Figures of Speech1

First group

 Assonance
It involves repetition of vowel sounds:
“On a proud round cloud in white high night” (E.E. Cummings)
 Alliteration
- a repetition of the same consonant at the beginning of neighboring words or accented
syllables: "the merry month of May; (G. Keats)
 Onomatopoeia: use of words to imitate natural sounds: crack, jazz, whistle.
 Anaphora
Anaphora is the deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several successive
verses, clauses, or paragraphs:
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony, not understood; (Pope, An Essay on Man)
 Epiphora

is a form of repetition in which a word or words is repeated at the end of successive clauses
or sentences. The definition of epiphora is the same as that of epistrophe. An example:

BASSANIO: Sweet Portia,

If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
If you did know for whom I gave the ring,
And would conceive for what I gave the ring,
And how unwillingly I left the ring
When naught would be accepted but the ring,
You would abate the strength of your displeasure. (Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice)

1
Definitions and examples in the file are taken from: https://mcl.as.uky.edu/glossary-rhetorical-terms,
http://www.literarydevices.com/epiphora/, https://mcl.as.uky.edu/glossary-rhetorical-terms, http://cito-
web.yspu.org/link1/metod/met44/node25.html,
 Anadiplosis (catch repetition, "doubling") - the repetition of the initial, middle or final
word or word-group in a sentence or clause at the beginning of the next with the adjunct idea.

"Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task." (Henry James)

 Symploce

Symploce is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is used successively at the beginning of
two or more clauses or sentences and another word or phrase with a similar wording is used
successively at the end of them. It is the combination of anaphora and epistrophe. 

Second group

 Metaphor: implied comparison achieved through a figurative use of words; the word is
used not in its literal sense, but in one analogous to it.
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage. (Shakespeare, Macbeth)

 Metonymy: substitution of one word for another which it suggests.

The pen is mightier than the sword.

 Synedoche – the naming of a thing or concept by the name of its parts (very similar to
metonymy), e.g. pair of hands

 Personification: attribution of personality to an impersonal thing.

England expects every man to do his duty. Lord Nelson

 Euphemism: substitution of an agreeable or at least non-offensive expression for one

whose plainer meaning might be harsh or unpleasant.

 Epithet: descriptive term that’s added to someone’s name that becomes part of common
usage: star-cross’d lovers (Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare)

 Allegory and Symbolism: Although an allegory uses symbols, it is different from

symbolism. An allegory is a complete narrative that involves characters and events that
stand for an abstract idea or event. A symbol, on the other hand, is an object that stands
for another object, giving it a particular meaning. 

Third group
  Asyndeton ("bounding together") - the deliberate avoidance of conjunctions
(connectives).

"...no units, no flowers, no leaves, no birds..." (Th. Hood)

 Polysyndeton - repetition of conjunction(s) in close succession as one of the

homogeneous parts, or clauses, or sentences, opposed to asyndeton.

"They were all three from Milan and one of them was to be a lawyer, and one was to be a
painter, and one had intended to be a soldier..." (E. Hemingway)

Fourth group

 Simile - a figure of speech in which two objects are compared, one of them being likened
to the other; a kind of comparison introduced with the help of special grammatical means
(conjunctions: as if, like) or suggested by such verbs as resemble, remind and seem.

plain as the nose on your face;

different as chalk from cheese;

 Antithesis

So antithesis means setting opposite, or contrast. As a figure of speech it’s used when two
opposites are introduced in the same sentence, for contrasting effect. For example: “Many are
called but few are chosen”

 Hyperbole: exaggeration for emphasis or for rhetorical effect.

My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should got to praise
Thine eyes and on thine forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest. (Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress)

 Litotes ("plain, simple") - a type of ironical understatement made for emphasis; an

affirmation expressed by denying its contrary:

He is not half bad... He had not been unhappy the whole day. (E. Hemingway)
 Gradation (``step'') - the arrangement of ideas in such a way that each succeeding one
rises above its predecessor in impact (impressiveness or force): "little by little, bit by bit,
and day by day, and year by year..." (Ch. Dickens)

 Irony: expression of something which is contrary to the intended meaning; the words say
one thing but mean another.
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man. (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar)

 Oxymoron: apparent paradox achieved by the juxtaposition of words which seem to

contradict one another.
I must be cruel only to be kind. Shakespeare, Hamlet

 Paradox ("irregular, wrong opinion") - a statement which though it appears to be self-

contradictory, nevertheless involves truth: "Wine costs money; blood costs nothing."  (B.
Shaw)