Rhetorical Devices

Adapted from the Web Site

of
James Tomlinson
 Alliteration
• Repetition of the initial consonant sounds beginning several
words in sequence.

• "....we shall not falter, we shall not fail."

(President G.W. Bush Address to Congress following
9-11-01 Terrorist Attacks.)

• "Let us go forth to lead the land we love.“

(President J. F. Kennedy , Inaugural 1961)

• "Veni, vidi, vici.“

(Julius Caesar - “I came, I saw, I conquered”)
 Anadiplosis
• (“Doubling back") The rhetorical repetition of one or several
words; specifically, repetition of a word that ends one clause
at the beginning of the next.

• "Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the

sovereign or state; servants of fame; and servants of
business.“
(Francis Bacon)
 Anaphora
• The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of
successive phrases, clauses or lines.

• "We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We

shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and
oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and
growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island,
whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in
the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We
shall never surrender."
(British Prime Minister Winston Churchill)
 Antistrophe
• Repetition of the same word or phrase at the end of
successive clauses.
• "In 1931, ten years ago, Japan invaded Manchukuo --
without warning. In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia -- without
warning. In 1938, Hitler occupied Austria -- without
warning. In 1939, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia --
without warning. Later in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland --
without warning. And now Japan has attacked Malaya
and Thailand -- and the United States --without warning."
(President Franklin D. Roosevelt )
 Antithesis
• Opposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced
or parallel construction.

• "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice,

moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
(Barry Goldwater - Republican Candidate for
President 1964)

• "Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome

more".
(Brutus in: " Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare)
 Apostrophe
• A turn from the general audience to address a specific
group or person or personified abstraction absent or
present.

• "For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel.

Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him".
(Mark Antony in Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare )
 Assonance

• Repetition of the same vowel sounds in words close to each

other.

• "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.“

(The Lord's Prayer)

• “Its quick soft silver bell beating, beating…”

(Karl Shapiro, “Auto Wreck”)
 Asyndeton
• Lack of conjunctions between coordinate phrases, clauses,
or words.

• "We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any
hardships, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure
the survival and the success of liberty."
(J. F. Kennedy , Inaugural)

• "But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot

consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.“
(President Abraham Lincoln , Gettysburg Address)
 Cacophony
• Harsh joining of sounds

• "We want no parlay with you and your grisly gang who
work your wicked will."
(British Prime Minister Winston Churchill -referring to
Hitler.)

• “A toad the power mower caught,

Chewed and clipped of a leg, with a hobbling hop has
got”

("The Death of a Toad" by Richard Wilbur)

 Chiasmus
• Two corresponding pairs arranged not in parallels (A-B-A-B)
but in inverted order (A-B-B-A); from shape of the Greek
letter chi (X).

• "Those gallant men will remain often in my thoughts and

in my prayers always."
(General Douglas MacArthur )

• "Renown'd for conquest, and in council skill'd."

(Marcus Tullius Cicero )
 Climax
• Arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of
ascending power. Often the last emphatic word in one
phrase or clause is repeated as the first emphatic word of
the next.

• "One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
(Tennyson , " Ulysses")
 Eponym

• Eponym substitutes for a particular attribute the

name of a famous person recognized for that
attribute. By their nature eponyms often border
on the cliche, but many times they can be useful
without seeming too obviously trite.

• “Is he smart? Why, the man is a young Einstein.”

• “ I only managed to get a few bucks off of that

Scrooge.”
 Euphemism
• Euphemism: substitution of an agreeable or at least
non-offensive expression for one whose plainer meaning
might be harsh or unpleasant.

Examples: Euphemisms for " stupid"

A few fries short of a Happy Meal.
A few beers short of a six-pack.
One Fruit Loop shy of a full bowl.
All foam, no beer.
The cheese slid off his cracker.
 Hyperbole
• Exaggeration for emphasis or for rhetorical effect.

• "If you call me that name again, I'm going to explode!"

• “I nearly died laughing.”
 Hypophora

• – a figure of speech in which the writer poses a

question and answers it (often in the negative).

• Ex. Do I get annoyed when people ask themselves

their own questions and answer them (rendering
the interviewer irrelevant)? Yes, I do. Should we
allow this virus in the paper? No we shouldn’t.
 (Verbal) Irony
• Expression of something which is contrary to the intended
meaning; the words say one thing but mean another.

• “Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man. “
(Shakespeare's Mark Antony in Julius Caesar)
 Litotes

• A figure of speech consisting of an

understatement in which an affirmative is
expressed by negating its opposite (often using
double negative)
• Ex.: This is no small problem.
• It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind,
Or not untrue and not unkind. –Phillip Larkin
 Metaphor
• Implied comparison achieved through a figurative use of
words; the word is used not in its literal sense, but in one
analogous to it.

• *Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage. "
(Shakespeare , Macbeth )

•
• “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an
iron curtain has descended across the continent.”
(W. Churchill )
 Metonymy

The substitution of the name of an attribute or

adjunct for that of the thing meant. Metonymy is
often interpreted so widely that synecdoche can
be regarded as a special case of it. Examples:

• “The White House released a statement today.”

• “The crown has made it clear the climate must

be perfect all the year.”
 Oxymoron
• Apparent paradox achieved by the juxtaposition of words
which seem to contradict one another.

• “I must be cruel only to be kind.“

(Shakespeare , Hamlet)

• "Hurts so good…“
(John Cougar Melancamp)

• “Jumbo Shrimp”
 Paradox
• An assertion seemingly opposed to common sense, but that
may yet have some truth in it.

• “What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young."

(George Bernard Shaw )
 Paralepsis

• Emphasizing a point by seeming to pass over it.

Example:

The music, the service at the feast,

The noble gifts for the great and small,
The rich adornment of Theseus’s palace---
All these things I do not mention now
--Chaucer

The rhetoric test will be long, not to mention difficult.

 Personification

• Attribution of personality to an impersonal thing.

• “England expects every man to do his duty."

(Lord Nelson )

• The rose stood up and protested the night.

• "Rise up and defend the Motherland"

(Line from "Enemy at the Gates“)
 Polysyndeton

• Rhetorical employment of many conjunctions,

often slowing the tempo or rhythm.

Ex: "Let the whitefolks have their money and power

and segregation and sarcasm and big houses and
schools and lawns like carpets, and books, and
mostly--mostly--let them have their whiteness."
(Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,
1969)
 Simile
• An explicit comparison between two things using 'like' or 'as'.

• “My love is as a fever, longing still

For that which longer nurseth the disease"
(Shakespeare , Sonnet CXLVII)

•
• “Reason is to faith as the eye to the telescope"
(D. Hume)
•
• “Let us go then, you and I,
While the evening is spread out against the sky,
Like a patient etherized upon a table"
(T.S. Eliot , “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”)
 Syllepsis
• Use of a word with two others, with each of which it is
understood differently.

• “We must all hang together or assuredly we will all hang

separately.”
(Benjamin Franklin )
 Synecdoche

• Synecdoche is a type of metonymy in which the

part stands for the whole or the whole for a
part---any portion, section, or main quality for
the whole or the thing itself (or vice versa).

• “If I had some wheels, I'd put on my best

threads and ask for Jane's hand in marriage.”
 Tautology
• Repetition of an idea in a different word, phrase, or
sentence.

• "With malice toward none, with charity for all."

(President Abraham Lincoln , Second Inaugural)
 Work Cited
Tomlinson, James. Rhetorical Devices.
http://facstaff.bloomu.edu/jtomlins/rhetorical_devices.htm
#top. 6/29/2006