Types of literary FIGURES and simple EXAMPLES

Writing is an art, and that's something we can all agree on. In the same way that the sculptor has his tools such as a chisel or a hammer, or the painter makes use of of the brush and his paintings, the writer also draws on a series of instruments to carry out his construction site. We are not only talking about physical tools such as the pen, paper, typewriter or, obviously, computer. Artists also have practical, non-tangible tools, such as a style painterly, a brush or chisel handling technique, or even a trend subject to a style concrete.

It might be obvious to say that in literature we also have this. And it is, in fact, within these techniques that we find rhetorical or literary figures, which are used to embellish the text. With this, and knowing its importance in literature, in a Professor we are going to know a series of literary figures, types and examples. Can you come with us?

Index

1. What are literary figures?
2. What are literary figures for?
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3. Types of literary figures of diction
4. Literary figures of thought
5. Examples of literary figures

The literary figures they take care of embellish language in an unnatural or artificial wayl. Normally, they are widely used in literature, although we also find them commonly in oratorical or rhetorical speeches. That is why we must affirm that it is not something exclusive to a language, for example Spanish, but that they can be found in any language in one way or another.

Taken together, these figures of speech tend to play, above all, with the phonetics of speech, its grammar or its semantic values. By being constructed in an artificial and unnatural way in a specific language, its expressiveness is usually significantly increased. That is why poets are nourished with total normality of these literary resources that are rhetorical figures.

There are dozens of rhetorical figures (in fact, well over a hundred), so we will have to focus on this article of the most important in terms of their exemplification. Although, let it be, we will try to list all of them in your classification, although we cannot delve into each one of them.

As we said before, literary figures serve to embellish speech. It is a linguistic adornment that is added to the text to highlight a specific element that is interesting for the writer and, therefore, for the reader or receiver. On many occasions these figures of speech express feelings or emotions that are not explicitly expressed in the text, in addition to that they can also contribute semantic values ​​of the message additional to those found in the speech.

However, these rhetorical resources are often used to, beyond embellishing a text, keep the receiver's attention and, on many occasions, extol the message. Through them it can be done that, especially in rhetorical texts, the ideas reach the widest possible audience persuasively. As we saw in our article on the rhetoric, and the ancient Greek thinkers were nourished by these literary or rhetorical figures to grant values ​​in their speeches that managed to convince the audience of their arguments.

Thus, we can affirm that the rhetorical figures They serve us both for aesthetic and persuasive values ​​of the message. That is why we find them especially in rhetorical discourses and, above all, in poetry. What both functions of language have in common is that they focus more on how the message is expressed, how the text is organized, and how it is presented to the recipient than on the message itself. And it is for all this that literary figures turn out to be so important in world literature.

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We will already get to know the different types of literary figures so that you can better understand what type of resource we are facing.

Figures of speech focus on the morphology of words and the way in which these are ordered in the discourse, although we can also find cases in which semantic values ​​are also played with. Normally, we find them divided into several subtypes.

Transformation figures

These figures of transformation, which are also known as metaplasms, are based on the deformation of words in an unnatural way.

However, the figures that we find within this "transformation" would be those of increase (prosthesis, synthesis, paragoge, syneresis and dialepha), suppression (apheresis, syncope, apocope, haplology, contraction, synalepha and ecthlipsis), change of place (metathesis, diastole and systole) and weakening or transformation (assimilation, dissimilation, rotacism, lambdacism, apophony, metaphony, and assibilation).

Repetition figures

This type of literary figure is used, as its name suggests, to repeat or resort again to a linguistic element that has already been mentioned or used previously in the speech or text.

It is very possible that these repetitions do not occur exactly, but are a kind of approximation or similarity. Here we find the: anadiplosis, anaphora, gradation, epanadiplosis, polysyndeton, (paronomasia, diaphora, polptoton), traductio, antanaclasis, parallelism (isocolon, parison, correlation), chiasm and pun.

