Literal and Figurative language in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll

                                            Contents

1. Introduction……………………………………………….……2

  II. Chapter I: Literal and Figurative Language as Complex concepts.

        1.1 Definitions by Different Scholars……………………..….….4

         1.2 Literal Language: the Notion of Literal Meaning……………8

        1.3 The Characteristic Features of the Figurative Language…………………………………………………………..…..11

         1.4 Different Scholars’ Definition of  Figure of Speech…………13

         1.5 Kinds of Figurative Language…………………………..…...16

III. Chapter II: Literal and Figurative Language in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll.

         2.1 “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”- the Most Famous and Enduring Children's Classics…………………………………….……29

     2.2 Figurative Language in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”….

     2.3 Literal Language versus Figurative Language Used in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and their Romanian Translation……………………………………………………………47

IV. Conclusion……………………………………………………….53

V. Bibliography………………………………………………………55

VI. Appendix………………………………………………………….58 
 
 
 

                                Introduction

      The present research paper is entitled “Literal and Figurative language in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”  by Lewis Carroll”. The work is devoted to the study of Lewis Carroll’s use of literal and figurative language in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”.

   In accordance with all the information gathered for this paper its aim is to be based: to describe the semantic problem of the word in interaction with the literal dictionary and figurative contextual meaning.

   Correspondingly the main objectives of the work are:

1. To define the literal and figurative use of language,
2. To find out the main characteristic features of literal and respectively figurative language,
3. To define the figure of speech,
4. To analyze and describe the main kinds of figure of speech,
5. To analyze examples of figurative and literal use of language in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll and their Romanian translation.

     The theoretical importance of this paper is intended as a thorough introduction to the study of literal language and respectively figurative language, and several kinds of figures of speech and their use in English Literature. It can be used as future investigation of Lewis Carroll’s work.

     The practical importance of the paper under discussion is to introduce the foreign language learners to the study of literature. It can serve as base of practical courses.

     The research paper consists of two chapters. In Chapter I of this paper a great attention is given to the definitions of literal and respectively figurative language and there main characteristic features. The literal interpretation involves simply interpreting each word in the sentence and their combination in terms of its straightforward meaning. The figurative interpretation, by contrast, requires knowledge of an idiom - a figure of speech. Thus a considerable attention, by all means is given to the study of the semantic treatment of figure of speech and its main types in English language.

     English scholars distinguish four kinds of figures of speech. We will only consider the figures of speech of rhetoric or of the art of speaking and writing as they are the most important, really giving to language the construction and style which make it a fitting medium for the intercommunication of ideas.

     This type of figures of speech will certainly be used in Chapter two, as the basis of the analysis of examples of figurative use of language in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll.

     The research paper begins with a small Introduction to the work, and ends with a Conclusion on what has been accomplished at the end of the research. The paper concludes with an Appendix presenting examples of literal and figurative language from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll.

     The Bibliography used consists of 45 sources, from The National Library of The Republic of Moldova and the World Wide Web.

     During the work on the present paper several research methods were used:

• Analysis (used mainly in Chapter I);
• Synthesis (used mainly in  Chapter II);
• Statistic method (used mainly in Appendix);
• Bibliographical method (library research).

     The theme of the paper is rather actual, because it may open ways to an interesting analysis of figurative and literal language used in literary works due to the large variety of figures of speech and author’s creative usage of them.  
 
 
 
 
 
 

     Chapter I:  Literal and Figurative Language as Complex Concepts.

     1.1 Definitions by Different Scholars.

     Classically, the notions of literalness and figurativity are viewed as pertaining directly to language - words have literal meanings, and can be used figuratively when specific figures of speech cue appropriate interpretation processes. Indeed, this approach superficially seems to account for the two interpretations described above. The literal (and one would hope, less likely) interpretation involves simply interpreting each word in the sentence and their combination in terms of its straightforward meaning - the glue is literal glue and the seats are literal seats.

