Lecture
Apostrophe (from Anc. Gr. ἀποστροφή «apostrophe», lit. «a turning away»), also called metobasis or metabasis (from μετάβᾰσις «transition») — an exclamatory rhetorical figure of speech in which the speaker or writer breaks off the narrative and addresses an absent person as though present or imaginary, or a real, abstract concept, object, or quality. In dramatic and poetic literary works, apostrophe is a rhetorical device, an address (often unexpected) to one of the listeners or readers, to an imaginary person, or to an inanimate object. In Russian, apostrophe is often introduced by the exclamation «O» .
My verses! Living witnesses
Of tears shed for the world!
You are born in fateful moments
Of tempests of the soul
And beat against human hearts,
As waves against a cliff.
— N. A. Nekrasov
A dreary time! A charm to the eyes!
Your parting beauty pleases me —
I love nature's sumptuous decay,
The forests clothed in crimson and in gold,
The wind's noise and fresh breath in their depths,
And the sky covered with a rippling haze,
And the sun's rare ray, and the first frosts,
And the distant threats of hoary winter.
— A. S. Pushkin, Autumn
Oh, radiant summer! I would love you,
Were it not for the heat, the dust, the gnats, the flies.
You, destroying all our mental powers,
Torment us; like the fields, we suffer from the drought;
Only how to quench our thirst and refresh ourselves —
No other thought is left in us, and we pity old winter;
And, having seen her off with pancakes and wine,
We hold her wake with ice cream and ice.
— A. S. Pushkin, Autumn
Not in vain did you toss and seethe,
Hastening your unfolding, —
You accomplished your feat before the body,
O mad soul!
| Figures of speech | |
|---|---|
| Figures |
Adynaton • Allusion • Amplification • Anadiplosis • Anacoluthon • Anaphora • Antithesis • Antitheton • Apocope • Apostrophe • Attraction • Asyndeton • Hyperbaton •Homoeoteleuton • Gradation (Climax, Anticlimax) • Distinctio • Zeugma • Isocolon • Nominative of theme • Inversion • Correctio • Mesarchia •Polyptoton • Polysyndeton • Oxymoron • Parallelism • Paronomasia • Parcellation • Periphrasis • Pleonasm • Prolepsis • Retardation •Rhetorical question • Rhetorical exclamation • Rhetorical address • Symploce • Solecism • Tautology • Exact repetition • Aposiopesis • Chiasmus • Exergasia •Ellipsis • Emphasis • Epiphora |
| Tropes |
Allegory • Antiphrasis • Asteism • Antonomasia • Hyperbole • Dysphemism • Irony • Pun • Catachresis • Litotes • Meiosis • Metaphor • Metonymy • Personification •Pathos • Periphrasis • Sarcasm • Synecdoche • Simile • Euphemism • Epithet |
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