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Alliteration: Mr. John Gave Blood Last Week

The document provides examples of different types of literary devices including alliteration, adnomination, accumulation, adjunction, allusion, anaphora, antanaclasis, anticlimax, and puns. Each device is defined and an example is given to illustrate its use.

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Grace Paculba Baldicana
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56 views4 pages

Alliteration: Mr. John Gave Blood Last Week

The document provides examples of different types of literary devices including alliteration, adnomination, accumulation, adjunction, allusion, anaphora, antanaclasis, anticlimax, and puns. Each device is defined and an example is given to illustrate its use.

Uploaded by

Grace Paculba Baldicana
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Alliteration

She sells seashells.


Walter wondered where Winnie was.
Blue baby bonnets
Nick needed new notebooks.
Fred fried frogs.

Adnomination

He is a real nowhere man sitting in his nowhere land making all his nowhere plans for nobody.

I am wanting to tell you, I am waiting to tell you, I am willing to tell you.

Accumulation

I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair and when I got out of
bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink
while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very
bad day.

Your organization, your vigilance, your devotion to duty, your zeal for the cause must be raised
to the highest intensity.

I don't know how to manage my time; he does...


I don't know how to dance and he does.
I don't know how to type and he does.

I will not excuse you; you shall not be excused; excuses shall not be admitted; there is no
excuse shall serve; you shall not be excused.

“A generation goes and a generation comes, yet the earth remains forever. The sun rises and
the sun sets and rushes back again to the place from which it rises. The wind blows south, then
returns to the north, round and round goes the wind, on its rounds it circulates. All streams
flow to the sea, yet the sea does not fill up.

Adjunction

The class was very silent when the principal walked by.

Mr. John gave blood last week.

He visits his aunt's place every Sunday.

John had a heavy lunch before he went to school.

She would buy a new car, if she won the lottery.

By tomorrow, it will be against the law for the boys to march along the county road.

Dinner will be ready, I am sure, by 6pm.

The children played in the yard.


Allusion

The act of alluding is to make indirect reference. It is a literary device, a figure of speech that
quickly stimulates different ideas and associations using only a couple of words.

Allusion relies on the reader being able to understand the allusion and being familiar with the
meaning hidden behind the words.

Example:

Describing someone as a "Romeo" makes an allusion to the famous young lover in Romeo and
Juliet by William Shakespeare

In an allusion the reference may be to a place, event, literary work, myth, or work of art, either
directly or by implication.

Examples of allusion:

1. David was being such a scrooge!. (Scrooge" is the allusion, and it refers to Charles
Dicken's novel, A Christmas Carol. Scrooge was very greedy and unkind, which David
was being compared to.)
2. The software included a Trojan Horse. (allusion on the Trojan horse from Greek
mythology)
3. to wash one’s hands of it. (allusion on Pontius Pilatus, who sentenced Jesus to death,
but washed his hands afterwards to demonstrate that he was not to blame for it.)
4. to be as old as Methusalem (allusion on Joseph’s grandfather, who was 969 years old
according to the Old Testament)

Anaphora is a stylistic device that consists of repeating a sequence of words at the


beginnings of neighboring clauses to give them emphasis. This rhetorical device is
contrasted with epiphora, also called epistrophe, which consists of repeating words at
the end of clauses.

Examples of anaphora

Some examples of the literary works that use anaphora are listed below:

In time the savage bull sustains the yoke,


In time all haggard hawks will stoop to lure,
In time small wedges cleave the hardest oak,
In time the flint is pierced with softest shower.

Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy, I, vi. 3

Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!

William Shakespeare, King John, II,

What the hammer? what the chain?


In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

William Blake, "The Tyger"


Strike as I struck the foe!
Strike as I would
Have struck those tyrants!
Strike deep as my curse!
Strike!—and but once!

Byron, Marino Faliero

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the
age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the
season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the
winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all
going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way...

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Antanaclasis is a rhetorical device in which a word is repeated and whose meaning changes in
the second instance. Antanaclasis is a common type of pun.

Examples of antanaclasis

Some examples of the use of antanaclasis are listed below:

1. Put out the light, then put out the light. - Shakespeare in Othello. This is said by Othello when
he enters Desdemona's chamber while she sleeps, intending to murder her. The first instance
of put the light out means he will quench the candle, and the second instance means he will
end the life of Desdemona.

2. Your argument is sound, nothing but sound. - Benjamin Franklin.


The word sound in the first instance means solid or reasonable. The second instance of sound
means empty.

3. If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm. - The American football
coach Vince Lombardi to his team.

Anticlimax refers to a figure of speech in which statements gradually descend in order of


importance. Unlike climax, anticlimax is the arrangement of a series of words, phrases, or
clauses in order of decreasing importance.

Examples of anticlimax

These are some examples of anticlimax:

1. She is a great writer, a mother and a good humorist.

2. He lost his family, his car and his cell phone.

A pun, also called paronomasia, involves a word play which suggests two or more meanings, by
exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous
or rhetorical effect. Puns are constructions used in jokes and idioms whose usage and meaning
are entirely local to a particular language and its culture. To be understood, puns require a large
vocabulary.

Examples:
These are examples of puns:

 "Atheism is a non-prophet institution"


The word "prophet" is put in place of its homophone "profit", altering the common
phrase "non-profit institution".
 "You can tune a guitar, but you can't tuna fish. Unless of course, you play bass." -
Douglas Adams
The phrase uses the homophonic qualities of "tune a" and "tuna", as well as the
homographic pun on "bass", in which ambiguity is reached through the identical
spellings but different pronunciation of "bass": /'be?s/ (a string instrument), and /'b�s/
(a kind of fish).

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