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RHETORIC.

UNIV. OF

RHETORIC discusses the means whereby language, spoken or written, may be rendered effective.

There are three principal ends in speaking,—to inform, to persuade, to please. They correspond to the three departments of the human mind, the Understanding, the Will, and the Feelings. The means being to some extent different for each, they are considered under separate heads.

But as there are various matters pertaining to all modes of address, it is convenient to divide the entire subject into the two following parts:—

Part First, which relates to Style generally, embraces the following topics:—I. The Figures of Speech. II. The Number of Words. III. The Arrangement of Words. IV. The Qualities of Style. V. The Sentence and the Paragraph.

Part Second treats of the different Kinds of Composition.

Those that have for their object to inform the UNDERSTANDING, fall under three heads—Description, Narration, and Exposition. The means of influencing the Will are given under one head, Persuasion. The employing of language to excite pleasurable Feelings, is one of the chief characteristics of Poetry.

The Will can be moved only through the Understanding or through the Feelings. Hence there are really but two Rhetorical ends.

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THE FIGURES OF SPEECH.

1. A Figure of Speech is a deviation from the plain
and ordinary mode of speaking, with a view to greater
effect. When, instead of saying, "that is very strange,
we exclaim "how strange!" we use a figure. "Now is
the winter of our discontent," is figurative; the word
"winter" is diverted from signifying a season of the
year, to express a condition of the human feelings.

Tropes. A Figure, says Quintilian, is a form of speech differ-
The ancient Rhetoricians distinguished between Figures and
ing from the ordinary mode of expression; as in the first ex-
ample given above. A Trope is the conversion of a word from
its proper signification to another, in order to give force, as in
the second example above. The distinction is more in appear-
ance than in substance, and has no practical value.

The

most common are Simile, Metaphor, Allegory, Antithesis or The Figures are classed under a variety of names. Contrast, Metonymy, Synecdoche, Epigram, Hyperbole, Inter

rogation, Exclamation, Apostrophe, Climax, Irony.

2.

ever l f t e more impor ant Figur s have referen e o the o er tio sof he human ndersta ding or Intellect, and may be classified accordingly.

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