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Rhetorical Devices
Style is part of classical rhetoric and a number of rhetorical devices are worth
considering in any analysis of style. For the analysis of literature a knowledge of
rhetorical devices is indispensable, since there is often a considerable density of
rhetorical figures and tropes which are important generators and qualifiers of
meaning and effect. This is particularly the case in poetry. Especially the
analysis of the use of imagery is important for any kind of literary text. (For
further details see Analysing a Metaphor and Symbol).
Figures of speech in classical rhetoric were defined as “a form of speech artfully
varied from common usage” (Quintilian, Inst. Orat. IX.i.2). The forms of
figurative languages are divided into two main groups: schemes (or figures)
and tropes.
Rhetorical schemes describe the arrangement of individual sounds
(phonological schemes), the arrangement of words (morphological schemes),
and sentence structure (syntactical schemes). Rhetorical tropes are devices of
figurative language. They represent a deviation from the common or main
significance of a word or phrase (semantic figures) or include specific appeals to
the audience (pragmatic figures).
The following definitions are mainly based on:
Abrams 1988, Corbett 1971, Holman/Harmon 1992, Preminger 1993, Jahn 2002
Link, Scaif 2002 Link.
Schemes: Phoneme-level (level of individual sounds)
alliteration the same sound is repeated at the beginning of several words or
in stressed syllables of words that are in close proximity
•Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell (T.S. Eliot, Book of
Practical Cats)
•Moping melancholy mad (Housman, Terence, This Is
Stupid Stuff)
•Dombey and Son had often dealt in hides but not in
hearts. They left that fancy war to boys and girls, and
boarding-schools and books. (Dickens, Dombey and
Son)
assonance the same or similar vowel sounds are repeated in the stressed
syllables of words that are in close proximity while the
consonants differ
•Breathing like one that hath a weary dream (Tennyson,
The Lotos-Eaters)
•Gun, drum, trumpet, blunderbuss and thunder (Pope,
Imitations of Horace)
consonance two or more consonants are repeated, but the adjacent vowels
differ