Figures of omission

On many occasions, the linguistic elements must necessarily be used for the total semantic understanding of the message, as well as for its good syntagmatic construction.

However, the figures of omission, as their name suggests, are responsible for omitting or avoiding a certain element within the speech. In this classification we find: asyndeton, Ellipse, zeugma, silepsis, aposiopesis, brachylogy and paralipsis.

Position figures

These literary figures are based exclusively on the order in which the elements of the sentence, configuring them in a way, sometimes unnatural and deforming the same prayer. The figures we are talking about are: hyperbaton, anastrophe, tmesis and synchysis.

Beyond the literary figures of diction we find another important block of literary figures. They play with the meaning of words, beyond their order or pronunciation. That is, it would be the block of semantic or thought figures. Within this block we find a broad classification.

Amplification figures

As its name indicates, these types of figures are responsible for expanding the meaning or information of an element already introduced previously in the speech or text. These amplification figures are: expolitio, interpretatio, paraphrase, isodynamic, digression and epiphoneme.

Accumulation figures

This type of literary figures is based on the addition of elements in the speech that complement the ideas already exposed previously in it. Among them we find the enumeration, distribution, epiphrase and the epithet.

Fictional figures

As we can well intuit, these figures are in charge of expressing elements that are not real in a way that seems real. Therefore, within these we find the personification or prosopopoeia, idolpoeia and subiectio.

Logical figures

These literary figures, as their name suggests, are based on the logical relationships found between the elements or ideas within the same discourse. It is here, for example, where we find the antonyms or contradictions, so the figures that make up this block would be: antithesis, cohabitation, paradoxand oxymoron.

Definition figures

These figures of definition, also known as figures of description, are based on the foundations of the specific topic of the discourse. This means that they are based on linguistically expressing the topic covered in the text that appears. Among all these literary figures we find: definition, prosopography, etopeia, pragmatography, topography, chronography, portrait and the evidentia.

Oblique figures

Closely linked to tropes (figurative substitutions of some element of discourse), these oblique figures express a reality of the text in a somewhat less direct way. Among them we find three main representatives, which would be: periphrasis, litotes and the paralipsis.

Dialog figures

The literary figures of dialogue, as their name also indicates, are based on the direct style of discourse, that is, interaction or dialogue. There are also those who call them pathetic figures (from the Greek pathos), since they are in charge of allude to the addressee or receiver and excite him. Among all of them we find the exclamation, invocation, deprecation, indirect interrogation and the option.

Dialectical figures

Also known as argumentation figures, and as it would be, therefore, obvious, these figures are based on argumentation and its use in discourse. This is where we include: concessio, correctio, dubitatio, communicatio, conciliatio and paradiastole.

And now that we know the types, we are going to know the different examples of literary figures that will help you understand how they are used and the functionality they fulfill in a text.

Anadiplosis

You are very good personperson that does not find its place in the world.

Polysyndeton

Although see you, although it suits you,

although have me, I still miss you.

Asyndeton

Enjoy neck, hair, lip and forehead,
before what was in your golden age
gold, lilium, carnation, shining crystal,

not only in silver or trunked vïola
it turns, but you and it together
on the ground, in smoke, in dust, in shadow, in nothing

[Luis de Góngora, While competing with your hair]

Paraphrase

On a gift horse, do not look at his tooth. That is, do not despise something that was given to you completely free and disinterested..

Enumeration

• Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday and Sunday.
• It's only those days that I think of you.

Personification

The sky was stumbling around, it seemed sad. It was sure to rain.

Oxymoron

• Clear night
• Dark light

Paralysis

I'm not going to start now to remind you that tomorrow we have a soccer game at three in the afternoon in the field next to my house.

Indirect questioning

We don't know what will happen if we don't play at Juan's house today.

If you want to read more articles similar to Literary figures: types and examples, we recommend that you enter our category of Literary concepts.

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