Composition-Rhetoric Part 78

2. For very young he seemed, tenderly reared; Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight.

--Matthew Arnold.

3. In the primrose-tinted sky The wan little moon Hangs like a jewel dainty and rare.

--Francis C. Rankin.

+89. Metaphor.+--A metaphor differs from a simile in that the comparison is implied rather than expressed. They are essentially the same as far as the comparison is concerned, and usually the one kind may be easily changed to the other. In a simile we say that one object _is like_ another, in a metaphor we say that one object _is_ another.

EXERCISES

Select the metaphors in the following and change them to similes:--

1. In arms the Austrian phalanx stood, A living wall, a human wood.

--James Montgomery.

2. The familiar lines Are footpaths for the thoughts of Italy.

--Longfellow.

3. Life is a leaf of paper white, Whereon each one of us may write His word or two, and then comes night.

--Lowell.

+90. Personification.+--Personification is a special form of the metaphor in which life is attributed to inanimate objects or the characteristics of persons are attributed to objects, animals, or even to abstract ideas.

EXERCISES

Explain why the following quotations are examples of personifications:--

1. The day is done; and slowly from the scene The stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts And puts them back into his golden quiver.

--Longfellow.

2. Time is a cunning workman and no man can detect his joints.

--Charles Pierce Burton.

3. The sun is couched, the seafowl gone to rest, And the wild storm hath somewhere found a nest.

--Wordsworth.

4. See the mountains kiss high heaven, And the waves clasp one another; No sister flower would be forgiven If it disdained its brother.

--Sh.e.l.ley.

+91. Apostrophe.+--Apostrophe is like personification, but has an additional characteristic. When we directly address inanimate objects or the absent as if they were present, we call the figure of speech thus formed apostrophe.

The following are examples of apostrophe:--

1. Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

--Tennyson.

2. Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight, Make me a child again just for to-night!

Mother, come back from the echoless sh.o.r.e, Take me again to your heart as of yore.

--Elizabeth Akers Allen.

+92. Metonymy.+--Metonymy consists in subst.i.tuting one object for another, the two being so closely a.s.sociated that the mention of one suggests the other.

1. The pupils are reading George Eliot.

2. Each hamlet heard the call.

3. Strike for your altars and your fires.

4. Gray hairs should be respected.

+93. Synecdoche.+--Synecdoche consists in subst.i.tuting a part of anything for the whole or a whole for the part.

1. A babe, two summers old.

2. Give us this day our daily bread.

3. Ring out the thousand years of woe, Ring in the thousand years of peace.

4. Fifty mast are on the ocean.

+94. Other Figures of Speech.+--Sometimes, especially in older rhetorics, the following so-called figures of speech are added to the list already given: irony, hyperbole, ant.i.thesis, climax, and interrogation. The two former pertain rather to style, in fact, are qualities of style, while the last two might properly be placed along with kinds of sentences or paragraph development. Since these so-called figures are not all mentioned elsewhere in this text, a brief explanation and example of each will be given here.

1. _Irony_ consists in saying just the opposite of the intended meaning, but in such a way that it emphasizes that meaning.

What has the gray-haired prisoner done?