Stylistic figures are elements of poetic language that enhance the impact of the text on the reader, forming a special figurative structure of poetic speech; they make the perception of a work of art more vivid and vivid. 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 expression, but it is dangerous to overload a work with them: in this case, any literary text will look cumbersome and awkward, turning into a dry catalog of metaphors, comparisons, epithets. Artistic taste, a sense of artistic tact - this is no less important for a novice (and venerable) author than talent, giftedness.
Language means of expression can be divided into two headings. The first includes compositional turns that enhance the brightness of the statement (actually stylistic figures - anaphora, grotesque, irony, epiphora, synecdoche, antithesis, gradation, oxymoron and many others). The second group consists of tropes - words used in an indirect sense; themexpressiveness, expressiveness lies in the artistic rethinking of the lexical meaning (semantics) of the word. Tropes include metaphor, metonymy, litote, hyperbole, simile, epithet, etc.
Let's take a closer look at some of the most commonly used stylistic figures and tropes.
Anaphora - translated from Greek - unity. A stylistic figure based on an accentuated repetition of initial words or part of a phrase
Rhetorical appeal or question - a statement built in the form of a question or appeal, usually to an inanimate object; usually does not imply an answer, used to highlight, draw attention to a part of the text
Oh, you who are banished by poetry, Who did not find a place in our prose, I hear the cry of the poet Juvenal:
"Shame, nightmare, he transferred me!" (R. Burns).
Antithesis is an artistically enhanced opposition
I'm decaying in the dust, I command thunder with my mind!
I am a king - I am a slave;
I am a worm - I am a god! (G. R. Derzhavin).
Polyunion - excessive use of conjunctions, enhancing the expressiveness of the statement
I don't want to choose either a cross or a graveyard… (I. Brodsky).
Inversion is a deliberate change in the usual order of words in a sentence
If stylistic figures are mainly used in poetic works, then with the help of tropes it is possible to enrich, make the prose text more expressive and expressive.
Metaphor occupies an important place among the tropes, almost all other tropes are related to it or are a special type of metaphor manifestation. So, a metaphor is the transfer of a name from an object to an object on the basis of 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 an omitted comparative connective. But still, the metaphor is more difficult than comparison, it is more complete, complete.
The following main types of metaphor are distinguished: general language (occasional) and artistic (usual). The general language metaphor is the source of the emergence of new names in the language (the leg of a chair, the spout of a teapot, the handle of a bag). The idea of comparison, the living expressive image underlying such a metaphorical transfer, is gradually erased (a linguistic metaphor is also called erased), the expressive coloring of the statement is lost. A living literary metaphor, on the contrary, becomes the center of a literary text:
Anna threw him this ball of coquetry…(L. N. Tolstoy).
Particular cases of metaphor are epithet (expressive, expressive definition) and personification (metaphorical transfer of a sign like "from a living to an inanimate object"):
Silent sadness will be comforted and joy will quickly reflect …. (A. S. Pushkin).
Hyperbole (artistic exaggeration) is considered a very expressive and powerful means of linguistic expression: rivers of blood, a deafening cry.
Stylisticfigures and tropes of speech are the basis of the figurative structure of the language. The skill of the writer does not at all consist in the constant use of old, bored with all forms of linguistic expressiveness. On the contrary, a talented author will be able to breathe life content even into a well-known literary device, thus attracting the reader's attention, refreshing the perception of a literary text.
