文档介绍：Chapter 5: Aesthetic Rhetoric: Figure of Speech: Simile, metaphor, metonymy,Synecdoche: 4
What are figures of speech?
The main functions of Figures of speech:
Simile and metaphor:
metonymy,Synecdoche.
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Chapter Three: Aesthetic Rhetoric: Figure of Speech: Simile, metaphor,
What are figures of speech?
Aristotle in his Poetics, said: Tropes are the application of the name of a thing to something else.
Figures of speech are rhetorical devices of deviations from the ordinary or literal way of expression with a view to producing greater impressiveness and is the art of using language effectively.
So figures of speech is based on association between things of different category.
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Compare:
Figurative:
1. Each purple peak, each flinty spire
Was bathed in floods of living fire.
2. Life is a walking shadow. (Or: Life is a brief candle)
B: Literal
The evening sun shone the tops of high mountains and rocks.
Life is short and meaningless.
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The main functions of Figures of speech:
Figures of speech excite the imagination and afford us imaginative pleasure. Just as in Example A1”floods of living fire” makes our imagination take flight to a zenith, forming a contrast to the “evening sun”, which only gives us prosaic information without stirring up even a ripple in our imagination.
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Figures of speech are a way of briefing additional imagery into speech to concretize the abstract, of making poetry more sensuous. Such concrete things as floods, fire, candle, shadow will bring forth vivid pictures in our mind and enable us to enjoy great sensuous pleasure.
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Figures of speech are a way of adding emotional intensity to otherwise merely informative statements and they are a way of conveying attitudes along with information.” walking shadow”,” brief candle” in Example A 2 are emotion-charged expressions, making us feel intensely the emptiness and transience of life.
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Figures of speech are a means of concentration, of speaking volumes in a few words. Macbeth