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

     Hope holds to Christ the mind’s own mirror out

     To take His lovely likeness more and more.

     When anastrophe draws an adverb to the head of a thought, for emphasis, the verb is drawn along too, resulting in a verb-subject inversion:

     "Never have I found the limits of the photographic potential. Every horizon, upon being reached, reveals another beckoning in the distance" (W. Eugene Smith).

     An anaphora (Greek: "carrying back") is a rhetorical device that consists of repeating a sequence of words at the beginnings of neighboring clauses, thereby lending them emphasis.

     One author well-known for his use of anaphora is Charles Dickens (seen in quote below). Some of his best-known works constantly portray their themes through use of this literary tool.

     In time the savage bull sustains the yoke,

     In time all haggard hawks will stoop to lure,

     In time small wedges cleave the hardest oak,

     In time the flint is pierced with softest shower.(Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy)

     Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition! (William Shakespeare, King John)

     What the hammer? what the chain?

     In what furnace was thy brain?

     What the anvil? what dread grasp

     Dare its deadly terrors clasp? (William Blake, The Tyger)

     In every cry of every man,

     In every infant's cry of fear,

     In every voice, in every ban,

     The mind-forged manacles I hear: ( William Blake, London)

     Strike as I struck the foe! Strike as I would

     Have struck those tyrants! Strike deep as my curse!

     Strike!—and but once! (Byron, Marino Faliero)

     It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way...  ( Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)

     Asyndeton (from the Greek: ἀσύνδετον, "unconnected", sometimes called asyndetism) is a stylistic scheme in which conjunctions are deliberately omitted from a series of related clauses. Examples are veni, vidi, vici and its English translation "I came, I saw, I conquered." Its use can have the effect of speeding up the rhythm of a passage and making a single idea more memorable. More generally, in grammar, an asyndetic coordination is a type of coordination in which no coordinating conjunction is present between the conjuncts.

     Aristotle wrote in his Rhetoric that this device was more effective in spoken oratories than in written prose:

     "Thus strings of unconnected words, and constant repetitions of words and phrases, are very properly condemned in written speeches: but not in spoken speeches — speakers use them freely, for they have a dramatic effect. In this repetition there must be variety of tone, paving the way, as it were, to dramatic effect; e.g., 'This is the villain among you who deceived you, who cheated you, who meant to betray you completely.'"[2,96]

     Aristotle also believed that asyndeton can be used effectively in endings of works, and he himself employs the device in the final passage of the Rhetoric:

"For the conclusion, the disconnected style of language is appropriate, and will mark the difference between the oration and the peroration. 'I have done. You have heard me. The facts are before you. I ask for your judgement.'"[2,107] 

     Several notable examples can be found in American political speeches:

"...and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." (Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address)

"...that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." (John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961.)

     An Antithesis (Greek for "setting opposite") is a counter-proposition and denotes a direct contrast to the original proposition. In setting the opposite, an individual brings out a contrast in the meaning (e.g., the definition, interpretation, or semantics) by an obvious contrast in the expression. Hell is the antithesis of Heaven; disorder is the antithesis of order. It is the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, usually in a balanced way. In rhetoric, it is a figure of speech involving the bringing out of a contrast in the ideas by an obvious contrast in the words, clauses, or sentences, within a parallel grammatical structure, as in the following:

     "When there is need of silence, you speak, and when there is need of speech, you are dumb; when you are present, you wish to be absent, and when absent, you desire to be present; in peace you are for war, and in war you long for peace; in council you descant on bravery, and in the battle you tremble."

     Antithesis is sometimes double or alternate, as in the appeal of Augustus:

     "Listen, young men, to an old man to whom old men were glad to listen when he was young."

     Some other examples of antithesis are:

     A) Man proposes, God disposes.

     B) Give everyman thy ear, but few thy voice.

     C) Many are called, but few are chosen.

     Among English writers who have made the most abundant use of antithesis are Pope, Young, Johnson, and Gibbon; and especially Lyly in his Euphues. The force of the antithesis is increased if the words on which the beat of the contrast falls are alliterative, or otherwise similar in sound. It gives an expression greater point and vivacity... than a judicious employment of this figure.

  Climax (from the Greek klimax, meaning "staircase" and "ladder") is a figure of speech in which words, phrases, or clauses are arranged in order of increasing importance.

