Poetry: Tropes and Schemes

1. Poetry: Tropes and Schemes Alliosis to Synecdoche

2. Tropes • Figures of speech with an unexpected twist in the meaning of words

3. Metaphor • Implicit comparison (when something is something else) Ex: the ladder of success (i.e. success is a ladder) Ex: “The office is a beehive of activity on Mondays.” Ex: Recall the old anti-drug commercial: “This is your brain on drugs.”

4. Simile • Explicit comparison – features a specific “connector word” (when something is like something else) Ex: “Her skin was like alabaster.” Ex: “He was as unpleasant as a wart.”

5. Metonymy • Using a vaguely suggestive, physical object to embody a more general idea Ex: CROWN for royalty or the PEN is mightier than the SWORD Ex: “If we cannot strike offenders in the heart, let us strike them in the wallet.”

6. Synecdoche • Using a part of a physical object to represent the whole object Ex: “Twenty eyes watched our every move” (i.e. 10 people watched). Ex: “All hands on deck!”

7. Puns • A pun twists the meaning of words, often to create a humorous effect Ex: In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare includes a pun from Mercutio as he is dying: “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.” Ex: “Said one banana to the other, ‘You’ve got appeal.’”

8. Personification • Giving human qualities to inanimate objects Ex: “The ground thirsts for rain; the wind whispered secrets to us.” Ex: A used car salesmen may write an advertisement from a car’s viewpoint. “I only have 6,000 miles and I smell nice!”

9. Apostrophe • Addressing someone or some personified abstraction that is not physically present Ex: Isaac Asimov might begin an essay on progress by writing, “Ah, Mr. Einstein, you would be pleased to see how far we have progressed in science.”

10. Erotema • Asking a rhetorical question to the reader as a transition or as a thought-provoking tool before proceeding Ex: “What should honest citizens do?”

11. Onomatopoeia • Words that sound like what they mean Ex: buzz, click, rattle, clatter, squish, grunt; snap, crackle, pop

12. Hyperbole • Extreme exaggeration Ex: “His thundering shout could split rocks.” Or, “Yo’ mama’s so fat…”

13. Meiosis/Litotes • Meiosis: understatement Ex: “I was somewhat worried when the psychopath ran toward me with a chainsaw” (i.e. I was terrified). • Litotes: a type of meiosis in which the writer uses a statement in the negative to create the effect. Ex: “You know, Einstein is not a bad mathematician.”

14. Oxymoron • (also called paradox) using contradiction in a manner that oddly makes sense Ex: “Without laws we can have no freedom.” Ex: “He that would save his life must lose it; and he that would lose his life will save it” (Mark 8:35). Ex: “small fortune”, “deafening silence”

15. Schemes • Figures of speech that deal with word order, syntax, letters, and sounds, rather than the meaning of words

16. Parallelism • When the writer establishes similar patterns of grammatical structure and length Ex: “King Alfred tried to make the law clear, precise, and equitable.” (use of adj. is //) Ex: “That government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” (use of prep. phrases is //)

17. Antithesis • (plural: antitheses) contrary ideas expressed in a balanced sentence Ex: (contrast of opposites) “Evil men fear authority; good men cherish it.” Ex: (contrast of degree) “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

18. Anastrophe • Inverted word order from what one expects Ex: “One ad does not a survey make.”

19. Chiasmus • Taking parallelism and deliberately turning it inside out, creating a “crisscross” pattern Ex: By day the frolic, and the dance by night.” Ex: “Naked I rose from the earth; to the grave I fell clothed.”

20. Alliosis • Presenting alternatives in a balanced manner Ex: “You can eat well or you can sleep well.”

21. Ellipsis • Omitting a word implied by the previous clause Ex: “The European soldiers killed six of the remaining villagers, the American soldiers, eight.”

22. Asyndeton • Using no conjunctions to create an effect of speed or simplicity Ex: Vini. Vidi. Vici. “I came. I saw. I conquered.” (as opposed to “I came, and I saw, and then I conquered.”) Ex: Been there. Done that. Bought the t-shirt.

23. Polysyndeton • Using many conjunctions to achieve an overwhelming effect (Note: Remember that “asyndeton” means using no conj.) Ex: This term, I am taking biology and English and history and math and music and physics and sociology.

24. Climax • Arrangement in order of increasing importance Ex: “Let a man acknowledge his obligations to himself, his family, his country, and his God.”

25. Prosthesis • Adding an extra syllable or letters to the beginning of a word Ex: “All alone, I beweep my outcast state.” Ex: I was all afrightened by the use of prothesis.

26. Epenthesis • Adding an extra syllable or letters in the middle of a word Ex: Shakespeare might write, “A visitating spirit came last night.” Ex: Ned Flanders from “The Simpson’s” might say, “Gosh-diddly-darn-it, Homer!”

27. Repetition • Something that is repeated, whether it be sounds or actual words and phrases

28. Alliteration • Repetition of the initial consonant in multiple words within a phrase Ex: buckets of big blue berries

29. Assonance • Repetition of vowel sounds within a phrase Ex: refresh your zest for living

30. Anaphora • Repetition of beginning clauses Ex: Winston Churchill declared, “We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost shall be.”

31. Epistrophe • Repetition of a concluding word Ex: “He’s learning fast; are you earning fast?”

32. Analepsis • (also used as “epanalepsis”) repeating a word from the beginning of a clause at the end of the same clause Ex: “Year chases year.” Ex: “Man’s inhumanity to man.”

33. Anadiplosis • Repeating the last word of a clause at the beginning of the next clause Ex: As Nietzche said, “Talent is an adornment; an adornment is also a concealment.”