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FIGURES OF SPEECH.
1. The mind naturally
tends, especially when in a state of excitement, to the use of what is called
figurative language. It is as if we called upon all things we see or have
seen to come forward and help us to express our overmastering emotions. In fact,
the external shows of nature are required to express the internal movements of
the mind; the external world provides a language for the internal or mental
world. Hence we find all language full of
figures of speech. Though we do
not notice them at the time, we can hardly open our mouths without using them.
As Butler says in his famous poem:—
“For Hudibras,—he could not ope
His mouth, but out there flew a trope.”
We speak of a town being
stormed; of a
clear head; a
hard heart;
wingëd
words;
glowing eloquence;
virgin snow; a
torrent of words; the
thirsty ground; the
angry sea. We speak of God’s Word being a
light
to our feet and a
lamp
to our path.
2. This kind of
language has been examined, classified, and arranged under heads; and the chief
figures of speech are called Simile, Metaphor, Personification, Allegory,
Synecdoché, Metonymy, and Hyperbolé.
3.
A
Simile is a
comparison that is limited to one point. “Jones fought like a lion.” Here the
single point of likeness between Jones and the lion is the bravery of the
fighting of each.
(Simile comes from the Latin similis, like.)
(i) “His
spear was like the mast of a ship.” “His salté terés striken down like rain,”
says Chaucer. “Apollo came like the night,” says Homer. “His words fell soft, like
snow upon the ground,” are the words used by Homer in speaking Ulysses. “It
stirs the heart like the sound of a trumpet” said Sir Philip Sidney in speaking
of the ballad of “Chevy Chase.” Tennyson admirably compares a miller covered
with flour to “a working-bee in blossom-dust.”
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4.
A
Metaphor is
a simile with the words like or
as left out. Instead of saying
“Roderick Dhu fought like a lion,” we use a metaphor, and say “He
was a
lion in the fight.”
(Metaphor is a Greek word meaning transference.)
(i) All language, as we have seen, is full of metaphors. Hence language
has been called “fossil poetry.” Thus, even in very ordinary prose, we may
say, “the wish is father to the thought;” “the news was a dagger to his heart;” or we
speak of the fire of passion; of a ray of hope; a flash of wit; a thought
striking us; and so on.
(ii) By frequent use, and by forgetfulness, many metaphors have lost
their figurative character. Thus we use the words provide (to see beforehand),
edify
(to build up), express (to squeeze out),
detect (to unroof), ruminate (to chew the cud), without the smallest feeling of their
metaphorical character.
(iii) We must never mix our metaphors. It will not do to say: “In a moment the
thunderbolt was on them,
deluging the country with invaders.” “I will
now embark upon the feature on which this
question mainly
hinges.”
(iv) Metaphors and similes may be mixed. Thus Longfellow:—
Metaphor,…{The day is done; and the darkness
{ Falls from the wings of night,
Simile,… { As a feather is wafted downward
{ From an eagle in his flight.
(v) A metaphor is a figure in which the objects compared are treated by
the mind as identical for the time being. A simile simply treats them as
resembling
one another; and the mind keeps the two carefully apart.
5. Personification
is that figure by which, under the influence of strong feeling, we attribute
life and mind to impersonal and inanimate things.
(i) Thus we speak, in poetic and impassioned language, of pale Fear;
gaunt
Famine; green-eyed Jealousy; and white-handed Hope. The morning is
said to laugh; the winds to
whisper; the oaks to
sigh; and
the brooks to prattle.
(ii) Milton, in the ‘Paradise Lost,’ ix. 780, thus describes the fall of
Eve:—
“So
saying, her rash hand in evil hour
Forth
reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate!
Earth felt the
wound; and Nature, from
her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of
woe
That all
was lost.”
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Shelley’s
‘Cloud’ is one long personification.
(iii) When the personified object is directly addressed, the figure is called
Apostrophé. Thus we have, “O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is
thy victory?”
6.
An
Allegory
is a continuous personification in the form of a story.
(i) The genus is personification; the differentia, a story; and the
species is an allegory.
(ii)
Milton’s “Death and Sin,” in the tenth book of the ‘Paradise Lost,’ is a short
allegory. Spenser’s ‘Faerie Queene’ and Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ are long
allegories.
(iii) A short allegory is called a Fable.
7. Synecdoché is that
figure of speech by which a part is put for the
whole. Thus we
say, in a more striking fashion,
bread instead of
food; a
cut-throat for a
murderer; fifty
sail for fifty
ships;
all hands at work.
(i) Lear, in the height of his mad rage against his daughters, shouts, “I
abjure all roofs!”
(ii) The name of the material—as
a part of the whole production—is sometimes used for the thing made: as
cold steel for the
sword; the marble
speaks; the canvas
glows.
8. Metonymy is that figure of speech by which a
thing is named, not with its own name, but by some
accompaniment. Thus we
say, the crown for the
king; the
sword for
physical
force.
(The word metonymy is a Greek word meaning change of names.)
We write the ermine for
the bench of judges; the mitre for the bishops; red tape
for
official routine; a long purse for a
great deal of money; the
bottle for habits of drunkenness.
9. Hyperbolé
or Exaggeration
is a figure by
which much more is said than is literally true. This is of course the result of
very strong emotion.
(i) Milton says:—
“So frowned the mighty
combatants, that hell
Grew darker at their frown.”
(ii) Scott, in ‘Kenilworth,’ has this passage: “The mind of England’s
Elizabeth was like one of those ancient Druidical monuments called
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rocking-stones. The finger of Cupid, boy as he is painted, could put her
feelings in motion; but the power
of Hercules could not have destroyed their equilibrium.”
10. The following is a
summery of the chief of the above statements:—
1. A Figure of Speech employs a vivid or striking image of something without
to express a feeling or idea within.
2. A Simile uses an external image with the word like.
3. A Metaphor uses the same image without the word
like.
4. A Personification is a metaphor taken from a person or living being.
5. An allegory is a continuous personification.
[1] A
trope—from Greek
trŏpos, a turning. A word that has been
turned from its ordinary and primary use. From the same root come
tropics and tropical.
