Rhetorical Devices and Literary Figures
Allegory
A series of continuous images or metaphors that give each text a real sense and a figurative or literal one. For example, Gonzalo de Berceo, in the “Introduction to the Miracles of Our Lady,” presents Paradise (real sense) as a field (image) in which there are sources (= the gospels), birds (= saints), and flowers (= names of the Virgin, etc.).
Alliteration
Repetition of a sound in words close to or in one sentence:
Noise with the raucous rolling storm. (J. Zorrilla)
Anaphora
Repetition of a word or words at the beginning of several lines or sentences:
Once upon a man stuck to a nose,
Once upon a nose superlative…
Antithesis
Opposition between the meanings of two words or phrases in one sentence:
I watch when you sleep, I cry when you sing… (Cervantes)
Apostrophe
A rhetorical figure which is addressed to a person (present or absent) or an inanimate being:
To hear me, oh sun!, I salute you. (Espronceda)
Asyndeton
Suppression of conjunctions:
Come, run, fly,
the high mountain passes, took the plain. (Fray Luis de León)
Comparison (or Simile)
We compare two things or concepts, usually through the nexus “as”:
Your hair is blond like gold.
Ellipsis
Removal of one or more words in a sentence without altering its meaning, as is implied by the context:
For a look, a world;
for a smile, a sky;
by a kiss… I do not know
what I would give you for a kiss! (G.A. Bécquer)
Epithet
An adjective that underlines or emphasizes a quality that is characteristic of the noun it accompanies, usually goes as a prefix:
For you the green grass, the cool wind,
lily white and pink
sweet spring wanted. (Garcilaso de la Vega)
Hyperbaton
Alteration of the normal order of the sentence:
It was the flowering season of the year… (Góngora)
Hyperbole
Exaggeration beyond the probable, in order to aggrandize or belittle the idea expressed:
So fair was the blonde girl, that
when she combs, the sun does not go! (Amado Nervo)
Irony
It consists of expressing an idea by saying just the opposite, but so that the receiver can recognize the true meaning:
They ate an eternal meal, without beginning or end. (Quevedo)
Metaphor
Changing the meaning of a word from another in which it bears some resemblance:
The gold of your hair (gold color = blond).
Metonymy
Designating one thing with the name of another, when there is any relationship between them:
- Had drinks (drinks = the contents of the bowls)
- Takes home a Picasso (Picasso = Picasso’s painting)
- A herd of a hundred heads (heads = sheep)
Onomatopoeia
Words whose sounds imitate phonemes: burble, buzz, zigzag, rip.
Paradox
Union of two seemingly contradictory ideas:
Dying are born and living die. (F. de Quevedo)
Parallelism
Repetition of the same syntactic construction, with only some slight variation in two or more successive verses:
Sighs are air and go into the air,
Tears are water and go to sea. (G.A. Bécquer)
Personification or Prosopopoeia
We attribute human qualities to inanimate things:
The night trembling flame
the glass of the windows… (F. García Lorca)
Polysyndeton
Repetition of a conjunction:
There is a palace and a river,
and a lake and an old bridge,
and sources with moss and grass… (J.R. Jiménez)
Symbol
Image or reality perceived by the senses that represents something different, abstract, or spiritual:
The “balance” is a symbol of justice, and the “dove” represents peace.
Simile
See Comparison.
Synaesthesia
The feelings and qualities of one sense are attributed to another:
What violet peace! (J.R. Jiménez)
Give the true flavor blue dream (V. Aleixandre)