Apostrophe: Pure or personified

Apostrophe: Pure or personified

From English Composition and Rhetoric, by Alexander Bain;  English Composition by W. Davidson; Practical Rhetoric, by Albert Raub:

Apostrophe (Latin apo, from strophe, ‘a turning’) is a figure by which the speaker turns from the subject of discourse and addresses some other person or thing:

O Death, where is thy sting?
O Grave, where is thy victory?—I Corinthians 15:55

 

I. It supposes intensity of emotion.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee!
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. —Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1

There can be no apostrophe without intense feeling.

II. It may exist in either of two forms.

A. Pure apostrophe

O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!—II Samuel 18:33

B. Apostrophe combined with personification

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so
—John Donne, “Holy Sonnet X”

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Fable and Parable: Short allegories

Fables (apologues) and parables are short allegories.

Fable and parable: Short allegories

From English Composition and Rhetoric, by Alexander Bain, Aids to English Composition, by Richard Green Parker, and Elements of Rhetoric, by Henry Coppée:

I. Fable

A. Fables are written for the moral.

1. A fable, or apologue, differs from a tale, in that it is written expressly for the sake of the moral.

2. If there is no moral, there is no fable.

B. The characters in fable speak and act as monitors to mankind.

1. They are often personified inanimate objects or personified lower animals.

2. Fable attributes the actions and words of rational beings to what is inanimate and irrational.

3. The characters are purely fictitious—brutes and plants are made to think, and speak, and act like men.

4. When human beings are used as characters in fables they symbolize all of their class or kind.

C. A fable must be short.

1. If a moral truth is to shine through a fable, the whole of it must be quickly made apparent.

2. It is with a view to brevity that the fabulist makes use of animals of known character.

3. The reader recognizes the characteristics the instant the animal is mentioned, and the author thereby avoids the necessity of longer description. For example, the characters of a fable might be foxes used to symbolize crafty men.

 

II. Parable

A. A parable illustrates some truth.

Though fictitious, they are drawn from realistic events and characters, and are therefore supported by probability and easily applied to life situations.

B. Reformers and teachers of all times have made much use of them.

1. By means of parables, abstract truths can be presented in graphic form so that they can be easily understood.

2. Many common Western parables come from Christian scripture: “The Prodigal Son,” “The Sower,” “The Ten Virgins.”

III. Aristotle on fable and parable as rhetorical devices:

A. Often useful

Though true examples from history are “of greater effect in deliberation and more appropriate to persuasive oratory,” Aristotle in his Rhetoric tells us that fables and parables are often useful.

B. Easily invented 

“The occasion wherein fables are more in point, and employed with the greatest success, is in popular addresses, and in debates, upon great questions. They have this advantage over example, that it is difficult to find in history circumstances perfectly relevant to what we would wish to prove, whereas a fable is easily invented; and in order to this, nothing more is necessary than to draw a parable, which any man may do...” 

IV. Famous fabulists

A. Aesop

Ancient Greek fabulist.

B. La Fontaine

Seventeenth Century French poet known for his Fables.

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Personification: A fondness for life

The prevalence of personification in literature and life reflects our preference for vital animated beings over inanimate objects.

Personification: A fondness for life

From English Composition and Rhetoric, by Alexander Bain, and Aids to English Composition, by Richard Green Parker:

I. Personification consists in attributing life and mind to inanimate things.

The mountains sing together, the hills rejoice and clap their hands.

Personification is a figure of various degrees.

 

II. The highest degree of personification ascribes to inanimate objects human feelings and purposes, as well as gender.

A. On Eve's taking the forbidden fruit, Milton assigns human attributes to Earth and Nature:

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.

B. Shelley's poem “Cloud” is personification throughout:

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under;
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

C. Besides the actual objects of nature, it is not unusual to personify abstractions of the mind.

1. Examples of abstractions of the mind are life, death, truth, love, virtue, evil, sin, hope, wisdom, genius, friendship, pleasure, vengeance.

Can wisdom lend, with all her boasted power,
The pledge of joy's anticipated hour?

2. By a process short of personification (metaphor), abstractions may be represented as real things.

They are thereby be rendered more vivid. Thus time is a river, a shore, a wave on the ocean of eternity. Life is a vapor, a dream, a shadow.

D. Mythology gave personal existence to all the imposing objects and appearances of nature.

Ancient storytellers personified the sun, moon, and stars; the sky, earth, seas, mountains, rocks, hills, valleys, rivers, springs, floods; the winds, clouds, thunder, hail; the day, night, dawn, light, dark; the seasons. They also personified the important productions of nature, such as corn and wine.

These personifications are retained in the poetry of all languages, for the sake of clothing the objects with the interest that personality gives.

 

II. An inferior degree of personification consists in merely attributing to inanimate objects some quality of living beings.

Thus, a raging storm, a deceitful disease, a cruel disaster — are familiar expressions.

This, indeed, is so obscure a degree of personification, that it might, perhaps, be properly classed with simple metaphors, which almost escape our observation:

the thirsty ground, a dying lamp, the angry sea, a cruel disaster, the smiling year

 

III. The English language, by reserving the distinction of gender for living beings that have sex, gives special scope for personification.

