Stylistic Devices
"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to 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 may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender." -Winston Churchill
Anaphora
"We didn't land on Plymouth Rock; Plymouth Rock landed on us." (Malcolm X)
Antimetabole
"I long and dread to close." - Adrienne Rich
Antithesis
"Let us retire to the den."
Hortative sentence
Personification
attribution of a human qualities to anything non-human
Hortative sentence
- sentence that advises or calls to action (less of a command - more of a request)
Cumulative sentence or Loose sentence
- sentence that completes the main idea at the beginning of the sentence and then builds and adds on
"A moist young moon hung above the mist of a neighboring meadow."
Alliteration
"But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath"
Allusion
Forsooth (in fact), thee (you), wherefore (why)
Archaic Diction
"Veni, vidi, vici" or "I came, I saw, I conquered" - Julius Caesar
Asyndeton
"I relish crafting a cumulative sentence, highlighting its accumulation of detail, its extra-fine addition of imagery, poised to end with a flourish, in a crescendo of form and meaning."
Cumulative sentence or Loose sentence
"Clear this desk by tomorrow!" Or "Drive to the stop sign and turn left."
Imperative Sentence
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." - JRR Tolkien
Inversion
Direct: "That child is a mouse." Implied: "I plowed through that book." (implying that I read the book in a way that a plow rips through earth - relentlessly, unreflectively)
Metaphor
The monarch being referred to as "the crown"
Metonymy
"[Slavery is a] living death." - Harriet Jacobs
Oxymoron
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness..." - Charles Dickens
Parallelism
"In the almost incredibly brief time which it took the small but sturdy porter to roll a milk-can across the platform and bump it, with a clang, against other milk-cans similarly treated a moment before, Ashe fell in love." - P.G. Wodehouse
Periodic Sentence
Justice is blind
Personification
Q: "Do you want some chocolate cake?" Rhetorical Question as Response: "Is the Pope Catholic"
Rhetorical Question
• "The farmers in the valley grew potatoes, peanuts, and bored." • "She opened her door and her heart to the orphan."
Zeugma
Allusion
brief reference to a person, event, or place, real or fictitious, or to a work of art
Rhetorical Question
figure of speech in the form of a question posed for rhetorical effect rather than for the purpose of getting an answer
Metaphor
figure of speech that says one thing is another in order to explain by comparison
Inversion
inverted order of words in a sentence (variation of subject-verb order)
Archaic Diction
old-fashioned or outdated choice of words
Asyndeton
omission of conjunctions between coordinate phrases, clauses, or words
Antithesis
opposition, or contrast, of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction
Oxymoron
paradoxical juxtaposition of words that seem to contradict one another
Juxtaposition
placement of two things closely together to emphasize comparisons or contrasts
Anaphora
repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or lines
Alliteration
repetition of the same sound beginning several words in sequence
Antimetabole
repetition of words in reverse order; A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the words in reverse grammatical order (A-B-C, C-B-A).
Imperative Sentence
sentence used to command, enjoin, or entreat
Periodic Sentence
sentence whose main clause is withheld until the end; used to hld the reader's interest to the end, to add suspense
Parallelism
similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses
Zeugma
use of two different words in a grammatically similar way but producing different, often incongruous meanings
Metonymy
using a single feature to represent a whole