Shakespeare's Figures
Device is the word we use to describe any rhetorical Figure or flourish (otherwise known as “figurative language”) that Shakespeare deploys in his works. Like many poets of his time, Shakespeare was aware of the formal tricks that Greek and Roman poets used; his adoption and innovative use of Figures or Devices help set the tone of his works and also show his skill as a poet. In plays, characters’ use of language with devices tell us about all sorts of things about characters and the actions transpiring; they also create imagery and provide structure to speeches that aid audiences’ comprehension and memory.
Devices that create Imagery: Metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche combine within works to create system of mental pictures that we refer to as imagery. Imagery can help underline themes and define characters, giving extra emotional power to scenes and action. A recurring image or cluster or words in the same vein is called a Motif
Metaphor/simile: Comparisons made directly (metaphor: “my mistress’ cheeks are roses in bloom”) or using “like” or “as” (simile: “my mistress’ cheeks are like roses in bloom”). They allow readers to see more than the lines say by helping create a mental image linking something complex or abstract to something more familiar. The use of metaphors and similes can help underline significant themes within works. An extended metaphor in a poem is called a Conceit.
Metonymy (MET-AHN-UMY): the use of an emotionally associated object for an idea (“the white house” to refer to the U.S. Government; “the throne” to refer to the English monarch).
Synecdoche (SIN-ECK-DOH-KEY): similar to metonymy, synecdoche is the use of specific parts of something to refer to the whole: (calling your car your “wheels,” asking for somebody’s “hand” in marriage)
Devices that project humanity onto animals, objects, or abstractions (or vice versa)
Personification: This device involves giving animals or objects human qualities (“the moon looked down upon us” or “the ship groaned”). Shakespeare doesn’t use it as often as you might think.
Apostrophe: An Apostrophe is a direct address to a quality or abstract idea as if it were present to hear the address (as in “Death, thou shalt die!” in Donne’s poem “Death be not Proud” or “Frailty, thy name is woman!” in Hamlet; see also Viola’s apostrophe to Disguise and Time in 2.3.22/35 in Tweltfth Night.
Allegory: Allegory is an extended metaphor that typically involves naming a person after an abstract quality, such as Miranda in The Tempest (Miranda means “wonder”), or giving an abstract quality human form. For instance, Shakespeare’s goddess of Love in Venus and Adonis functions allegorically, in that all of Venus’ qualities are those the poem attributes to love as an emotion or thing.
Devices that amplify, diminish, or moderate
These devices affect how readers/listeners respond to a subject or concept by by making it loom larger or shrink in quality.
Hyperbole/Litotes (LIE-TOE-TEES): Hyperbole is an exaggeration, and Litotes is an intentional understatement. “This is the best [or worst] pie ever!” vs. “This pie ain’t half bad!”
Adynaton (A-DIN-NUH-TON): Adynaton is a kind of Hyperbole that gets its meaning and effect from its sheer impossibility. When somebody says you’ll get to do something “over their dead body,” they’re using Hyperbole because they are by referring to an unlikely, though possible, scenario. If somebody tells you you’ll get to do something “when pigs fly,” however, they’re using Adynaton, since the scenario is neither likely nor even possible.
Systrophe: Systrophe is the listing of multiple qualities or effects of something. For example, Hamlet notes “What a piece of work is man,” and then goes on to amplify that claim by offering (in the form of questions) various ways in which man is a piece of work: he’s “noble,” “infinite in faculty, in forme and mouing,” “expresse and admirable,” “in Action….like an Angel,” “in apprehension…like a God,” “the beauty of the world, the Parragon of Animals” (2.2.294-297-8).
Devices that create or depend on aural (sound) effects
These devices play on the way words sound together and affect how the ear hears the poem.
Onomatopoeia (ON-NO-MAH-TOE-FEE-UH): words meant to evoke sounds. The device is used to help audiences visualize images (and for audiences of drama, actions that aren’t actually happening on stage) by appealing to their sense of hearing.
Alliteration: the repetition of initial sounds, as in “dig deep” and “much more” in Sonnet two.
- Assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds within words in a line. Think of “The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain.” Consonance: final consonant sounds repeated. For instance, “bed, brewed, and broached”
Caesura (SAY-SURE-UH): a break in a line that creates a pause/silence. Typically indicates strong emotion, used for emphasis.
