Rhetorical Devices
Simile
A comparison using 'like' or 'as'; like metaphor, but limited to one comparison and much easier to spot: "She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen, plump as a partridge, ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her father's peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but for her vast expectations (Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - note the Polysyndeton)"
Epithet
A name that modifies a noun, such as Catherine the Great or Richard the Lion-Heart. Other epithets can be phrases that replace names, such as "Father of his Country" for George Washington or "King of Lighting" for Zeus.
Parataxis
A series of independant clauses relating a series of actions: "I don't know, but they did it. They've done it before and they did it tonight and they'll do it again and when they do it - seems that only the children weep (Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird)."
Paraprosdokian
A surprise ending that often breaks the direction of the thought progression of a poem: James T Fields's The Owl Critic develops as a lengthy criticism of a stuffed owl, only to reveal that the owl is actually alive!
Epanalepsis
A word or phrase, material in between, and the same word or phrase again: "Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more...(John Milton, Lycidas, line 165)
Paronomasia
A word which is understood in two different ways, either phonetically or visually. This is also known as the pun: "I've really done enough of sums / I've done so very many / That now instead of doing sum / I'd rather not to any (Arthur Clement Hilton, Mathematics, lines 1-4)"
Anaphora
Beginning a series of lines with the same word or words: "Gone, the merry morris din / Gone, the song of Gamelyn / Gone, the tough-belted outlaw...(John Keats, Robin Hood, lines 33-35)
Apostrophe
Calling out to a person or place to express strong emotion or supplication: "Among the suits, O Jove, my humbler take / A little give, I that Enough will make (Ann Killigrew, Upon Being Contented with a Little, lines 9-10)
Hyperbole
Deliberate exaggeration for emphasis: "I will luve thee still, my dear / A 'gang the seas run dry (Robert Burns, A Red, Red Rose, lines 7-8).
Personification
Giving an animal or inanimate object human qualities. In this case, time is personified: "I long have had a quarrel set with Time / Because he robb'd me. Every day of life / Was wrested from me after bitter strife...(Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, The Two Highwaymen, lines 1-3)
Metaphor
One thing or concept is compared to a different thing to illuminate something about it. Metaphor can be extended for the length of a whole poem, as in this one: "Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches on the soul (Emily Dickinson, "Hope is the thing with feathers", lines 1-2)"
Asyndeton
Purposeful omission of conjunctions (usually 'and') that can be used to emphasize sheer number: "...the tax assessor, the tax collector, the county clerk, the county solicitor, the circuit clerk, the judge of probate all lived in cool dim hutches that smelled of decaying record books...(Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird)"
Aporia
Questioning of where to begin or what to say next: "And how should I then presume? And how should I begin? (TS Elliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, lines 68 - 69)"
Anadiplosis
Repetition of a word from the end of one line to the beginning of the next: "Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies (JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)"
Epizeuxis
Repetition of the same word for emphasis: "Whirl, whirl, whirl / Till the world is the size of a pearl (Ameen Rihani, A Chant of Mystics, lines 1-2)
Epistrophe
Repetition of the same word or phrase at the end of each line; the opposite of Anaphora. Example can be found in the opening poem of "Lord of the Rings", where the repeated phrase is "In the land of Mordor where shadows lie".
Metonymy
Replacement of one concept with a similar concept: "'The healing waters will never bring the dead Hurons to life', returned Uncas, in the music of the Delawares..."
Polysyndeton
The 'opposite of asyndeton - purposeful addition of extra conjunctions, also used to emphasize sheer number: "He did not do the things our schoolmates' fathers did: he never went hunting, he did not play poker or fish or drink or smoke (Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird)"
Meiosis
The opposite of Hyperbole, deliberate understatement: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun (William Shakespeare, Sonnet CXXX, line 1)
Polyptoton
Using a word in many forms (as a noun or a verb) to develop a chain of thought: "Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know / Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain (Sir Phillip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella Sonnet I, lines 3-4)
