Exciting Writing Teaching Resources: Rhetorical Devices

This topic sheet was originally devised for the Verse Technique and Poetry course. There is a table of links to other teaching resources towards the bottom of this page.

RHETORIC AND POETRY

The techniques that underpin rhetoric and poetry have much in common.

By definition, both rhetoric and poetry are concerned with the production of eloquent speech, though their ultimate aims are arguably different. Whereas poets are usually content to stimulate their readers' imaginations and emotions, the fundamental aim of the rhetor is persuasion.

Given this commonality of interest, it is scarcely surprising that rhetors use many of the same devices as poets, including some already discussed in this course, such as assonance, alliteration, rhyme and onomatopeia. This topic sheet lists a further selection of rhetorical devices that may be of interest to course participants.

In the interests of brevity, only a subset of rhetorical devices is listed here. Devices have been selected to illustrate the main ways in which rhetoric works upon listeners' minds. In particular:

Patterns of sound and meaning are used to increase attentiveness and assist memory.
Listeners' interpretative processes are stimulated by the use of word plays, contradictions and substitutions.
The imagination is invoked when key words are omitted, leaving gaps to be filled by listeners themselves.

SOUND PATTERNS

anadiplosis
Repetition of the last word or phrase of one line or clause to begin the next.
"He speaks French as well. As well as your average parrot."
anaphora
Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.
"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..."
commoratio
Repetition of a point several times in different words.
"This parrot is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker."
epiphora
Repetition of a word or phrase at the end of several clauses.
"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as child."
isocolon
A succession of phrases of approximately equal length and corresponding structure.
"The bigger they come, the harder they fall."
tricolon
Series of three members.
"A happy life is one spent in learning, earning, and yearning."

PATTERNS OF IDEAS

accumulation
The gathering together of disparate points into a thematic list.
"I love biscuits. You hate them. I believe in God. You believe in nothing. I think for myself. You don’t think at all."
auxesis
A gradual increase in intensity of meaning, achieved by arranging words in ascending order of importance.
"Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power."
chiasmus
A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed.
"Fair is foul, and foul is fair."
climax
Mounting by degrees through words or sentences of increasing weight and in parallel construction.
"I came, I saw, I conquered."

Sound Patterns | Patterns of Ideas | Opposites and Contradictions
Plays upon Meaning | Inclusion by Omission | Changing Word Order | Substitution
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OPPOSITES AND CONTRADICTIONS

antiphrasis
Use of a word in a sense opposite to its conventional meaning.
"How absolutely ravishing you look in orange and pink polyester!"
apophasis
The mention of something in disclaiming intention of mentioning it.
"Far be it from me to question the motives of the noble lord.'"
irony
Use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning.
"O heavens! died two months ago and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year."
litotes
The expression of an affirmative by the negation of its opposite.
"The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace."
oxymoron
The conjunction of two contradictory terms.
Happy-sad, sweet ‘n’ sour.
paradox
A statement that appears to contradict itself.
"The first shall be last and the last shall be first."

PLAYS UPON MEANING

anticlimax
A decline from a noble tone to a less exalted one, often for comic effect.
"Beethoven’s dead, Goethe’s dead, and I’m not feeling too good myself."
hyperbole
An extravagant statement aimed at heightening effect.
"He’s been working here since God was a boy."
malapropism
The replacement of an appropriate word by one with similar sound but inappropriate meaning.
"He is the very pineapple of politeness."
metaphor
An implied comparison between two unlike things that have something important in common.
"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York."
polyptoton
Repetition of words derived from the same root but with different endings.
"Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired."
simile
A stated comparison between two fundamentally dissimilar things with some quality or qualities in common.
"The harpsichord sounds like two skeletons copulating on a corrugated tin roof."

INCLUSION BY OMISSION

aposiopesis
An unfinished thought or broken sentence.
"If you don't eat up that spinach, I'll..."
ellipsis
Omission of one or more words.
"If only pigs could fly!"
paralepsis
Emphasising a point by seeming to pass over it.
"Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it.
It is not meet you know how Caesar lov'd you."

CHANGING WORD ORDER

hyperbaton
Altering word order for emphasis.
"And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:"
hysteron proteron
Placing first a word that in terms of sense should come last.
"He was bred and born a gentleman."

SUBSTITUTION

antihimera
Substitution of one part of speech for another.
"I'll unhair thy head."
antonomasia
Substitution of a title, epithet, or descriptive phrase for a proper name (or of a personal name for a common name) to designate a member of a group or class.
Darby and Joan, The Iron Lady.
metonymy
Substitution of some attributive or suggestive word for what is meant.
"The face that launched a thousand ships."