The means of expression in the literature is called differently by the term "trope". A trope is a rhetorical figure, expression or word that is used in a figurative sense in order to enhance the artistic expressiveness and figurativeness of the language. Various types of these figures are widely used in literary works, they are also used in everyday speech and oratory. The main types of tropes include such as hyperbole, epithet, metonymy, comparison, metaphor, synecdoche, irony, litote, paraphrase, personification, allegory. Today we will talk about the following three types: comparison, hyperbole and metaphor. Each of the above means of expression in the literature will be considered in detail by us.
Metaphor: Definition
The word "metaphor" in translation means "portable meaning", "transfer". This is an expression or word that is used in an indirect sense, the basis of this trope is the comparison of an object (unnamed) withothers according to the similarity of some feature. That is, a metaphor is a turn of speech, which consists in the use of expressions and words in a figurative sense based on comparison, similarity, analogy.
The following 4 elements can be distinguished in this trail: context or category; an object within this category; the process by which a given object performs a specific function; application of the process to specific situations or intersections with them.
A metaphor in lexicology is a semantic relationship that exists between the meanings of some polysemantic word, which is based on the presence of similarity (functional, external, structural). Often this trope seems to become an aesthetic end in itself, thereby displacing the original, original meaning of a particular concept.
Types of metaphors
It is customary to distinguish between the following two types in modern theory describing metaphor: diaphora (that is, a contrasting, sharp metaphor), as well as epiphora (erased, familiar).
An expanded metaphor is a metaphor carried out consistently throughout either the entire message as a whole or a large fragment of it. An example can be offered as follows: "The hunger for books continues: more and more products from the book market turn out to be stale - they have to be thrown away immediately without trying."
There is also the so-called realized metaphor, which involves operating with an expression without taking into account its figurative nature. Otherswords, as if a metaphor had a direct meaning. The result of such an implementation is often comical. Example: "He lost his temper and got on the tram".
Metaphors in artistic speech
In the formation of various artistic metaphors, as we have already mentioned, characterizing this trope, the associative links that exist between various objects play an important role. Metaphors as a means of expressiveness in literature activate our perception, violate the "comprehensibility" and automatism of the narrative.
In artistic speech and language, the following two models are distinguished, according to which this trope is formed. The first of these is based on personification or animation. The second relies on reification. Metaphors (words and expressions) created according to the first model are called personifying. Examples: “frost bound the lake”, “snow lies”, “a year has flown by”, “stream runs”, “feelings fade away”, “time has stopped”, “boredom has stuck). will", "root of evil", "tongues of flame", "finger of fate").
Linguistic and individual varieties of this trope as a means of expression in literature are always present in artistic speech. They give character to the text. When studying various works, especially poetic ones, one should carefully analyze what an artistic metaphor is. Their various typesare widely used if the authors seek to express a subjective, personal attitude to life, creatively transform the surrounding world. For example, in romantic works, it is in metaphorization that the attitude of writers to man and the world is expressed. In philosophical and psychological lyrics, including realistic ones, this trope is indispensable as a means of individualizing various experiences, as well as expressing the philosophical ideas of certain poets.
Examples of metaphors created by classical poets
A. S. Pushkin, for example, the following metaphors are found: "the moon is creeping", "sad glades", "noisy dreams", youth "slyly advises".
At M. Yu. Lermontov: the desert "listens" to God, the star speaks with the star, "conscience dictates", "angry mind" leads with a pen.
F. I. Tyutcheva: winter is "angry", spring is "knocking" on the window, "sleepy" twilight.
Metaphors and symbolic images
In turn, metaphors can become the basis for various symbolic images. In the work of Lermontov, for example, they make up such symbolic images as “palm” and “pine” (“In the wild north …”), “sail” (the poem of the same name). Their meaning is in the metaphorical likening of a pine tree, a sail to a lonely person who is looking for his own path in life, suffering or rebellious, carrying his loneliness as a burden. Metaphors are also the basis of poetic symbols createdin the poetry of Blok and many other symbolists.
Comparison: Definition
Comparison is a trope, which is based on the likening of a certain phenomenon or object to another on the basis of a certain common feature. The purpose pursued by this means of expression is to reveal in the given object various properties that are important and new for the subject of the utterance.
