Minima Rhetorica Flashcards
Whats an alliteration?
The same sound is repeated at the beginning of several words or stressed syllables in words that are in close proximity.
F.e. Moping melancholy mad
Whats an assonance?
The same or similar vowel sounds are repeated in the stressed syllables of words that are in close proximity while the consonants differ.
f.e. Gun, drum, trumpet, blunderbuss and thunder
Whats a consonance?
Two or more consonants are repeated, but the adjacent vowels differ.
F.e. Friend/frowned, killed/cold, horse/hearse
Whats an onomatopoeia?
The sound of the word imitates the sound of the thing which that word denotes.
Whats an example for an onomatopoeia?
Clatter, bash, bang, rumble
What are figures on the level of individual sounds?
- alliteration
- assonance
- consonance
- onomatopoeia
What are figures on word-level? (11)
- anadiplosis/reduplicatio
- anaphora
- climax/gradatio
- epistrophe
- epizeuxis/geminatio
- homonym
- polyptoton/metabole
- portmanteau words
- symploce
- synonym
- tautology
Whats a anadiplosis/reduplicatio?
The word or phrase that concludes one line or clause is repeated at the beginning of the next
Whats an example of a anadiplosis/reduplicatio?
Furniture requires dusting, dusters require servants, servants require insurance stamps.
Whats an anaphora?
A word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses or lines.
Whats a climax/gradatio?
Arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of ascending power
Whats an epistrophe?
A word or expression is repeated at the end of successive phrases, clauses or lines
Whats an example for an epistrophe?
We meet tonight and part tonight.
Whats a epizeuxis/geminatio?
The repetition of the same words immediately next to each other
Whats an example for an epizeuxis/geminatio?
Peace, peace seems all
Whats a homonym?
Words with the same pronunciation and/or spelling but with different meanings
Whats an example for a homonym?
Their-there
Whats a polyptoton/metabole?
One word is repeated in different grammatical or syntactical forms.
What does syntactical mean?
Inflected
Whats a figure etymologica?
A special case of polyptoton, it repeats two or more words of the same stem.
„love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove.“
Figure etymologica
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Polyptoton/metabole
What are portmanteau words?
Blend (f.e. Brunch)
Whats a symploce?
A combination of Anaphora and epistrophe, so that one word or phrase is repeated at the beginning and another word or phrase is repeated at the end of successive phrases, clauses or sentences.
„Much is your reading, but nor the Word of GOD Much is your building, but not the House of GOD.“
Symploce
Alter - change
Brief - short
Synonym
Whats a tautology?
One idea is repeatedly expressed through additional words, phrases or sentences
Whats an example for tautology?
Cheerful joy
What are figures on sentence-level? (12)
- aposiopesis
- asyndeton
- chiasmus
- ellipsis
- hyperbaton
- hypotaxis
- inversion
- parallelism
- Parataxis
- polysyndeton
- redditio/kyklos/framing
- zeugma
Firefrorefiddle, the fiend of the fell
Alliteration
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Assonance
Friend/frowned
Consonance
Aspens quiver, little breezes dusk and shiver
Onomatopoeia
A wreathed garland of deserved praise, Of praise deserved, unto thee I give, I give to thee, who knowest all my ways, My crooked winding ways, wherin I live. (Herbert, A Wreath)
Anadiplosis/reduplicatio
Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn.
Anaphora
Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night)
Climax
We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another. (Nixon, Inaugural Address)
Epistrophe
Peace, peace seems all
Epizeuxis/geminatio
Ball (toy) - ball (dance)
Homonym
Brunch
Portmanteau words
Much is your reading, but not the Word of GOD
Much is your building, but not the House of GOD. (T.S. Eliot, The Rock)
Symploce
I hate inconstancy - I loathe, detest, / Abhor, condemn, abjure the mortal made / Of such quicksilvery clay […] (Byron, Don Juan)
Synonym
With malice toward none, with charity for all. (Lincoln, Second Inaugural)
Tautology
Whats an aposiopesis?
The speaker fails to complete this sentence, (seemingly) overpowered by his emotions
Sir Leicester’s gallantry concedes the point; though he still feels that to bring this sort of squalor among the upper classes is really – really – (Dickens, Bleak House)
Aposiopesis
Whats an asyndeton?
The omission of conjunctions to coordinate phrases,clauses or words where normally conjunctions would be used
Whats an example for an asyndeton?
