Language can also he patterned conceptually, even outside the rides that nor
mally govern it. Literary language in particular exploits this licensed linguistic
irregularity. Synonyms for figures of thought are 'trope' (Greek 'twisting,' refer
ring to the irregularity of use) and 'conceit' (Latin 'concept,' referring to the
fact that these figures are perceptible only to the mind). Be careful not to confuse 'trope' with 'topos' (a common error).
Allegory (Greek 'saying otherwise'): saying one thing (the 'vehicle' of the allegory) and meaning another (the allegory's 'tenor'). Allegories may be momentary aspects of a work, as in metaphor ('John is a lion'), or, through extended metaphor, may constitute the basis of narrative, as in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress; this second meaning is the dominant one. See also symbol and type.
Antithesis (Greek 'placing against'): juxtaposition of opposed terms in clauses or sentences that are next to or near each other; Milton, Paradise Lost 1.777?80: 'They but now who seemed / In bigness to surpass Earth's giant sons / Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room / Throng numberless' (see vol. 1, p. 1849).
Bathos (Greek 'depth'): a sudden and sometimes ridiculous descent of tone; Pope, The Rape of the Lock 3.157?58: 'Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast, / Whe n husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their last' (see vol. 1,
p. 2524). Emblem (Greek 'an insertion'): a picture allegorically expressing a moral, or a verbal picture open to such interpretation. Donne, 'A Hym n to Christ,' lines 1?2: 'In what torn ship soever I embark, / That ship shall be my emblem of thy ark' (see vol. 1, p. 1300).
Euphemism (Greek 'sweet saying'): the figure by which something distasteful
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is described in alternative, less repugnant terms (e.g., 'he passed away').
Hyperbole (Greek 'throwing over'): overstatement, exaggeration; Marvell, 'To His Coy Mistress,' lines 11?12: 'My vegetable love would grow/Vaster than empires, and more slow' (see vol. 1, p. 1703); Auden, 'As I Walked Out One Evening,' lines 9?12: ' 'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you / Till China and Africa meet / And the river jumps over the mountain / And the salmon sing in the street' (see vol. 2, p. 2427).
Irony (Greek 'dissimulation'): strictly, a subset of allegory: whereas allegory says one thing and means another, irony says one thing and means its opposite; Byron, Don Juan 1.1?2: 'I want a hero: an uncommon want, / Whe n every year and month sends forth a new one' (see vol. 2, p. 670). For an extended example of irony, see Swift's 'Modest Proposal.' Litotes (from Greek 'smooth'): strictly, understatement by denying the contrary; More, Utopia: 'differences of no slight import' (see vol. 1, p. 524). More loosely, understatement; Swift, 'A Tale of a Tub': 'Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it altered her person for the worse' (see vol. 1, p. 2320). Stevie Smith, 'Sunt Leones,' lines 11?
12: 'And if the Christians felt a little blue? / Well people being eaten often do' (see vol. 2, p. 2373). Metaphor (Greek 'carrying across,' etymologically parallel to Latin 'translation') : the identification or implicit identification of one thing with another with which it is not literally identifiable. Blake, 'London,' lines 11?12: 'And the hapless Soldier's sigh / Runs in blood down Palace walls' (see vol. 2, p. 94).
Metonymy (Greek 'change of name'): using a word to denote another concept or other concepts, by virtue of habitual association. Thu s 'The Press,' designating printed news media. Fictional names often work by associations of this kind. A figure closely related to synecdoche.
Occupatio (Latin 'taking possession'): denying that one will discuss a subject while actually discussing it; also known as 'praeteritio' (Latin 'passing by'). See Chaucer, Nun's Priest's Tale, lines 414?32 (see vol. 1, p. 308).
Oxymoron (Greek 'sharp blunt'): conjunction of normally incompatible terms; Milton, Paradise Lost 1.63: 'darkness visible' (see vol. 1, p. 1833). Ramanujan, 'Foundlings in the Yukon,' line 41: 'these infants compact with age' (see vol. 2, p. 2582).
Paradox (Greek 'contrary to received opinion'): an apparent contradiction that requires thought to reveal an inner consistency. Chaucer, 'Troilus's Song,' line 12: 'O sweete harm so quainte' (see vol. 1, p. 316).
Periphrasis (Greek 'declaring around'): circumlocution; the use of many words to express what could be expressed in few or one; Sidney, Astroph.il and Stella 39.1-4 (vol. 1, p. 982).
Personification, or prosopopoeia (Greek 'person making'): the attribution of huma n qualities to nonhuma n forces or objects; Shakespeare, King Lear
3.2.1: 'Blow winds and crack your cheeks, rage! Blow!' (see vol. 1, p. 1182). Pun: a sometimes irresolvable doubleness of meaning in a single word or expression; Shakespeare, Sonnet 135, line 1: 'Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will' (see vol. 1, p. 1075).
Sarcasm (Greek 'flesh tearing'): a wounding remark, often expressed ironically; Boswell, Life of Johnson: Johnson [asked if any ma n of the modern age could have written the epic poem Fingal] replied, 'Yes, Sir, many men, many women, and many children' (see vol. 1, p. 2792).
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Simile (Latin 'like'): comparison, usually using the word 'like' or 'as,' of one thing with another so as to produce sometimes surprising analogies. Donne, 'The Storm,' lines 29?30: 'Sooner than you read this line did the gale, / Like shot, not feared till felt, our sails assail.' Frequently used, in extended form, in epic poetry; Milton, Paradise Lost 1.338?46 (see vol. 1, p. 1839).
Symbol (Greek 'token'): something that stands for something else, and yet seems necessarily to evoke that other thing. Blake, 'The Sick Rose,' lines 1-8: 'O Rose, thou art sick. / The invisible worm / That flies in the night / In the howling storm / Has found out thy bed / Of crimson joy, And his dark secret love / Does thy life destroy' (see vol. 2, p. 91). In Neoplatonic, and therefore Romantic, theory, to be distinguished from allegory thus: whereas allegory involves connections between vehicle and tenor agreed by convention or made explicit, the meanings of a symbol are supposedly inherent to it. For discussion, see Coleridge, 'On Symbol and Allegory' (vol. 2, p. 488).
Synecdoche (Greek 'to take with something else'): using a part to express the whole, or vice versa; 'Donne,
