Figures Of Speech

Question 0

A statement that seems contradictory on the surface but often expresses a deeper truth. One example is the line “All men destroy the things they love” from Oscar Wilde’s “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.”

Answer 0

Paradox

Question 1

Broadly speaking, irony is a device that emphasizes the contrast between the way things are expected to be and the way they actually are. A historical example of irony might be the fact that people in medieval Europe believed bathing would harm them when in fact not bathing led to the unsanitary conditions that caused the bubonic plague

Answer 1

Irony

Question 2

The use of human characteristics to describe animals, things, or ideas. Carl Sandburg’s poem “Chicago” describes the city as “Stormy, husky, brawling / City of the Big Shoulders

Answer 2

Personification

Question 3

A reference within a literary work to a historical, literary, or biblical character, place, or event. For example, the title of William Faulkner’s novelThe Sound and the Furyalludes to a line from Shakespeare’sMacbeth

Answer 3

Allusion

Question 4

The use of words likepop, hiss,orboing,in which the spoken sound resembles the actual sound

Answer 4

Onomatopoeia

Question 5

A play on words that uses the similarity in sound between two words with distinctly different meanings. For example, the title of Oscar Wilde’s playThe Importance of Being Earnestis a pun on the wordearnest, which means serious or sober, and the name “Ernest

Answer 5

Pun