     The figurative interpretation, by contrast, requires knowledge of an idiom - a figure of speech. This idiom has a particular form, using the words glued, to, and seat(s), with a possessive pronoun or other noun phrase indicating who was glued to their seat(s) in the middle. It also carries with it a particular meaning: the person or people described were in rapt attention. Thus the figurative interpretation of the sentence differs from the literal one in that the meaning to be taken from it is not built up compositionally from the meanings of words included in the utterance. Rather, the idiom imposes a non-compositional interpretation. As a result, the meaning of the whole can be quite distinct from the meanings of the words included within the idiom. This distinction between idiomaticity and compositionality is an important component of the classical figurative-literal distinction. A consequence of equating figurativity with particular figures of speech is that figurative language can be seen as using words in ways that differ from their real, literal meaning.

     While this classical notion of figurative and literal language may seem sensible, it leads to a number of incorrect and inconsistent claims about the relation between literal and figurative language.

     The study of figurative language understanding has always experienced an identity crisis. Unlike many topics in experimental psycholinguistics, such as syntactic parsing and lexical ambiguity resolution, where scholars generally agree on the main questions, figurative language scholars have pursued many avenues in their studies. For instance, some scholars view figurative language as just another kind of verbal material to explore when context affects default literal processing to create figurative meaning. Other scholars explore the pragmatic functions of figurative language, such as why people speak or write figuratively and the effects such language has on listeners or readers. Another difference is that some scholars propose broad theories that may apply to many kinds of figurative language (e.g., metaphor, metonymy, irony, proverbs), whereas others concentrate on the details of how a particular type of trope is interpreted (e.g., metaphor). A final group of scholars focus on the possible connections between figurative language and human  vices for communication, but as reflecting pervasive figurative schemes of thought.

     Let us see the definitions of literal and figurative languages. In traditional analysis, words in literal expressions denote what they mean according to common or dictionary usage, while words in figurative expressions connote add layers of meaning. When the human ear or eye receives the message, the mind must interpret the data to convert it into meaning. This involves the use of a cognitive framework which is made up of memories of all the possible meanings that might be available to apply to the particular words in their context. This set of memories will give prominence to the most common or literal meanings, but also suggest reasons for attributing different meanings, e.g., the reader understands that the author intended it to mean something different. 
 For example, the sentence, "The ground is thirsty and hungry.", mixes the usages. The ground is not alive and therefore does not need to drink or have the essence of life to be able to obtain the characteristics needed to eat. Readers can immediately understand that a literal interpretation is not appropriate and confidently interpret the words to mean "The ground is dry.": the stimulus that would trigger the sensation of thirst in a living organism. However, the statement, "When I first saw her, my soul began to quiver.", is more difficult to interpret. It may mean "When I first saw her, I began to panic", or "I felt in love with her" or something else entirely. Whereas the ground's thirst can only sensibly refer to its dryness, the soul may quiver for a whole range of feelings, including mutually exclusive ones. Only someone familiar with the speaker's feelings could accurately interpret this statement. A different way of expressing the difficulty is: without a context, a few words can only be given a provisional set of meanings, the most appropriate only becoming apparent when more information is made available. 
           Raymond Gibbs, a cognitive psychologist and cognitive linguist, identifies a number of different definitions of literal meaning assumed within the cognitive science literature:

     Conventional literality, in which literal usage is contrasted with poetic usage, exaggeration, embellishment, indirectness, and so on.

     Nonmetaphorical literality, or directly meaningful language, in which one word (concept) is never understood in terms of a second word (or concept).

     Truth conditional literality, or language that is capable of “fitting the world”(that is, referring to objectively existing objects or of being objectively true or false).

     Context-free literality, in which the literal meaning of an expression is its meaning [independent of any communicative situation.[12,75] 

     Figurative language is the language that uses words or expressions with a meaning that is different from the literal interpretation, language in which figures of speech such as metaphors and similes freely occur.

