Stylistic figures are elements of a poetic language that enhance the influence of the text on the reader, forming a special figurative system of poetic speech; they make the perception of a work of art more vibrant and vibrant. Stylistic figures have been known since antiquity; they were first described in the works of Aristotle (Poetics, Rhetoric).
Stylistic figures of speech are a powerful means of linguistic expressiveness, but overloading a work with them is dangerous: in this case, any literary text will look bulky and awkward, will turn into a dry catalog of metaphors, comparisons, epithets. Artistic taste, a sense of artistic tact - this is no less important for a beginner (and venerable) author than talent, giftedness.
Language means of expression can be divided into two sections. The first includes compositional revolutions that enhance the brightness of the utterance (stylistic figures proper - anaphora, grotesque, irony, epiphora, synecdoch, antithesis, gradation, oxymoron and many others). The second group consists of paths - words used in an indirect sense; their expressiveness, expressiveness lies in the artistic rethinking of the lexical meaning (semantics) of the word. The paths include metaphor, metonymy, litota, hyperbole, comparison, epithet, etc.
Let us dwell in more detail on some of the most frequently used stylistic figures and paths.
- Anafora - translated from Greek - mononomy. A stylistic figure based on an accented repetition of the initial words or part of a phrase.
- A rhetorical appeal or question is a statement constructed in the form of a question or appeal, as a rule, to an inanimate object; usually does not imply an answer, is used to highlight, draw attention to parts of the text.
Oh you whom poetry cast out
Who didn’t find a place in our prose,
I hear the cry of the poet Juvenal:
“Shame, a nightmare, he translated me!” (R. Burns).
- Antithesis is an artistically enhanced contrast.
I decay with my body in dust
I command the thunders of mind!
I am a king - I am a slave;
I am a worm - I am a god! (G.R. Derzhavin).
- Multi-union - excessive use of unions, enhancing the expressiveness of the statement.
I don’t want to choose either a cross or a churchyard ... (I. Brodsky).
- Inversion is a deliberate change in the usual word order in a sentence.
If stylistic figures are mainly used in poetic works, then with the help of tropes it is possible to enrich, make a more expressive and expressive prose text.
An important place among the pathways is occupied by a metaphor; almost all other paths are related to it or are a special type of manifestation of a metaphor. So, a metaphor is the transfer of a name from an object to an object based on the similarity of external or internal features, the similarity of the impression made or the idea of the structure of the object. It is always based on an analogy; many linguists define it as a comparison with a missing comparative connective. Nevertheless, the metaphor is more complicated than comparison; it is more complete, completed.
The following main types of metaphor are distinguished: general linguistic (occasional) and artistic (normal). A common language metaphor is the source of the appearance of new names in the language (chair leg, teapot spout, bag handle). The idea of comparison, the lively expressive image that underlies this metaphorical transfer, is gradually erased (the linguistic metaphor is also called erased), the expressive coloring of the statement is lost. A living artistic metaphor, on the contrary, becomes the center of a literary text:
Anna threw him this ball of coquetry ... (L.N. Tolstoy).
Particular cases of a metaphor are epithet (expressive, expressive definition) and personification (metaphorical transfer of a sign according to the type of “from living to non-living object”):
Silent sadness will be comforted, and frisky will think joy over .... (A.S. Pushkin).
A very expressive and powerful means of linguistic expression is considered hyperbole (artistic exaggeration): rivers of blood, a deafening scream.
Stylistic figures and speech paths are the basis of the figurative structure of the language. The writer's skill does not consist in the constant use of the old forms of linguistic expression boring to everyone. On the contrary, a talented author will be able to breathe living content even into a well-known literary device, thus attracting the attention of the reader, refreshing the perception of a literary text.