A. In many languages (Greek, Latin, French, German, etc,), gender is attributed to inanimate objects in a manner that deprives it of all its meaning.

In English, the masculine and feminine pronouns are regularly applied only to persons and to the more distinguished animals. Hence they are closely associated in our minds with personality; and their occasional application to things without life has at once a personifying effect.

 

IV. The value of personification arises from the interest awakened in us by the actions, feelings, and deportment of beings like ourselves.

A. One effect of advancing civilization is to enlarge the interest that we take in our fellow-creatures.

B. From the earliest times, this interest has been extended by ascribing human feelings to the objects of the outer world on some pretext of remote resemblance.

1. Some of the strongest feelings of our nature have reference to persons: love, admiration, vanity, the thirst for power, revenge, derision.

2. The compositions that touch the deepest chords of the mind deal principally with persons, as in poetry, romance, and history.

3. Thus the powers of nature, as the winds and running streams, have been assimilated to living beings, and fancifully endowed with will, purpose, and feeling, so as to be recommended to our human sympathies.

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Writing: 24 basic terms to know

You'll come out way ahead if you take time to knock back a few literary terms before tackling your next book. Then read and let your new background knowledge illuminate the text. Can you identify the author's use of literary devices and grammatical techniques?

From the Sixth or Classic English Reader, by William Swinton:

Def. 1. A figure of speech is a deviation from the direct and literal meaning of a word or phrase.

Def. 2. A simile, or comparison, is the statement of a likeness between one thing and another:

    The tear down childhood's cheek that flows
    Is like the dewdrop on the rose.

Def. 3. A metaphor speaks of one object as if it were another:
    Virtue is a jewel.

Simile and metaphor both express comparison. In the simile, one object is said to resemble another; and some sign of comparison (as, like, etc.) stands between them. In the metaphor, an object is spoken of as if it were another, and no sign of comparison is used. A metaphor is an implied simile. Thus,—

    Simile. — He is like a lion in the fight.
    Metaphor. — He is a lion in the fight.

Def. 4. Personification is a figure of speech in which an inanimate object is represented as animated or endowed with personality:

The mountains sing together, the hills rejoice and clap hands. 

Def. 5. Antithesis is the statement of a contrast or opposition of thoughts and words:
    I do not live that I may eat, but I eat that I may live. 

Def. 6. Climax (meaning literally a ladder) is a series of statements rising in strength or importance until the last:

    Learning is better than wealth; culture is better than learning; Wisdom is better than culture.

Def. 7. Synecdoche¹ is the figure of speech by which the whole of a thing is put for a part, or a part for the whole:

    Sail, for ship. 

    Daily bread, for daily food.

Def. 8. Metonymy² is the use of the name of one object to represent some related object:

Gray hairs, meaning old age.

The fatal cup, meaning the drink in the cup.

Def. 9. Hyperbole  consists in magnifying objects beyond their natural bounds to make a statement more emphatic:
    "Swift as the wind"
    "Rivers of blood, and hills of slain"

Def. 10. Apostrophe consists in addressing some absent person or thing as if present:

Milton, thou shouldst be with us at this hour!

Def. 11. Irony is the use of words to express meanings that are opposite their literal meaning:

Brutus is an honorable [meaning not honorable] man!

Def. 12. Ellipsis is the omission of words grammatically necessary, but supplied by the thought:

    Sit down [meaning You sit down].

Def. 13. The direct or grammatical order of words is their ordinary prose arrangement:

    In the sentence, "I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny the atrocious crime of being a young man," ³  the words are arranged in the grammatical order,—subject, verb, object.

Def. 14. The indirect or rhetorical order of words is an inverted arrangement of words adopted to make a statement more impressive:
    In the form, "The atrocious crime of being a young man, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny," the words are arranged in the indirect or rhetorical order.

Def. 15. A period sentence is one in which the meaning is suspended, by using an inverted order of words, till the end or near the end of the sentence:
    On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, the Puritans looked down with contempt.

Def. 16. A loose sentence is one which may be brought to a grammatical close at one or more points before the end:
    The Puritans looked down with contempt on the rich | and the eloquent, | on nobles and priests.

III.

Def. 17. Description is the representation of things observed at any one point in time.

Def. 18. Narration is the report of a succession of events observed chronologically.

Def. 19. Exposition is the discussion of principles.

Def. 20. Poetry is a kind of composition in which words are arranged in lines and verses containing a definite number and order of accented and unaccented syllables.

Def. 21. Rhyme is a kind of verse in which there is a concord of sounds in words at the end of lines.

Def. 22. Blank verse consists of unrhymed lines containing five feet of two syllables each, with the accent on the second syllable.

Def. 23. A refrain is a phrase or verse which occurs at the end of each stanza of a poem.

Def. 24. Style is the peculiar manner in which thought is expressed in language. There are many descriptive words used to denote the various kinds of style:  figurative, flowery, plain, verbose, terse, simple, sublime, witty, epigrammatic. 

Download this page to use as a cheat sheet.

¹Synecdoche (pron. sin-ek'do-ke, from the Greek sun, "together with," and ekdechomai, "to understand in a certain sense."  
²Metonymy (pron. me-ton'i-me), from the Greek meta, implying "change," and unoma, "a name."
³Both irony and hyperbole are used in this statement. Can you explain them?