     Anne Kürschner, in her work “Figurative Language in 'The Rudy Elmenhurst Story'”, mentions:

     “ Figurative language means for me that for instance words or specific actions are taken out of their correct meaning. Instead, they are used to express something else. This generates an effect which the author intends, that is to raise the reader’s interest. In my opinion it is the usage and strength of figurative language that gives a story its power, as it creates images in reader’s minds.” [20,2]

     Classical and traditional linguistics by some counts identified more than two hundred and fifty different figures of speech. More recently, some have reduced the list to more manageable proportions; others have claimed to be able to classify all figurative language as either metaphor or metonymy. Easier definition- Figurative language or speech contains images. The writer or speaker describes something through the use of unusual comparisons, for effect, interest, and to make things clearer. The result of using this technique is the creation of interesting images. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

               1.2 Literal Language: the Notion of Literal Meaning.

     Things which are commonsense, almost by definition, do not bear comment: one never  has  to  articulate  what  one may  everywhere  assume.  'Literal meaning'  is  a commonsense concept—a sort of first principle of meaning itself. It is the simplest sort of meaning: direct, original, unembellished and unadorned, opposed to all varieties of figure, derivation, or stylization.  It is the sense one gets by taking words "in their natural or customary meanings, and applying the ordinary rules of grammar" [43,607]. It requires no fancy inferences, no imaginative leaps, no feats of insight. Literal meaning resides,  so  to  speak,  in  the  words  themselves—both  theoretically,  as  the  coded semantic  contents  of  linguistic  forms,  and  figuratively,  via  a  chain  of  associations running from the (literal) letters of a word to the sounds and ideas they represent. As a common  sense  concept,  'literal  meaning'  seems  not  just  familiar,  but  somehow necessary. Without some notion of literal meaning it is unclear what it would mean for anyone to mean what they say, or how anyone else could ever understand them.

     'Literal meaning' has been a concept at the heart of English literacy for almost as long as  there has been an English  literature. At  least for  the  last four hundred years, literate  speakers of English have used  the words  literal and literally  to  talk  about linguistic meaning. Nowadays, a basic ability to distinguish between various sorts of "literal" and "figurative" meanings is essential to the careful reading of most English texts—novels, plays, poems, history, scripture, statutory law, and almost anything that might count as literature. Children as young as six years old may grasp the essential distinction here, and by adolescence many,  if not most, students will have  received explicit  instruction  on  the  distinctions  between  literal  meaning  and  figures  like metaphor,  hyperbole,  and  irony.  In  this  context,  one  comes  to  count  on  a  notion without even  thinking about  it. With  'literal meaning' what we count on  is a way of understanding what we are doing when we read, write, and speak to one another—it is a basic part of our commonsense frame for communicative events.

     Still for all  that,  'literal meaning'  is not an easy notion  to define.

     The  commonsense  notion  of  literal  meaning  fits  into  a  larger  folk-theoretic understanding of  the relations between  language,  thought and reality. Turner provides a pithy, if somewhat unsympathetic summary of this view:

     “The real world is exhaustively literal: literal language refers to it; literal

concepts mirror the literal world; literal language evokes literal concepts...

Separate from all this, so the folk theory runs, there are mental imaginative

connections that are false; they are expressed in figurative, non-literal

language or literally false language; we must transform the meaning of this

language in order to arrive at interpretations of it that can be literal and true.”[37,147]

  Turner  probably  finds  this  view  unsympathetic  because  it  ignores  the  role  of  the imagination in ordinary everyday meaning construction, and it assumes a rather stark opposition between truth, reason and literality on the one side, and fancy, figuration, and  falsity,  on  the  other. But  the  assumption  and  the  folk  theory  are  in  fact  quite widely held, and they have deep roots in the philosophy of language and mind. Lakoff  &  Johnson  refer  to  theories  like  this  as  "literalist  theories  of meaning," and they cite Aristotle as the first to articulate such a theory. In a literalist theory,  terms  designate  ideas,  ideas  characterize  essences  in  the world,  and  literal meaning  itself  consists  in  the  use  of  terms  "to  properly  designate what  they  are conventionally supposed to designate".[21,382]        

       The  three-way  relation  that connects  the structure of  the world  (essences)  to  the structure of  the mind  (ideas)  through  the  structure of  language  (terms, or  signifiers generally) provides  the  foundation for a great deal of both  folk  theoretic and expert thinking about language and thought. The commonest assumption is that the relations here are all direct, transparent and transitive-that  language accurately conveys our thoughts from one speaker to another, that our thoughts accurately reflect the structure of the world, and that the world is truly described by language.

     As Locke points out, it is easy to imagine that if such direct relations between language, thought, and reality did not hold, then communication itself might be impossible: “And hence it is, that Men are so forward to suppose, that the abstract Ideas they have in their Minds, are such, as agree to the Things existing without them, to which they are referred; and are the same also, to which the Names they give them, do by the Use and Propriety of that Language belong. For without this double Conformity of their Ideas, they find they should both think amiss of Things in themselves, and talk of them unintelligibly to others.”[24,410] This "double Conformity of ideas" is fundamental to any correspondence theory of truth,  and  it  provides  a  very  good  foundation,  since  to  deny  its  assumptions  is tantamount either  to denying  that people understand each other when  they speak, or that our understandings stand  in any constant relation  to  the objective world. Taylor later affirmed that “Locke himself rejected the double conformity, and so concluded against common sense, that ordinary speakers regularly do fail to communicate”[36,77].

     Nonetheless, one needn't be either a communicational skeptic or a  radical  relativist  to  realize  that  the connection between words and reality is often convoluted and indirect: any cognitive psychologist or lexical semanticist can tell you that. The  fact  is  that  many  of  our  most  commonplace  conceptual  categories  are figuratively structured-most commonly by metaphor or analogy. This is why we can talk about and understand things like atoms in terms of solar systems[10,107], verbal arguments in terms of sports or war[13,84], and time in terms of motion through space[22,45].

       1.3The Characteristic Features of the Figurative Language.

     Prototypical Figurative Language will be characterized as language use where, from the speaker’s point of view, conventional constraints are deliberately infringed in the service of communication, and from the hearer’s point of view, a satisfactory (i.e. relevant) interpretation can only be achieved if conventional constraints on interpretation are overridden by contextual ones.

     What is the motivation for figurative uses of language? Here we need to distinguish the speaker’s motivation for using an expression figuratively, and the hearer’s motivation for assigning a figurative construal to an expression. Briefly, a speaker uses an expression figuratively when he/she feels that no literal use will produce the same effect. The figurative use may simply be more attention-grabbing, or it may permit the conveyance of new concepts. As far as hearer is concerned, the most obvious reason for opting for figurative construal is the fact that no equally accessible and relevant literal construal is available.

     In classical rhetoric and poetics there is an inherent contrast between figurative or ornamental usage on the one hand and literal or plain and conventional usage on the other; in this contrast, figures of speech are regarded as embellishments that deviate from the “ordinary”  uses of language. The 16^th century rhetorician George Puttenham described the contrast as follows:

     “As figures be the instrument of ornament in eury language, so be they also in a sort abuses or rather trespasses in speech, because they passé the ordinary limits of common vtterance, and be occupied of purpose to deceiu the eare and also the minde, drawing it form plainesse and simplicitie to a certain doubleness, whereby our talk is the more guileful and abusing, for what else is your Metaphore but an inuersion of sence by transport; your allegorie but a dublicitie of meaning or dissimulation vnder covert and dark intendments?”¹

     Puttenham implies here that there is a core of simple, literal language that can be distinguished from ornate, figurative language(which engages in a kind of unnatural double-dealing). There is, however, a paradox at the heart of the classical argument that Puttenham presents. The 18^th century Scottish rhetorician Hugh Blair touched on it when he wrote:

     “But, though Figures imply a deviation from what may be reckoned the most simple form of Speech, we are not thence to conclude, that they imply anything uncommon, or unnatural.”[3, 23]

In this paradox, figurative language succeeds, somehow, in being both natural and unnatural at then same time.

