SPEECH, Figures of, deviations from the usual order of words in a sentence or from their common and literal sense. These devia tions are employed to give vivacity to language in some form or another. Often compara tively primitive languages are rich in bold and imaginative figures of speech. This is because youth is, in language as in races and men, the period of imagination, the time when the human mind works untrammeled by the restraint of the knowledge of the physical laws of nature. The life of primitive man was filled with images, passions, personal interests, loves and hates. These images he was con tinually creating out of his experiences or his want of experience. The moment he departed from the familiar facts and experiences of his life, his childish, untrained mind began to picture things, conditions and results outside the common. This habit of expressing out of the ordinary feelings and conditions of life by out of the ordinary forms of language has remained with the race in its most advanced stages. These figures of speech have been modified and refined; hut for all this they still retain much of the boldness of their primitive origin. As the imagery of the more primitive races is always the expression of thoughts and images vividly in the mind, and as it is never forced, it is generally true to the thought itself and to the image which graph ically presents it. But this is far from being true of the imagery of more advanced races who have borrowed much from the past, often retaining the form after the cause that called it into being has been forgotten. The requi sites of proper figures of speech exact that every comparison should be the result' of a real likeness clearly presented in an apparently spontaneous manner. It is a general rule that the more marked the difference between the objects compared the greater the contrast and, therefore, the stronger the effect. As this effect should be practically instantaneous upon those to whom the figure of speech is directed, it follows that, as a general rule, it is best not to specify difference, because these details di vert the mind from the sudden effect desired. Every word that truly belongs to a language possesses a denotative and a connotative sense. The former expresses the meaning and uses which good society has given it ; the latter presents the atmosphere which clings to words, causing them to express thoughts, ideas and associations apart from their ordinary accepted use. Connotation gives us, very often, our must suggestive and beautiful figures of speech and lends to poetry and rhetorical prose much of their attractiveness and grandeur. In treat ing of figures of speech it is customary to divide the subject into figures of resemblance, figures of contrast and figures expressing other relations than either of the above. The figures of resemblance include the simile, metaphor, allegory and personification. Those of con trast embrace antithesis and epigram. The third classification includes metonymy, synec doche, apostrophe, exclamation, interrogation, hyperbole, climax, inony, vision, euphemism, onomatopoeia, litotes, parallel, allusion and al literation. A simile expresses resemblance be tween things that are different. In the meta phor this comparison is implied but not for mally expressed; while in the allegory, which is a story couched in symbolical language, the comparison is expressed much more at length than in either the simile or the metaphor. Personification, on the other hand, attributes life to inanimate things and abstract ideas.
By its very boldness it merges the idea of resemblance in the animation of the thing personified. Antithesis, as its name implies, is a figure existing by virtue of the contrast of words employed in a sentence, while an epigram, though based upon contrast,. is in clined to hide this word-contrast by throwing the force of the contrast upon some general idea of contrast in the statement or situation. An epigram, which formerly signified an in scription on a monument, has come to have the sense of a brief pointed saying, generally in the nature of a proverb. Metonymy, which literally means the employment of one name for another, is expressed by substituting the container for the thing contained, the sign for the thing signified, the cause for the effect or the effect for the cause; while synecdoche substitutes a part for the whole or the whole for a part. Apostrophe, being simply a form of address, is frequently used with other parts of speech, more especially metaphor and per sonification. It addresses the absent as if present and treats the dead as if they were living, and inanimate things as though pos sessed of life. Interrogations are frequently used for rhetorical effect rather than for the purpose of getting an answer, and in this case they form true figures of speech. In the same way when an exclamation expresses deep feel ing, more especially in a condensed form and unusual order, it presents itself in the form of a figure of speech, because it is so arranged as to powerfully attract the imagination. Hyper bole expresses that things or conditions are better or worse, greater or less than they really are, for the sake of the effect thus pro duced. It is, therefore, historical exaggera tion. A climax presents a series of statements or thoughts in the rising order of their im portance. When they arc presented in the decreasing order of their importance the rhe torical figure is termed an anti-climax. Irony conveys a meaning contrary to the one sug gested by the ordinary sense of the statement. Vision, which frequently accompanies apos trophe and personification, presents scenes as though before the eyes although they are past, or imaginary or absent. Euphemism is the name given to that figure of speech whereby an agreeable presentation is given to something that is in itself disagreeable. Onomatopceia adapts the sound of words to their use and meaning. When a statement is made by deny ing the opposite of what is affirmed the figure of speech thus employed is called litotes. A parallel is an extended antithesis, which con tinues the comparison of two similar objects, while allusion simply refers to some familiar event or expression by way of -explanation or illustration. Alliteration, which is frequently called a figure of emphasis, is the repetition of the same initial sound in a succession of words. It is frequently used in poetry; but it was more commonly employed in more primitive days of the art than at present. See RHETORIC.
Bibliography.— Bain, A., 'English Comno sition and Rhetoric> (New York 1887) ; Bar deen, W. C., 'A System of Rhetoric' (ib. 1884); Blair, H., 'Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres> (Philadelphia 1793) ; Canby, H. S., 'Elements of Composition' (New York 1913) ; Clark, J. S.. 'A Practical Rhetoric> (ib. 1888) ; Gardiner. J. H., 'The Forms of Prose Literature> (ib. 1900) ; Genung, J. F., 'Outlines of Rhetoric' (Boston 1893); Hill, A. S.. 'Foundations of Rhetoric> (New York 1893) ; 'Principles of Rhetoric' (ib. 1895) : Lockwood and Emerson, 'Composition and Rhetoric' (Boston 1903).