STOP! I could have dropped my Rhetoric
In Stephen Fry’s Moab Is My Washpot, he discusses corporal punishment. He uses his experiences from childhood of recieving corporal punishment to get his point about how he does not think it is a bad thing. This helped convince the audience using the author’s experiences.
What is Ethos?
Richard II, Act 2, Scene 1 by William Shakespeare; “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,/ This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings [. . .]/ This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,”.
What is Anaphora?
(could also be asyndeton)
un-rhyming verse written in iambic pentameter.
EX:
The dreams are clues that tell us take chances.
What is Blank Verse?
In Zootopia, it is reference for racism and equality for all. The use of animals helps align races with different species of animals. It helps teach children, the target audience, about prejudice and hatred by using animals and a bright, happy world.
What is Allegory?
This sets the mood of a passage in Carl Sandburg’s Early Moon. “Poetry is old, ancient, goes back far. It is among the oldest of living things. So old it is that no man knows how and why the first poems came.” Notice how the long vowel, “o”, in the above extract, helps emphasize the idea of something being old and mysterious.
What is Assonance?
In How Curious The Camel by Alexander Theroux, the author uses facts about the camel to tell the reader how great the camel is and how useful it is. This helps the reader believe his point of the camel’s usefulness by using facts.
What is Logos?
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. “Then I’ll be all around’ in the dark. I’ll be everywhere – wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there … An’ when our folk eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build – why, I’ll be there …”
What is Epistrophe?
A narrative poem that originally was set to music.
EX:
She’s a good girl, loves her mama
Loves Jesus and America too
She’s a good girl, crazy ’bout Elvis
Loves horses and her boyfriend too
It’s a long day living in Reseda
There’s a freeway runnin’ through the yard
And I’m a bad boy ’cause I don’t even miss her
I’m a bad boy for breakin’ her heart
And I’m free, free fallin’
Yeah I’m free, free fallin’
—“Free Fallin’” by Tom Petty
What is a Ballad?
“I don’t hate you ‘cause your fat. You’re fat ‘because I hate you!” from Mean Girls. It shows the hatred between the characters and the mean nature of the character.
What is Invective?
repetition of identical initial consonant sounds in successive or closely associated syllables in a sentence.
Ex: the clever, clean cat sat on a moist, mad mat.
This repeats the ‘c’ sound in the beginning, the ‘at’ sound in the middle to end, and the ‘m’ sound in the end. This phrase can help readers find a rhythm in the story they are reading.
What is alliteration?
In Ian Frazier’s Great Plains, the author uses diction to help excite the reader about Crazy Horse and make them like Crazy Horse as much as he does. This uses emotional feelings to help make the reader believe his point.
What is Pathos?
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, he states “Consciousness of place came ebbing back to him slowly over a vast tract of time unlit, unfelt, unlived…” is an example of this.
What is Asyndeton?
When a speaker breaks off from addressing one party and instead addresses a third party. This third party may be an individual, either present or absent in the scene. It can also be an inanimate object, like a dagger, or an abstract concept, such as death or the sun.
What is an Apostrophe?
Aesop is probably the most notable author of famous examples of this. Aesop puts emphasis on the social communications of human beings, and hence the morals he draws deal with realities of life. In The Fox and the Crow, Aesop gives a moral lesson that flatterers must not be trusted. It is used as a way to teach moral truths to its readers or listeners.
What is a Fable?
In Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, Peter Porker/Spider-Ham is a pig that acts like a human (AKA, Spiderman). He used as a comic relief in the movie and helps show the the world he is from.
What is anthropomorphism?
Sonnet 18 (By William Shakespeare)
Metaphors are words that do this to meanings that go beyond their literal meanings. Shakespeare, in his Sonnet 18, says:
“Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day…”
Here, the phrase “a Summer’s Day” implies the fairness of his beloved.
What is Connotation?
“Let the whitefolks have their money and power and segregation and sarcasm and big houses and schools and lawns like carpets, and books, and mostly–mostly–let them have their whiteness.” I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. This is an example of...
What is Polysyndeton?
O Captain! My Captain! By Walt Whitman. He wrote this for Abraham Lincoln. It has the capacity to express emotions that deeply influence people.
What is Elegy?
The movie Vampire Sucks pokes fun at the blockbuster Twilight series, which was a film adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s novel Twilight.
What is a Parody?
a reference in a story to an unrelated story; a reference
Ex: In the television show Brooklyn 99, the characters make references to the movie Die Hard, to help make the story feel as if it is apart of our world. It also helps build the characters, as we learn their opinions on the movie, especially one character, Jake Peralta.
What is Allusion?
Newspapers have many of these. They are usually about serious issues, such as the author's stance on immigration, such Calling the Resistance By David Leonhardt in the New York Times.
What is an Editorial?
He was sad.
She had ice cream.
They wanted to play.
This an example of...
What is Telegraphic Sentence?
A selection from Lord Byron’s poem, The Destruction of Sennacherib. It follows a tetrameter pattern, which consists of four anapests in a line. This entire poem follows the similar pattern. In each of these, two syllables are unstressed, while the third syllable is stressed.
What is Foot?
Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver Travels uses this to Criticizing the political parties in England, the Whigs and the Tories. Similarly, “The Kingdom of Lilliput” is dominated by two parties distinguished by the size of the heels of their boots. By the trivial disputes between the two Lilliputian parties, Swift shows the minor disputes of the two English parties of his period.
What is Satire?
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is full of this. The title itself shows the use of this device, as the word wuthering means “blowing strongly with a roaring sound.” Therefore, “Wuthering Heights” means uproarious and aggressive weather that represents the nature of its residents. Writers use this to bring inanimate objects to life, so that the nature of emotions they want to convey is understood in a better way.
What is Pathetic Fallacy?