Inverted Rhetorical Handbook Flashcards
Definition: An indirect or passing reference to some event, person, place, or artistic work, the nature and relevance of which is not explained by the writer but relies on the reader’s familiarity with what is thus mentioned.Rhetorical Strategies: Strategies that aid the attempt to sway the mind of the audience.Example: “You must borrow me Gargantua’s mouth first. ‘Tis a word too great for any mouth of this age’s size.”-Shakespeare
Allusion[uh-loo-zhuh n]
Definition: A brief statement that expresses an observation on life, usually intended as a wise observation.Rhetorical Strategies: Strategies that aid the attempt to sway the mind of the audience.Example: “The book of Nature is the book of Fate”“So far as a man thinks, he is free.”Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Fate”
Aphorism[af-uh-riz-uh m]
Definition: Placing two things side by side, usually to show contrast.Rhetorical Strategies: Strategies that aid the attempt to sway the mind of the audience.Example: A juxtaposition in Romeo and Juliet occurs between the realistic, informal Mercutio and the love-sick, unrealistic Romeo.
Juxtaposition[juhk-stuh-puh-zish-uh n]
Definition: The direct address of a person or personified thing, either present or absent. Its most common purpose in prose is to give vent to or display intense emotion, which can no longer be held back.Figurative language-means saying one thing but meaning anotherExample: “O value of wisdom that fadeth not away with time, virtue ever flourishing, that cleanseth its possessor from all venom! O heavenly gift of the divine bounty, descending from the Father of lights, that thou mayest exalt the rational soul to the very heavens! Thou art the celestial nourishment of the intellect.”Richard de Bury
Apostrophe [uh-pos-truh-fee]
Definition: Another form of metaphor, very similar to synecdoche, in which the thing chosen for the metaphorical image is closely associated with (but not an actual part of) the subject with which it is to be compared.Figurative language-means saying one thing but meaning anotherExample: The orders came from the White House.In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. –Genesis 3:19This land belongs to the crown.
Metonymy[mi-ton-uh-mee]
Definition: A figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole or the whole for a part.Figurative language-means saying one thing but meaning anotherExample: Okay team. Get those blades back on the ice. [part for whole]Get in here this instant or I’ll spank your body. [whole for the part—i.e. “body” for “rear end”]Put Beethoven in and turn up the volume. [Composer substituted for record]
Synecdoche[si-nek-duh-kee]
Definition: The recurrence of initial consonant sounds. The repetition is usually limited to two words.Sound Devices: Creating sound through the devices and language used in a piece.Example: “I saw it there, but I saw nothing in it, except the rising of the boiling bubbles”The Inferno, Dante
Alliteration [uh-lit-uh-rey-shuh n]
Definition: Begins with a part of speech other than the subject; used sometimes to delay revealing what the sentence is about and sometimes to create tension or suspense; or connect ideas between sentences more clearly.Syntax: The way in which linguistic elements (words and phrases) are arranged to form grammatical structure.Example: “It was always pleasant “crossing bridges in Paris.”Ernest Hemingway
Inverted[in-vurt]
Definition: A sentence that is interrupted by a parenthetical aside.Syntax: The way in which linguistic elements (words and phrases) are arranged to form grammatical structure.Example:“To embrace your hero in his destruction, however—to let your hero’s life occur within you when everything is trying to diminish him, to imagine yourself into his bad luck, to implicate yourself not in his mindless ascendancy, when he is the fixed point of your adulation, but in the bewilderment of his tragic fall—well, that’s worth thinking about.”Philip Roth, American Pastoral
Interrupted [in-tuh-ruhpt]
Definition: Begins with subject and verb, and adds modifying elements at end.Syntax: The way in which linguistic elements (words and phrases) are arranged to form grammatical structure.Example: She holds me in strong arms, arms that have chopped cotton, dismembered trees, scattered corn for chickens, cradled infants, shaken the daylights out of half-grown upstart teenagers.
Cumulative/Loose[kyoo-myuh-luh-tiv]
Definition: Opens with modifiers; withholds subject and verb until the end.Syntax: The way in which linguistic elements (words and phrases) are arranged to form grammatical structure.Example: Unlike World Wars I and II, which ended decisively with the unconditional surrender of the United States’ enemies, the war in Vietnam did not end when American troops withdrew.
Periodic[peer-ee-od-ik]
Definition: Establishes a clear, contrasting relationship between two ideas by joining them together or juxtaposing them, often in parallel structure. Syntax: The way in which linguistic elements (words and phrases) are arranged to form grammatical structure.Example: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”Neil Armstrong
Parallelism-Antithesis[an-tith-uh-sis]
Definition: A crossing parallelism, where the second part of a grammatical construction is balanced or paralleled by the first part, only in reverse order.Syntax: The way in which linguistic elements (words and phrases) are arranged to form grammatical structure.
Parallelism-Chiasmus[kahy-az-muh s]
Definition: Expresses parallel or like ideas– often compound.Syntax: The way in which linguistic elements (words and phrases) are arranged to form grammatical structure.Example: The government of the people, for the people, by the people shall not perish from the earth.
Parallelism-Balanced[par-uh-le-liz-uh m]
Definition: A rhetorical figure in which one or more words are omitted.Syntax: The way in which linguistic elements (words and phrases) are arranged to form grammatical structure.Example: “The First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech….”U.S. Const. amend. I.
Omission - Ellipsis[i-lip-sis]