       “He risked truth, he risked honor, he risked fame, he risked all that men hold dear,—yea, he risked life itself, and for what?—for a creature who was not worthy to tie his shoe-latchets when he was his better self.”

     Ellipsis or elliptical construction, in linguistics, (from the Greek: élleipsis, "omission") refers to the omission from a clause of one or more words that would otherwise be required by the remaining elements.

      Varieties of ellipsis have long formed a central explicandum for linguistic theory, since elliptical phenomena seem to be able to shed light on basic questions of form-meaning correspondence: in particular, the usual mechanisms of grasping a meaning from a form seem to be bypassed or supplanted in the interpretation of elliptical structures, ones in which there is meaning without form.

   Some examples of other elliptical phenomena are as follows:

Example: Jessica had five dollars; Monica, three. (The verb "had" was omitted at the comma).

Example: What if I miss the deadline? (The verb phrase "will happen" was omitted, as in "What will happen if I miss the deadline").

Example: Fire when ready. (In the sentence, "you are" is understood, as in "Fire when you are ready.").

     Litotes is a figure of speech in which understatement is employed for rhetorical effect. It is most often used to describe the expression of an idea by a denial of its opposite, principally via double negatives.For example, rather than saying that something is attractive (or even very attractive), one might merely say it is "not unattractive."

     A Pun, or paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic, homographic, metonymic, or metaphorical language. A pun differs from a malapropism in that, in a malapropism one uses an incorrect expression that alludes to another (usually correct) expression, but in a pun one uses a correct expression that alludes to another (sometimes correct but more often absurdly humorous) expression. Henri Bergson defined a pun as a sentence or utterance in which "two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words". Puns may be regarded as in-jokes or idiomatic constructions, given that their usage and meaning are entirely local to a particular language and its culture.

Puns are used to create humor and sometimes require a large vocabulary to understand. Puns have long been used by comedy writers, such as William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, and George Carlin.

     Epigram (from the Greek epi, upon, and graphein, to write), originally meant an inscription on a monument, hence it came to signify any pointed expression. It now means a statement or any brief saying in prose or poetry in which there is an apparent contradiction; as, “Conspicuous for his absence.” “Beauty when unadorned is most adorned.” “He was too foolish to commit folly.” “He was so wealthy that he could not spare the money.”

     Interrogation (from the Latin interrogatio, a question), is a figure of speech in which an assertion is made by asking a question; as, “Does God not show justice to all?” “Is he not doing right in his course?” “What can a man do under the circumstances?”

     An oxymoron (plural oxymorons or oxymora) (from Greek "sharp dull") is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms. Oxymorons appear in a variety of contexts, including inadvertent errors such as extremely average and literary oxymorons crafted to reveal a paradox.

     The most common form of oxymoron involves an adjective-noun combination of two words. For example, the following line from Tennyson's Idylls of the King contains two oxymorons:

     "And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true."

     Other oxymorons of this kind are;

     Jumbo Shrimp

     Cold sun

     Criminal justice

     Dark light

     Exact estimate

     General specifics

     Living dead

     Noisy silence

     New Classic

     Less often seen are noun-verb combinations of two words, such as the line

"The silence whistles". ( Nathan Alterman' s Summer Night)

Oxymorons are not always a pair of words; they can also be devised in the meaning of sentences or phrases. The rhyme below, in which nearly every line contains an oxymoron, serves as an example of various situational oxymorons:

     One sunny day in the middle of the night,

     Two dead boys got into a fight

     Back to back, they faced each other,

     Pulled out sabers and shot one another

     A deaf policeman heard the noise,

     And came and killed those two dead boys.

     Irony (from the Greek eironcia, dissimulation) is a form of expression in which the opposite is substituted for what is intended, with the end in view, that the falsity or absurdity may be apparent; as, “Benedict Arnold was an honorable man.” “A Judas Iscariot never betrays a friend.” “You can always depend upon the word of a liar.”

     Irony is cousin germane to ridicule, derision, mockery, satire and sarcasm. Ridicule implies laughter mingled with contempt; derision is ridicule from a personal feeling of hostility; mockery is insulting derision; satire is witty mockery; sarcasm is bitter satire and irony is disguised satire.

     There are many other figures of speech which give piquancy to language and play upon words in such a way as to convey a meaning different from their ordinary signification in common every-day speech and writing. The golden rule for all is to keep them in harmony with the character and purpose of speech and composition.