Tropes Flashcards
Metomymy/Synechdoche
The rhetorical figure whereby a part is substituted for a whole (‘a suit entered the room’), or, less usually, in which a whole is substituted for a part (as when a policeman is called ‘the law’ or a manager is called ‘the management’).
Epithet
an adjective or phrase expressing a quality or attribute regarded as characteristic of the person or thing mentioned.
eg, fiery Tybalt
Leitmotiv
a recurrent theme, associated with a particular person, idea, or situation. eg, death and Juliet’s bridegroom
Ribald
referring to sexual matters in an amusingly rude or irreverent way.
Allegory
A story or fable that has a clear secondary meaning beneath its literal sense. Orwell’s Animal Farm, for example, is assumed to have an allegorical sense.
Apostrophe
In rhetoric the word is used to describe a sudden address to a person or personification.
Assonance
The word is usually used to describe the repetition of vowel sounds in nieghbouring syllables
Asyndeton
Absence of “and” from a list.
Caesura
A pause or breathing-place about the middle of a metrical line, generally indicated by a pause in the sense.
Ellipsis
the omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or able to be understood from contextual clues.
Irony
ya know, just don’t forget to use
Onomatopoeia
The use of words or sounds which appear to resemble the sounds which they describe.
Personification
the attribution to a non-animate thing of human attributes.
Polysyndeton
The use of multiple conjunctions, usually where they are not strictly necessary
Refrain
A repeated line, phrase or group of lines, which recurs at regular intervals through a poem or song, usually at the end of a stanza.
