Rhetorical Devices “Use it or lose it.”

Walt Whitman’s Poem “O Captain, My Captain” was written addressing the dead Abraham Lincoln

apostrophe

“Appointing a Wall Street insider to direct the Securities and Exchange Commission is like telling a fox to guard the henhouse.”

analogy

“I came to bury Caesar, not to praise him “I came to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” (Shakespeare, Julius Cesar)

antithesis

“Isn’t she great?”

rhetorical question

“The White House denied any involvement in the scandal.”

Metonymy

Saying “ethnic cleansing” instead of “genocide”

euphemism

“I came, I saw, I conquered.” (2 Rhetorical Devices)

Asyndeton and tricolon

“Anfractuous rocks”

cacophony

“The tropics at first-hand: the trumpet-vine,/ fox-glove, giant snap-dragon, a salpiglossis that has / spots and stripes.” (Marianne Moore, “The Steeple-Jack) (2 rhetorical devices)

Catalog and alliteration

“All the other lads there were / were itching to have a bash “All the other lads there were / were itching to have a bash.” (Philip Larkin, “Send No Money”)

Colloquialism

“Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage.” (Shakespeare, Macbeth) (2 Rhetorical Devices)

personification and alliteration

“And all men kill the thing they love “And all men kill the thing they love.” (Oscar Wilde, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”) (2 Rhetorical Devices)

Paradox and personification

Ben Franklin once said, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

pun

“The pen is mightier than the sword”

Metonymy

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foes, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

parallelism

In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr. began by saying, “Five score years ago…”

allusion

“The world is very different now, for man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty” (3 Rhetorical Devices)

Metonymy, synechdoche, & metaphor