I may, I must, I can, I will, I do Leave following that which it is gain to miss (Sidney, Astrophil and Stella)
What can the sheepdog make of such simplified terrain? no hills, dales, bogs, walls, tracks (C. Day Lewis, Sheepdog Trials in Hyde Park)
Asyndeton
Whats a chiasmus?
Two corresponding pairs are arranged in inverted, mirror-like order (a-b, b-a)
Whats an example for a chiasmus?
Fair is foul and foul is fair. (Shakespeare, Macbeth)
At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely. (W Somerset Maugham)
Chiasmus
Whats an ellipsis?
A word or phrase in a sentence is omitted though implied by the context
A mighty maze! but not without a plan. (Pope, Essay on Man)
Ellipsis
Whats a hyperbaton?
Phrases or words that belong together are separated.
I got, so far as the immediate moment was concerned, away. (James, Turn of the Screw)
Were I, who to my cost already am, One of those strange, prodigious creatures, Man.
(Rochester, Satire Against Mankind)
Hyperbaton
Whats a hypotaxis?
Clauses and sentences are arranged with subordination, usually longer sentence constructions
The house had a name and a history; the old gentleman taking his tea would have been delighted to tell you these things: how it had been built under Edward the Sixth, had offered a night’s hospitality to the great Elizabeth (whose august person had extended itself upon a huge, magnificent and terribly angular bed which still formed the principal honour of the sleeping apartments), had been a good deal bruised and defaced in Cromwell’s wars, and then, under the Restoration, repaired and much enlarged; and how, …
Hypotaxis
Whats an inversion?
The usual word order is rearranged, often for the effect of emphasis or to maintain the metre
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed (Shakespeare, Sonnet 18) (instead of: ‘Sometime the eye of heaven shines too hot and his gold complexion is often dimmed’)
Inversion
Whats a parallelism?
The repetition of identical or similar syntactic elements
Whats an example for parallelism?
Though the heart be still as loving
And the moon be still as bright
Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals. (Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray)
Parallelism
Whats a Parataxis?
Clauses or sentences are arranged in a series without subordination, usually shorter sentence constructions
My hot water bottle was red, Manchester United’s colour. Sinbad’s was green. I loved the smell of the bottle. I put hot water in it and emptied it and smelled it. I put my nose to the hole, nearly in it. (Doyle, Paddy Clarke)
Parataxis
Whats a polysyndeton?
The unusual repetition of the same conjunction
It is a land with neither night nor day, / Nor heat nor cold, nor any wind, nor rain, / Nor hills nor valleys. (Ch. Rossetti, Cobwebs)
Polysyndeton
Whats a redditio/kyklos/framing?
A syntactic unit or verse line is framed by the same element at the beginning and at the end
Whats an example for redditio?
Vanity, Saite the preacher, vanity!
Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure; / Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure. (Shakespeare, Measure for Measure)
Redditio/kyklos/framing
Whats a zeugma?
One verb controls two or more objects that have different syntactic and semantic relations to it
Whats an example for a zeugma?
Harriet had broken all her old ties and half the commandments […] (Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night)
Or stain her honour or her new brocade, / Forget her prayers or miss a masquerade, / Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball (Pope, Rape of the Lock)
Zeugma
What are all tropes (semantic or pragmatic level)? (17)
- antithesis
- apostrophe
- euphemism
- hyperbole
- irony
- metaphor
- metonymy
- oxymoron
- paradox
- paronomasia/pun
- pejorative
- periphrasis
- personification/prosopoeia
- simile
- synaesthesia
- synecdoche
- ## understatement (meiosis)
Whats an antithesis?
Opposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a parallel construction
Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed. (Samuel Johnson)
Antithesis
Whats an example for an antithesis?
Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar)
Whats an apostrophe?
Addressing an absent person, a god or a personified abstraction
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him. (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar)
Apostrophe
Whats an euphemism?
Substitution of an agreeable or at least non- offensive expression for one whose plainer might be harsh or unpleasant
[…] one particular lady, whose lord is more than suspected of laying his umbrella on her
as an instrument of correction, […] (Dickens, Bleak House)
Euphemism
Whats a hyperbole?
Obvious exaggeration for emphasis or for rhetorical effect
[…] he couldn’t, however sanguine his disposition, hope to offer a remark that would be a greater outrage on human nature in general […] (Mrs Chick’s response to her husband’s suggestion that the starving baby should be fed with the teapot since there was no nurse. Dickens, Dombey and Son)
Hyperbole
Whats irony?