     The classical view was dominant at the end of the 19^th century, when the American rhetorician John F. Genung described figurative language as an “intentional deviation from the plain and ordinary mode of speaking, for the sake of greater effect”.[11, 93]

     In the late 20^th century, a change of approach was under way: for example, while referring to “an intentional deviation from the normal” (in the traditional way ), the American critic Joseph T. Shipley observed: “Figures are as old as language. They lie buried in many words of current use. They are the backbone of slang. They occur constantly in both prose and poetry”[34, 44]. Two recent dictionaries demonstrate more explicitly a shift in the perception of the term “figure of speech” away from linguistic deviance towards stylistic creativity, defining it as:

     1) “a form of expression (e.g. a hyperbole or metaphor) used to convey meaning or connotation familiar to the reader or listener”[44, 243];

     2) “An expression, such as a metaphor or hyperbole, in which a non-literal and intensive sense of a word or words is used to create a forceful, dramatic, or illuminating image”[45, 198].

      Figurative language appeals to our imagination- our ability to understand the creative power of words. When you search for the figurative meaning of an expression, be aware what the words suggest. 
 

      1.4 Different Scholars’ Definition of Figure of Speech.

     The precise definition of a figure of speech has proved to be as difficult as determining the limits of figurative usage. For centuries, rhetoricians have debated what each presumed figure refers to and how various figures relate to each other.

But first let us see the definition of the figure of speech. According the Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language[45, 210] , the figure of speech is a rhetorical device that achieves a special effect by using words in distinctive ways[figure of speech: a translation of Latin figura orationis, in turn a translation of the original Greek technical term skhễma tễs léxeōs].

     X. J. Kennedy gives the following definition, “a figure of speech may be said to occur whenever a speaker or writer, for the sake of freshness or emphasis, departs from the usual denotations of words.”[17,584] Figures of speech are not devices to state what is demonstrably untrue.  Indeed they often state truths that more literal language cannot communicate; they call attention to such truths; they lend them emphasis

     Knickerbocker noted that figures and symbol are images used in a particular way to explore the less known through the known.  He gives an example, that Joseph Conrad describes an old Chinese ship-owner as having “a face like an ancient lemon”. [19,366]The images in this figure are the face and the lemon, the first unknown to us, the second well known.  Our imagination will be required to transfer the relevant characteristics of the ancient lemon to the face, and we can see it as wrinkled, jaundiced, dried-up, oval-shaped, and toughened by time – but the irrelevant characteristics of the lemon we will allow to drop away.  That is why we must make the proper association between the face and the lemon.  If we transfer a figure into the purpose object it means we have reached one level in order to understand the figure of speech by for the people who have no any ability in interpreting figurative meaning it means that he has ‘an empty art’ to understand it and can not reach one level to understand it. 

     Scholars of classical Western rhetoric have divided figures of speech into two main categories: schemes and tropes.

     Schemes (from the Greek schēma, form or shape) are figures of speech in which there is a deviation from the ordinary or expected pattern of words. For example, the phrase, "John, my best friend" uses the scheme known as apposition.

Tropes (from the Greek tropein, to turn) involve changing or modifying the general meaning of a term. An example of a trope is the use of irony, which is the use of words in a way that conveys a meaning opposite to its usual meaning ("For Brutus is an honorable man; / So are they all, all honorable men").

