Kinds of verse

Feet: Iamb — te-TUM Trochee — TUMty Anapaest — te-te-TUM Dactly — TUM-te-ty

Meter: Pentameter — five in a row Tetrameter — four in a row Trimeter — three in a row

These are a select few figures of rhetoric, as outlined in The Elements of Eloquence. Every figure is named, described and an example is given.

Alliteration Using two words that start with the same letter

A hungry hippo takes a blissful bath

Polyptoton The repeated use of one word as different parts of speech, or in different grammatical form

Nothing you can do that can’t be done Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung

Antithesis X is Y, and not X is not Y. First you mention one thing: then you mention another

Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear

Merism When instead of mentioning one thing, all its parts are named.

Ladies and gentlemen, is a merism for people

Blazon A merism taken too far, where the thing being described is a human

Her yellow locks exceed the beaten gold Her sparkling eyes in heav’n a place deserve

Synaesthesia One sense is described in terms of another

She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight

Aposiopesis The use of the …

Aposiopesis is when …

Hyperbaton When words are put in the wrong order, which is very hard to do in English

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown

Anadiplosis The repetition of the last word of one clause as the first word of the next

The love of wicked men converts to fear; That fear to hate, and hate turns to one or both To worthy danger and deserved death

Periodic Sentence A large sentence that is not complete until the end

The entirety of Rudyard Kipling’s If

Parataxis and Hypotaxis Parataxis is short sentences. Hypotaxis is sentences that are intricate games, filled with fine flourishes and curious convolutions. Hypotaxis makes things sound wise and thought through.

Diacope A word or phrase is repeated after a brief interruption

Bond. James Bond

Rhetorical Questions There are many definitions for a rhetorical questions. But it’s just a question in the flow of prose. Shall I give an example?

There you go

Hendiadys Take an adjective and a noun, and change the adjective into another noun.

I’m going to the noise and the city (I’m going to the noise city)

Epistrophe When every sentence is ended with the same word

Government of the people, by the people, for the people

Tricolon Establish a pattern and break it

I came; I saw; I conquered

Epizeuxis Repeating a word immediately in exactly the same sense

Simple. Simple. Simple

Syllepsis One word used in two or more incongruous way

Took a highball, his hat, his coat, his departure, no notice of his friends, a taxi, a pistol from his pocket and finally his life

Isocolon Two clauses that are grammatically parallel, two sentences that are structurally the same

Roses are red. Violets are blue.

Enallage Enallage is a deliberate grammatical mistake

Let us go then, you and I,

Zeugma A series where clauses could all have the same verb, but only one is used

For contemplation he and valour formed For softness she and sweet attractive grace He for God only, she for God in him

Paradox Simple thoughts expressed in a surprising way

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

Chiasmus The words of the first half are mirrored in the second

Tea for two and two for tea Me for you and you for me

Assonance Repeating a vowel sound

deep heat or blue moon

Fourteenth Rule Using numbers to signal significance

Four times fifty living men

Catachresis When a sentence is so startingly wrong that it’s right

Speak daggers to her

Litotes Affirming something by denying its opposite

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note (infer silence)

Metonymy and Synecdoche Metanym is when two things are connected because they are really physically connected

Downing Street was left red-faced last night

Transferred Epithets When an adjective is applied to the wrong noun

The nervous man smoked a cigarette The man smoked a nervous cigarette

Pleonasm The use of unneeded words that are unnecessary in a sentence

Gathered together

Epanalepsis Starting and ending with the same phrase

The king is gone; long live the king

Personification Giving human qualities to non-human things

Personification is a strange woman, she takes over the whole story

Hyperbole The technical term for exaggeration

Yegor has all the potatoes in the world, except maybe a few left over for general circulation

Adynaton Something that is impossible

Pigs will fly

Prolepsis Using a pronoun before saying what it refers to

It’s perfectly natural, prolepsis

Congeries A list of things

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance…

Scesis Onomaton Used for setting scenes, no verb.

Space: the final frontier.

Anaphora Starting each sentence with the same words

We shall fight in France We shall fight on the seas and oceans

Other Related Meanderings: