Gulliver's Travels; Tennyson's Idylls of the King; and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress-the greatest of all. Allegory seeks to tell in concrete form an independent interesting story in order to convey instruction (religious, moral, etc.) or reproof or satire. ANTONOMASIA. One variety of this occurs when the name of a person well known for some characteristic is taken as the class name for those possessing the characteristic. A wise man, for example, is called a Solomon, a rich man a Croesus. It is a useful and striking figure, if the reader is familiar with the name. Other proper names besides personal names are employed. "Once leave this house, and a Rubicon is placed between thee and all possibility of return." Rubicon denotes the decisive step indicating that a certain choice has been made. The Rubicon was the southern boundary of Caesar's province: when he crossed it, he virtually declared war on the Republic. Another form of Antonomasia is to put the abstract name for the concrete, and so emphasize the important characteristic. "Had not God, for some strong purpose, steeled The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted, Barbarism itself means the very savages. A third variety occurs when instead of the abstract the vivid concrete word is used. Addison says (The Spectator, No. 12), "We ought to arm ourselves against them by the dictates of reason and religion, to pull the old woman out of our hearts." Old woman means silly superstition. SYNECDOCHE. This figure includes the following: (1) Naming the part for the whole; as "It chanced a gliding sail she spied," i.e. a passing ship. (2) The whole for the part; as "Thine the full harvest of the golden year," i.e. autumn. (3) Species for genus; as "The hungry were crying for bread," i.e. food. (4) Genus for species; as "Marlborough was the greatest soldier of his age," i.e. general. (5) Material for thing made of it; as "No product here the barren hills afford But man and steel, the soldier and his sword." (6) That aspect of a person which is conspicuous at some particular time for the person. Milton, for example, in Paradise Lost varies Satan's designation to suit the circumstances. Starting on his hostile journey to the Earth, Satan is "the Adversary of God and Man"; during the temptation he is "the Tempter"; as "So glozed the Tempter and his proem tuned," and "To whom the guileful Tempter thus replied." In using synecdoche, the word must be appropriate and striking: sail is used for ship, because that is the object which strikes the eye when a ship is under sail. Special care must be taken in using type (6). METONYMY. To secure picturesqueness, animation or dignity, an object is sometimes named by some prominent accompaniment. Varieties of accompaniment used in metonymy are: (1) Sign, symbol, or other striking adjunct; as crown to indicate royalty; bench, judges; redcoat, soldier; etc. (2) Instrument for agent; as breath for king, i.e. the user of the breath, in the following: "Princes and lords may flourish or may fade; A breath can make them as a breath has made." (3) Effect for cause; as death frequently for cause of death : "And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot." (4) Cause for effect; as in the following, where sorrow's means tears: "Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall, To see the hoard of human bliss so small." (5) The container for the contained; as "The whole neighbourhood came out to meet their minister, dressed in their finest clothes." (6) Author for works; as "We are reading Shakespeare." (7) Heathen gods and goddesses for what they presided over; as Neptune for ocean; Ceres for bread; etc. This variety of the figure which is sometimes put under antonomasia-had better be avoided. ANTITHESIS. Anything that comes to us through the senses, is impressed more forcibly when contrasted with its opposite. A dark night makes a flash of lightning more vivid. This explains the power of verbal antithesis; as 66 Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue"; and "Have we not seen round Britain's peopled shore Antithesis should be sparingly employed. To produce an emphatic contrast, one must often overstate the truth; and frequent antitheses lead to jerkiness of style. The same is true of the three following figures. EPIGRAM. In epigram there is a verbal contradiction which arrests attention; but examination of the apparent contradiction discloses some important truth. Note the arrestive force of Macaulay's remark on the execution of Charles I. : 66 One thing, and one thing only, could make Charles dangerous— a violent death." When Wordsworth wishes to state vividly that the child's character shows what the future man's will be, he says, "The child is father of the man." OXYMORON. Here we have a sharp contrast between an adjective and its noun, or between an adverb and the adjective it modifies; as "Her mother, too, upon this occasion felt a pleasing distress." "Thus idly busy rolls their world away." CONDENSED SENTENCE. This sometimes termed Zeugma— occurs when a construction is so shortened as to produce incongruity. 66 Wrapped in my great coat and my silence, I journeyed on." Here the literal and the metaphorical use of wrapped come into sharp contrast. Goldsmith speaks of "a gentleman in London, who had just stepped into taste and a large fortune." PARONOMASIA. Playing upon words, or punning, is now a purely comic device, and consists in using a word so that two incongruous meanings are suggested, or in bringing together the same or similar sounds with different meanings; as when Hood says, "Ben Battle was a soldier bold, And used to war's alarms; But a cannon-ball took off his legs, or when Lamb mentions "Solemn Hepworth, from whose gravity Newton might have deduced the law of gravitation." Old writers, however, employed it also for serious purposes. See, for example, Shakespeare, Richard II., II. i. 72 sqq., when John of Gaunt lies dying. "K. Richard. What comfort, man? how is't with aged Gaunt? Gaunt. O, how that name befits my composition! Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old." HYPERBOLE. When we are under the influence of some strong feeling, as love or hate or fear, we exaggerate the cause of the feeling. This leads to the use of the figure of hyperbole. In Shakespeare's Macbeth, Macduff expresses his intense feeling by saying "Not in the legions Of horrid hell can come a devil more damned In evils to top Macbeth." Numbers are often used in hyperbole ; as "Yet here, even here, you see a man that would not for a thousand worlds exchange situations." In employing hyperbole, a writer must be sure that the feeling is intense enough to demand it, and that the language is suitable. Otherwise, bombast will result. PERSONIFICATION. When inanimate objects are spoken of as possessing life and personality, we are said to personify; as "The genial call dead Nature hears, And in her glory re-appears." Abstractions are frequently personified, especially in poetry: That loves the tale she shrinks to hear." Unless there is very intense emotion to be expressed, the personifying of abstractions will be frigid and will leave the reader unmoved. When the personification of Nature goes so far as to make her show interest in human action, either by sympathy or by antipathy, we have what has been termed "pathetic fallacy." "Call it not vain :-they do not err, Who say that, when the Poet dies, Who say, tall cliff and cavern lone APOSTROPHE. There are two varieties of apostrophe. The first is when a personified object is addressed; as "Stay yet, Illusion, stay a while, |