       Some other  opinions on figures of speech:

• “The vast pool of terms for verbal ornamentation has acted like a gene pool for the rhetorical imagination, stimulating us to look at language in another way. The figures have worked historically to teach a way of seeing."[23, 64] 
  
• "The most excellent ornaments, exornations, lightes, flowers, and formes of speech, commonly called the figures of rhetorike. By which the singular partes of mans mind, are most aptly expressed, and the sundrie affections of his heart most effectuallie uttered."[28, 23] 
  
• Mr. Burns: Break a leg, everyone. [to a passing employee] I said break a leg.[Employee breaks his own leg with a hammer] 
  Mr. Burns: My God, man! That was a figure of speech. You're fired!² 
  
• "The figurings of speech reveal to us the apparently limitless plasticity of language itself. We are confronted, inescapably, with the intoxicating possibility that we can make language do for us almost anything we want. Or at least a Shakespeare can."[31,2]

     We need to learn, even a few of figures of speech, to enlarge our understanding and enjoyment of literary works. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                  1.5 Kinds of Figurative Language.

     The English is a figurative language. In figurative language we employ words in such a way that they differ somewhat from their ordinary signification in common place speech and convey our meaning in a more vivid and impressive manner than when we use them in their every-day sense. Figures make speech more effective, they beautify it and emphasize it and give to it a relish and piquancy as salt does to food; besides they add energy and force to expression so that it irresistibly compels attention and interest. They are the special tools of our language, and as such, should be handled with care. If used skillfully they add strength and beauty, but if awkwardly used they make the user appear affected and makes him a subject of ridicule.

     There are four kinds of figures of speech: figures of speech of orthography which change the spelling of a word; figures of speech of etymology which change the form of words; figures of speech of syntax which change the construction of the sentence; figures of speech of rhetoric or of the art of speaking and writing effectively which change the mode of thought. We will only consider the last mentioned here as they are the most important, really giving to language the construction and style which make it a fitting medium for the intercommunication of ideas.

     Figures have been variously classified as well as the most important and those oftenest used are, simile, metaphor, epithet, personification, allegory, synecdoche, metonymy, exclamation, hyperbole, apostrophe, anastrophe, asyndeton, anaphora, vision, antithesis, climax, epigram, ellipsis, litotes, oxymoron, interrogation and irony, etc.

   A Simile (from the Latin similis, like), is the likening of one thing to another, a statement of the resemblance of objects, acts, or relations; as “In his awful anger he was like the storm-driven waves dashing against the rock.” A simile makes the principal object plainer and impresses it more forcibly on the mind. “His memory is like wax to receive impressions and like marble to retain them.” This brings out the leading idea as to the man’s memory in a very forceful manner. Contrast it with the simple statement—”His memory is good.” Sometimes Simile is prostituted to a low and degrading use; as “His face was like a danger signal in a fog storm.” “Her hair was like a furze-bush in bloom.” “He was to his lady love as a poodle to its mistress.” Such burlesque is never permissible. Mere likeness, it should be remembered, does not constitute a simile. For instance there is no simile when one city is compared to another. In order that there may be a rhetorical simile, the objects compared must be of different classes. Avoid the old trite similes such as comparing a hero to a lion. Such were played out long ago. And don’t hunt for farfetched similes. Don’t say—”Her head was glowing as the glorious god of day when he sets in a flambeau of splendor behind the purple-tinted hills of the West.” It is much better to do without such a simile and simply say—”She had fiery red hair.”

     A Metaphor (from the Greek metapherein, to carry over or transfer), is a word used to imply a resemblance but instead of likening one object to another as in the simile we directly substitute the action or operation of one for another. If, of a religious man we say,—”He is as a great pillar upholding the church,” the expression is a simile, but if we say—”He is a great pillar upholding the church” it is a metaphor. The metaphor is a bolder and more lively figure than the simile. It is more like a picture and hence, the graphic use of metaphor is called “word-painting.” It enables us to give to the most abstract ideas form, color and life. Our language is full of metaphors, and we very often use them quite unconsciously. For instance, when we speak of the bed of a river, the shoulder of a hill, the foot of a mountain, the hands of a clock, the key of a situation, we are using metaphors.