They distinguish in comparison: the compared object (which is called the object of comparison), the object (comparator) with which this comparison occurs, as well as a common feature (comparative, in other words - "base of comparison"). One of the distinguishing features of this trope is the mention of both the compared object, while the common feature is not necessarily indicated. Comparison should be distinguished from metaphor.
This trope is typical for oral folk art.
Types of comparisons
Different kinds of comparisons are available. This is built in the form of a comparative turnover, which is formed with the help of unions "exactly", "as if", "as if", "as". Example: "He is stupid as a sheep, but cunning as hell." There are also non-union comparisons, which are sentences that have a compound nominal predicate. A famous example: "My home is my castle." Formed with the help of a noun used in the instrumental case, for example, "he walks like a gogol." There are those who deny: "An attempt is not torture."
Comparison in literature
Comparison as a techniqueused widely in artistic speech. With the help of it, parallels, correspondences, similarities between people, their lives and natural phenomena are revealed. The comparison thus reinforces the various associations that the writer has.
Often this trope is a whole associative array, which is needed in order for the image to appear. So, in the poem "To the Sea", written by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, the author evokes a number of associations with the sea with "geniuses" (Byron and Napoleon) and man in general. They are fixed in various comparisons. The sound of the sea, with which the poet says goodbye, is compared with the "mournful" murmur of a friend, "calling" him at the farewell hour. The poet in Byron's personality sees the same qualities that are present in the "free element": depth, power, indomitability, gloom. It seems that both Byron and the sea are two creatures with the same nature: freedom-loving, proud, unstoppable, spontaneous, strong-willed.
Comparison in folk poetry
Folk poetry uses widely used similes, which are similes based on tradition, used in certain situations. They are not individual, but taken from the stock of a folk singer or storyteller. This is a figurative model that is easily reproduced in the necessary situation. Of course, poets who rely on folklore also use such stable comparisons in their work. M. Yu. Lermontov, for example, in his work "The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov" writes thatthe king from the height of heaven looked "like a hawk" at the gray-winged "young dove".
Hyperbole definition
The word "hyperbole" in Russian is a term that means "exaggeration", "excess", "excess", "transition". This is a stylistic figure, which is a deliberate and obvious exaggeration in order to enhance expressiveness and emphasize a particular idea. For example: "we have enough food for six months", "I've said it a thousand times already".
Hyperbole is often combined with various other stylistic devices, to which it gives the appropriate color. These are metaphors ("waves rose like mountains") and hyperbolic comparisons. The situation or character depicted may also be hyperbolic. This trope is also characteristic of oratory, rhetorical style, used here as a pathetic device, as well as romantic, where pathos is in contact with irony.
Examples in which hyperbole is used in Russian are winged expressions and phraseological units ("lightning fast", "fast as lightning", "sea of tears", etc.). The list could go on and on.
Hyperbole in Literature
Hyperbole in poetry and prose is one of the most ancient artistic techniques of expressiveness. The artistic functions of this trail are many and varied. Literary hyperbole is needed mainly to point tosome exceptional qualities or properties of people, events, natural phenomena, things. For example, the exceptional character of Mtsyra, a romantic hero, is emphasized with the help of this trope: a weak young man finds himself in a duel with a leopard as an equal opponent, just as strong as this wild beast.
Properties of hyperbolas
Hyperbole, personification, epithet and other tropes tend to attract readers' attention. The features of hyperbole are that they make us look at the image in a new way, that is, feel its significance and special role. Overcoming the boundaries established by plausibility, endowing people, animals, objects, natural phenomena with "wonderful", possessing supernatural properties, this trope, used by various authors, emphasizes the conventionality of the artistic world created by the writers. They clarify the hyperbole and the attitude of the creator of the work to the depicted - idealization, "elevation" or, conversely, mockery, denial.
This trope plays a special role in satirical works. In satires, fables, epigrams of poets of the 19th-20th centuries, as well as in the satirical "chronicle" of S altykov-Shchedrin ("The History of a City") and his fairy tales, in the satirical story "Heart of a Dog" by Bulgakov. In Mayakovsky's comedies The Bathhouse and The Bedbug, artistic hyperbole reveals the comedy of heroes and events, emphasizing their absurdity and vices, acting as a means of caricature orcartoon image.