Anaphora (UH-NAF-OR-UH) /Antistrophe (AN-TIS-TRO-FEE): Repetition of words at beginnings of lines (anaphora) or end of lines (antistrophe). They are used to emphasize a point or a word or to cue amplification/accumulation.
Paronomasia (PAIR-OH-NO-MAY-SHIA): This device revolves around homophones or similar sounding words. Mercutio uses it in Romeo and Juliet when he says “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man,” punning on two senses of the word “grave.”
Antimeria (AN-TIM-AREA): The use of one part of speech as if it were another. Often, Antimeria takes the form of a noun getting used as a verb, as in "I googled it," or the idea that somebody can “ham it up” or “summer in Cabo”.
Antinaclasis (AN-TIN-ACK-LUH-SIS): This device occurs when poets repeat a word or word form but use a different sense in the second instance. Famous coach Vince Lombardi gives us a great example of the device in modern usage: “If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.”
Devices that conflate or separate
Some devices use word order and repetition to create contrasts and draw parallels between words or concepts.
Chiasmus (KEY-AS-MUS)/Antimetabole (AN-TI-MET-TAB-OH-LEE): Chiasmus involves consecutive grammatical constructions in which one clause is followed by a second that uses the same construction with the words and ideas conveyed therein in inverted order. Chiasmus and Antimetabole are catchy, for one thing, and more significantly, show off a speaker’s verbal dexterity; the use of either device also emphasizes an important distinction or parallel of some sort between the two items that are inverted and set apart therein. Take for instance this line from Othello:
“Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet strong loves…” (3.3)
If something has a Chiastic structure, you can draw an ‘X’ (Greek letter Chi) to connect the ideas that are similar but placed structurally in opposition. Antimetabole is a more specific kind of Chiasmus in which the exact words are inverted; examples include “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” “Hang on, Sloopy, Sloopy Hang on,” and “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
Antithesis: IMPORTANT: Antithesis, as we use it in poetic analysis, is not simply about opposing ideas. In fact, antithesis is often less about opposition than it is parallelism. Sometimes that parallelism helps to emphasize contrasting ideas or words, but it does so in a balanced construction that relies on repetition. In contrast to Chiasmus, the repetition of phrases or ideas occurs in the same order. In Julius Caesar, Brutus uses Antithesis when he justifies his murder by saying he did it “Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.” Notice the repeated phrase “I loved X…I loved Y more” uses the same structure twice, but then adds in a distinction, swapping out Caesar with Rome, and then adding “more” at the end. Antithesis may not even involve a stark contrast; sometimes the word that follows the repeated element will be something only slightly different.
Moreover, sometimes Shakespeare uses antithesis in grammatical structures rather than in the precise phrasing. In a speech in 4.3 of Twelfth Night, Sebastian talks to himself in order to work out whether he is mad or whether Olivia is mad, noting that if she were indeed mad, she would not be able to “sway her house, command her followers” or “take and give back affairs…” (4.3.16-17). In each case, Shakespeare uses a verb (sway/command/take/give) and then an object that the verb is enacted upon (house/followers/affairs). Each one relies on the same construction (verb/direct object), though the same words aren’t repeated in all three constructions.
Oxymoron: a phrase that blends contrasting or seemingly incompatible ideas or things. Petrarch, the influential Italian sonneteer, frequently uses the image of a freezing fire to describe his beloved Laura and the feelings she awakens in him. An oxymoron evokes feelings of strangeness and can shock readers/listeners out of complacency through contrast and paradox, a claim that seems to be in opposition to common sense, but may in fact have some truth in it. Shakespeare uses “master mistress” in Sonnet 20, for instance, and we see it again in Twelfth Night when Orsino describes Cesario/Viola as “your master’s mistress.”
Zeugma: This device involves linking multiple things to a common action; using a single verb for more than one subject allows a poet to preserve meter and create other effects in sound and meaning. Here too, Sonnet 20 provides a useful example:
A woman's face with nature's own hand painted, 1
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion: 4
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;… 6
Notice how “A woman’s face,” “A woman’s heart” and “An eye” in the first four lines are all linked to the same verbal phrase “hast thou,” so that Shakespeare is relieved of the burden of having to use up additional syllables to repeat the same information.
(hgf has a lot of things to say about shakespeare + language)