Don’t use mixed metaphors, that is, different metaphors in relation to the same subject: “Since it was launched our project has met with much opposition, but while its flight has not reached the heights ambitioned, we are yet sanguine we shall drive it to success.” Here our project begins as a ship, then becomes a bird and finally winds up as a horse.

     Epithet (from Greek language ἐπίθετον – epitheton, neut. of ἐπίθετος – epithetos, "attributed, added"⁾ expresses a characteristic of an object, both existing and imaginary. Its basic feature is its emotiveness and subjectivity: the characteristic attached to the object to qualify it is always chosen by the speaker himself. Our speech ontologically being always emotionally coloured, it is possible to say that in epithet it is the emotive meaning of the word that is foregrounded to suppress the denotational meaning of the latter. Epithet has remained over the centuries the most widely used figure of speech, which is understandable-it offers ample opportunities of qualifying every object from the author's partial and subjective viewpoint, which is indispensable in creative prose, publicist style, and everyday speech

     Personification (from the Latin persona, person, and facere, to make) is the treating of an inanimate object as if it were animate and is probably the most beautiful and effective of all the figures.

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

“Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat, 
Sighing, through all her works, gave signs of woe.”

     Personification depends much on a vivid imagination and is adapted especially to poetical composition. It has two distinguishable forms: (1) when personality is ascribed to the inanimate as in the foregoing examples, and (2) when some quality of life is attributed to the inanimate; as, a raging storm; an angry sea; a whistling wind, etc.

     An Allegory (from the Greek allos, other, and agoreuein, to speak), is a form of expression in which the words are symbolical of something. It is very closely allied to the metaphor, in fact is a continued metaphor.

     Allegory, metaphor and simile have three points in common,—they are all founded on resemblance. “Ireland is like a thorn in the side of England;” this is simile. “Ireland is a thorn in the side of England;” this is metaphor. “Once a great giant sprang up out of the sea and lived on an island all by himself. On looking around he discovered a little girl on another small island near by. He thought the little girl could be useful to him in many ways so he determined to make her subservient to his will. He commanded her, but she refused to obey, then he resorted to very harsh measures with the little girl, but she still remained obstinate and obdurate. He continued to oppress her until finally she rebelled and became as a thorn in his side to prick him for his evil attitude towards her;” this is an allegory in which the giant plainly represents England and the little girl, Ireland; the implication is manifest though no mention is made of either country. Strange to say the most perfect allegory in the English language was written by an almost illiterate and ignorant man and written too, in a dungeon cell. In the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” Bunyan, the itinerant tinker, has given us by far the best allegory ever penned. Another good one is “The Faerie Queen” by Edmund Spenser.

     Synecdoche (from the Greek, sun with, and ekdexesthai, to receive), is a figure of speech which expresses either more or less than it literally denotes. By it we give to an object a name which literally expresses something more or something less than we intend. Thus: we speak of the world when we mean only a very limited number of the people who compose the world: as, “The world treated him badly.” Here we use the whole for a part. But the most common form of this figure is that in which a part is used for the whole; as, “I have twenty head of cattle,” “One of his hands was assassinated,” meaning one of his men. “Twenty sail came into the harbor,” meaning twenty ships. “This is a fine marble,” meaning a marble statue.

     Metonymy (from the Greek meta, change, and onyma, a name) is the designation of an object by one of its accompaniments, in other words, it is a figure by which the name of one object is put for another when the two are so related that the mention of one readily suggests the other. Thus when we say of a drunkard—”He loves the bottle” we do not mean that he loves the glass receptacle, but the liquor that it is supposed to contain. Metonymy, generally speaking, has, three subdivisions: (1) when an effect is put for cause or vice versa: as “Gray hairs should be respected,” meaning old age. “He writes a fine hand,” that is, handwriting. (2) when the sign is put for the thing signified; as, “The pen is mightier than the sword,” meaning literary power is superior to military force. (3) When the container is put for the thing contained; as “The House was called to order,” meaning the members in the House.

