuo -- Cacophony: harsh joining of sounds. without warning. In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia -- *We want no parlay with you and your grisly gang who without warning. In 1938, Hitler occupied Austria -- work your wicked will. W. Churchill without warning. In 1939, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia *O Tite tute Tati tibi tanta tyranne tulisti! Ennius -- without warning. Later in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland Catachresis: a harsh metaphor involving the use of a word -- without warning. And now Japan has attacked Malaya beyond its strict sphere. and Thailand -- and the United States --without warning. *I listen vainly, but with thirsty ear. MacArthur, Farewell Franklin D. Roosevelt Address *Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon 198 *Cynthia prima suis miserum me cepit ocellis. Propertius oratore I.1.1 Hypallage: ("exchanging") transferred epithet; grammatical Chiasmus: two corresponding pairs arranged not in parallels agreement of a word with another word which it does not (a-b-a-b) but in inverted order (a-b-b-a); from shape of the logically qualify. More common in poetry. Greek letter chi (X). *Exegi monumentum aere perennius *Those gallant men will remain often in my thoughts and regalique situ pyramidum altius, Horace, Odes III.30 in my prayers always. MacArthur Hyperbaton: separation of words which belong together, often *Renown'd for conquest, and in council skill'd. Addison to emphasize the first of the separated words or to create a et pacis ornamenta et subsidia belli. Cicero, Pro lege certain image. Manilia *Speluncam Dido dux et Troianus eandem Vergil, *Plato, Republic 494e Aeneid 4.124, 165 Climax: arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order Hyperbole: exaggeration for emphasis or for rhetorical effect. of ascending power. Often the last emphatic word in one phrase *My vegetable love should grow or clause is repeated as the first emphatic word of the next. Vaster than empires, and more slow; *One equal temper of heroic hearts, An hundred years should got to praise Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will Thine eyes and on thine forehead gaze; To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Tennyson, Two hundred to adore each breast, Ulysses But thirty thousand to the rest. Andrew Marvell, "To His *Nonne hunc in vincula duci, non ad mortem rapi, non Coy Mistress" summo supplicio mactari imperabis? Cicero, In *Da mi basia mille, deinde centum, Catilinam Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, *Facinus est vincere civem Romanum; scelus verberare; Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum. Catullus, to prope parricidium necare: quid dicam in crucem tollere? his. verbo satis digno tam nefaria res appellari nullo modo Hysteron Proteron ("later-earlier"): inversion of the natural potest. Cicero, In Verrem sequence of events, often meant to stress the event which, *Demosthenes, On the Crown 179 though later in time, is considered the more important. Euphemism: substitution of an agreeable or at least non- *"I like the island Manhattan. Smoke on your pipe and offensive expression for one whose plainer meaning might be put that in." -- from the song "America," West Side Story harsh or unpleasant. lyric by Stephen Sondheim (submitted per litteram by *When the final news came, there would be a ring at the guest rhetorician Anthony Scelba) front door -- a wife in this situation finds herself staring *Put on your shoes and socks! at the front door as if she no longer owns it or controls it- *Hannibal in Africam redire atque Italia decedere -and outside the door would be a man... come to inform coactus est. Cicero, In Catilinam her that unfortunately something has happened out there, Irony: expression of something which is contrary to the and her husband's body now lies incinerated in the intended meaning; the words say one thing but mean another. swamps or the pines or the palmetto grass, "burned *Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; beyond recognition," which anyone who had been And Brutus is an honourable man. Shakespeare, Julius around an air base very long (fortunately Jane had not) Caesar realized was quite an artful euphemism to describe a Litotes: understatement, for intensification, by denying the human body that now looked like an enormous fowl that contrary of the thing being affirmed. (Sometimes used has burned up in a stove, burned a blackish brown all synonymously with meiosis.) over, greasy and blistered, fried, in a word, with not only *A few unannounced quizzes are not inconceivable. the entire face and all the hair and the ears burned off, *War is not healthy for children and other living things. not to mention all the clothing, but also the hands and *One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day. (meiosis) feet, with what remains of the arms and legs bent at the Metaphor: implied comparison achieved through a figurative knees and elbows and burned into absolutely rigid use of words; the word is used not in its literal sense, but in one angles, burned a greasy blackish brown like the bursting analogous to it. body itself, so that this husband, father, officer, *Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, gentleman, this ornamentum of some mother's eye, His That struts and frets his hour upon the stage. Majesty the Baby of just twenty-odd years back, has Shakespeare, Macbeth been reduced to a charred hulk with wings and shanks *. . . while he learned the language (that meager and sticking out of it. Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff fragile thread . . . by which the little surface corners and Hendiadys: use of two words connected by a conjunction, edges of men's secret and solitary lives may be joined for instead of subordinating one to the other, to express a single an instant now and then before sinking back into the complex idea. darkness. . . ) Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! *It sure is nice and cool today! (for "pleasantly cool") *From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an *I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my iron curtain has descended across the continent. W. supplications. Psalms 116 Churchill *Perfecti oratoris moderatione et sapientia. Cicero, De Metonymy: substitution of one word for another which it suggests. effect. *He is a man of the cloth. *That part of our history detailing the military *The pen is mightier than the sword. achievements which gave us our several possessions ... is *By the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread. a theme too familiar to my listeners for me to dilate on, Onomatopoeia: use of words to imitate natural sounds; and I shall therefore pass it by. Thucydides, "Funeral accommodation of sound to sense. Oration" *At tuba terribili sonitu taratantara dixit. Ennius *Let us make no judgment on the events of Oxymoron: apparent paradox achieved by the juxtaposition of Chappaquiddick, since the facts are not yet all in. A words which seem to contradict one another. political opponent of Senator Edward Kennedy *Festina lente. Prolepsis: the anticipation, in adjectives or nouns, of the result *I must be cruel only to be kind. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the action of a verb; also, the positioning of a relative clause Paradox: an assertion seemingly opposed to common sense, before its antecedent. but that may yet have some truth in it. *Vixi et quem dederat cursum fortuna peregi, Vergil, *What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young. Aeneid 4.653 George Bernard Shaw *Consider the lilies of the field how they grow. Paraprosdokian: surprise or unexpected ending of a phrase or Simile: an explicit comparison between two things using 'like' series. or 'as'. *He was at his best when the going was good. Alistair *My love is as a fever, longing still Cooke on the Duke of Windsor For that which longer nurseth the disease, Shakespeare, *There but for the grace of God -- goes God. Churchill Sonnet CXLVII *Laudandus, ornandus, tollendus. Cicero on Octavian *Reason is to faith as the eye to the telescope. D. Hume Paronomasia: use of similar sounding words; often [?] etymological word-play. *Let us go then, you and I, *...culled cash, or cold cash, and then it turned into a While the evening is spread out against the sky, gold cache. E.L. Doctorow, Billy Bathgate Like a patient etherized upon a table... T.S. Eliot, The *Thou art Peter (Greek petros), and upon this rock Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (Greek petra) I shall build my church. Matthew 16 Syllepsis: use of a word with two others, with each of which it *The dying Mercutio: Ask for me tomorrow and you is understood differently. shall find me a grave man. Shakespeare, Romeo and *We must all hang together or assuredly we will all hang Juliet separately. Benjamin Franklin *Hic est sepulcrum haud pulchrum feminae pulchrae. Synchysis: interlocked word order. Personification: attribution of personality to an impersonal *aurea purpuream subnectit fibula vestem Vergil, Aeneid thing. 4.139 *England expects every man to do his duty. Lord Nelson Synecdoche: understanding one thing with another; the use of a *Nunc te patria, quae communis est parens omnium part for the whole, or the whole for the part. (A form of nostrum, odit ac metuit et iam diu nihil te iudicat nisi de metonymy.) parricidio suo cogitare. Cicero, In Catilinam *Give us this day our daily bread. Matthew 6 Pleonasm: use of superfluous or redundant words, often *I should have been a pair of ragged claws enriching the thought. Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. *No one, rich or poor, will be excepted. T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" *Ears pierced while you wait! *The U.S. won three gold medals. (Instead of, The *I have seen no stranger sight since I was born. members of the U.S. boxing team won three gold Polysyndeton: the repetition of conjunctions in a series of medals.) coordinate words, phrases, or clauses. Synesis (=constructio ad sensum): the agreement of words *I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't know according to logic, and not by the grammatical form; a kind of who killed him but he's dead all right," and it was dark anacoluthon. and there was water standing in the street and no lights *For the wages of sin is death. Romans 6 and windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees *Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff preached Christ unto them. Acts 6 and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Tautology: repetition of an idea in a different word, phrase, or Mango Bay and she was all right only she was full of sentence. water. Hemingway, After the Storm *With malice toward none, with charity for all. Lincoln, *omnia Mercurio similis, vocemque coloremque Second Inaugural et crinis flavos et membra decora iuventae Vergil, Aeneid Zeugma: two different words linked to a verb or an adjective 4.558-9 which is strictly appropriate to only one of them. *Horae quidem cedunt et dies et menses et anni, nec *Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn praeteritum tempus umquam revertitur, nec quid sequatur The living record of your memory. sciri potest. Cicero, De senectute *Longa tibi exsilia et vastum maris aequor arandum. Praeteritio (=paraleipsis): pretended omission for rhetorical Vergil, Aeneid