Expression of something which is contrary to the intended meaning; the words say one thing but mean another
In addition […] you are liable to get tide-trapped away in the swamps, […] Of course if you really want a truly safe investment in Fame, and really care about Posterity, and Posterity’s Science, you will jump over into the black batter-like, stinking slime cheered by the thought of the terrific sensation you will produce in 20,000 years hence, and the care you will be taken of then by your fellow-creatures, in a museum. (Mary Kingsley, Travels in West Africa)
Irony
Whats a metaphor?
a figure of similarity, a word or phrase is replaced by an expression denoting an analogous circumstance in a different semantic field. The comparison adds a new dimension of meaning to the original expression. Unlike in simile, the comparison is not made explicit (‘like’ or ‘as’ are not used.
Whats an example for a metaphor?
That fence about my soul
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together. (Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well)
Metaphor
Whats a metonymy?
A figure of contiguity, one word is substituted for another on the basis of some material, causal or conceptual relation
My Head and Heart thus flowing thro’ my Quill (Pope, Imitations of Horace) (i.e. the thoughts produced in my head and the feelings of my heart are expressed in the things I write with my quill)
Metonymy
Whats an oxymoron?
a self-contradictory combination of words or smaller verbal units; usually noun-noun, adjective-adjective, adjective-noun, adverb-adverb, or adverb-verb – a paradoxical utterance that conjoins two terms that in ordinary usage are contraries
Whats an example for oxymoron?
Bittersweet, loving hate
I will complain, yet praise; I will bewail, approve; And all my sour-sweet days I will lament
and love. (George Herbert, Bitter-Sweet)
Oxymoron
Whats a paradox?
A daring statement which unites seemingly contradictory words buch which on closer examination proves to have unexpected meaning and truth
Whats an example for a paradox?
Snail-paced in a hurry
Dark with excessive bright
Paradox
Whats a paranomasia/pun?
Wordplay, using words that are written or pronounced similarly or identically, but have different meanings
Whats an example for a pun?
He Who lied in the chapel
Now lies in the Abbey.
Holland […] lies so low they’re only saved by being dammed. (Thomas Hood, Up the
Rhine)
• Some folk are wise, and some are otherwise. (Smollett, Roderick Random)
• I always say beauty is only sin deep. (Saki, Reginald’s Choir Treat)
• His death, which happen’d in his berth / At forty-odd befell: They went and told the
sexton, and The sexton toll’d the bell. (Thomas Hood, Faithless Sally Brown)
Pun
Whats a pejorative?
The use of words with disparaging connotations
the nurse, a simpering piece of faded gentility (Dickens, Dombey and Son)
Pejorative
Whats a periphrasis?
A descriptive word or phrase is used instead of a proper name
Whats an example for a periphrasis
Fleecy people (for sheep)
Finny race (for fish)
On one occasion […] a mighty Silurian […] chose to get his front paws over the stern of my
canoe, and endeavoured to improve our acquaintance. I had to retire to the bows, to keep the balance right, and fetch him a clip on the snout with a paddle, when he withdrew […] I should think that crocodile was eight feet long. (Mary Kingsley, Travels to West Africa)
Periphrasis
Whats a personification/prosopoeia?
Animals, ideas, abstractions or inanimate objects are endowed with human characteristics
And moody Madness laughing wild / Amid severest woe (Gray, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College)
Personification
Whats a simile?
2 things are openly compared with each other, introduced by like or as
Whats an example for a simile?
My heart is like a singing bird
Whats a synaesthesia?
The description of one kind of sensation in terms of another (description of sound in terms of colour: blue note; description of colour in terms of sound: loud shirt; etc.)
The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath / Not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue / To conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. (Shakespeare, Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Synaesthesia
Whats a synecdoche?
A figure of contiguity (form of metonymy), the use of a part for the whole, or the whole for the part)
I went into a public-‘ouse to get a pint o’beer / The publican ‘e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.” (Kipling, Tommy) (instead of ‘a soldier’, who wears a red coat)
Synecdoche
Whats an understatement (meiosis)?
an idea is deliberately expressed as less important than it actually is; a special case of understatement is litotes, which denies the opposite of the thing that is being affirmed (sometimes used synonymously with meiosis)
Whats an example for an understatement?
This is not unexciting.
Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it altered her appearance for the worse. (Swift, Tale of a Tub)
Understatement