     Exclamation (from the Latin ex, out, and clamare, to cry), is a figure by which the speaker instead of stating a fact, simply utters an expression of surprise or emotion. For instance when he hears some harrowing tale of woe or misfortune instead of saying,—”It is a sad story” he exclaims “What a sad story!”

Exclamation may be defined as the vocal expression of feeling, though it is also applied to written forms which are intended to express emotion. Thus in describing a towering mountain we can write “Heavens, what a piece of Nature’s handiwork! how majestic! how sublime! how awe-inspiring in its colossal impressiveness!”  This figure rather belongs to poetry and animated oratory than to the cold prose of every-day conversation and writing.

     Hyperbole (from the Greek hyper, beyond, and ballein, to throw), is an exaggerated form of statement and simply consists in representing things to be either greater or less, better or worse than they really are. Its object is to make the thought more effective by overstating it. Here are some examples:—”He was so tall his head touched the clouds.” “He was as thin as a poker.” “He was so light that a breath might have blown him away.” Most people are liable to overwork this figure. We are all more or less given to exaggeration and some of us do not stop there, but proceed onward to falsehood and downright lying. There should be a limit to hyperbole, and in ordinary speech and writing it should be well qualified and kept within reasonable bounds.

     An Apostrophe (from the Greek apo, from, and strephein, to turn), is a direct address to the absent as present, to the inanimate as living, or to the abstract as personal. Thus: “O, illustrious Washington! Father of our Country! Could you visit us now!”

“My Country tis of thee— 
Sweet land of liberty, 
Of thee I sing.”

     “O! Grave, where is thy Victory, O! Death where is thy sting!”

  This figure is very closely allied to Personification.

     Vision (from the Latin videre, to see) consists in treating the past, the future, or the remote as if present in time or place. It is appropriate to animated description, as it produces the effect of an ideal presence: eg. “The old warrior looks down from the canvas and tells us to be men worthy of our sires.”

     Anastrophe (from the Greek:  anastrophē, "a turning back or about") is a figure of speech involving an inversion of a language's ordinary order of words; for example, saying "smart you are" to mean "you are smart". In English, with its settled natural word order, departure from the expected word order emphasizes the displaced word or phrase: "beautiful" is emphasized in the City Beautiful urbanist movement; "primeval" comes to the fore in Longfellow's line "This is the forest primeval." Where the emphasis that comes from anastrophe is not an issue, "inversion" is a perfectly suitable synonym.

See the first line of the Æneid:

     Arma virumque cano, Troiæ qui primus ab oris .

     ("I sing of arms and the man, who first from the shores of Troy")

the genitive case noun Troiæ ("of Troy") has been separated from the noun it governs (oris, "shores") in a way that would be rather unusual in Latin prose. In fact, given the liberty of Latin word order, "of Troy" might be taken to modify "arms" or "the man", but it is not the custom to interpret the word that way.

     The word order of "his hand dropt he" is not the customary word order in English, even in the archaic English that Coleridge seeks to imitate. However, excessive use of the device where the emphasis is unnecessary or even unintended, especially for the sake of rhyme or metre, is usually considered a flaw; consider the clumsy versification of Sternhold and Hopkins's metrical psalter:

     The earth is all the Lord's, with all

     her store and furniture;

     Yea, his is all the work, and all

     that therein doth endure:

     For he hath fastly founded it

     above the seas to stand,

     And placed below the liquid floods,

     to flow beneath the land.

     However, some poets have a style that depends on heavy use of anastrophe. Gerard Manley Hopkins is particularly identified with the device, which renders his poetry susceptible to parody: