英语修辞与写作复习资料

《英语修辞与写作》课程期末考试复习资料

修辞手法

1. Alliteration

(1) Penny wise, pound foolish.

(2) Wilful waste makes woeful want.

(3) Without wisdom, wealth is worthless.

(4) We shape our own destiny with conviction, compassion, and clear and common purpose.

(B. Obama: Weekly Address, November 25th, 2010)

2. Rhyme

(1) Haste makes waste.

(2) Man proposes, God disposes.

(3) Little stokes fell great oaks.

(4) His great gaunt figure filled the cabin door,

And had he fallen inward on the floor,

He must have measured to the further wall.

(R. Frost: The Figure in the Doorway)

3. Simile

(1) My roommates stood there as motionless as statues.

(2) Living without an aim is like sailing without a compass.

(3) Ambition is to life just what steam is to the locomotive.

(4) Beauty is as summer fruits, which are easy to corrupt and cannot last.

(F. Bacon: Of Beauty)

4. Metaphor

(1)

Life is a journey.

(2)

Jim was a fox.

(3) She is the apple of his eye.

(4) The news is a dagger to his heart.

5.

Metonymy

(1) He drank a cup.

(2) She set a good table.

(3) He is fond of the bottle.

(4) The pen is mightier than the sword.

6. Synecdoche

(1) The kettle is boiling.

(2) Great minds think alike.

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(3) He smokes two packs per day.

(4) The poor creature could no longer endure her sufferings.

7. Personification

(1) Fear gripped his heart.

(2) This time fate was smiling to him.

(3) His words sent a quiver through my body.

(4) The morning sun greeted us as we came out on deck.

8. Hyperbole

(1) I'm the luckiest man in the world.

(2) Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay.

(3) The noise was big enough to wake the dead.

(4) I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my

sum.

(W. Shakespeare: Hamlet)

9.

Oxymoron

(1)

His air was one of friendly hostility.

(2) The coach had to be cruel to be kind to his trainees.

(3) I like a smuggler. He was the only honest thief.

(4) No light, but rather darkness visible.

10. Euphemism

(1) The girl is hard of hearing.

(2) The boy is a bit slow for his age.

(3) It's five years since he passed away.

(4) I'm afraid he has distorted the fact.

11.

Parallelism

(1)

He doesn't ride, nor shoot, nor fish, nor swim.

(2)

Lumber, corn, tobacco, wheat, and furs moved downstream to the delta country.

(3)

An

Englishman

thinks

seated;

a

Frenchman,

standing;

an

American,

pacing;

an

Irishman,

afterward.

(4) We can gain knowledge by reading, by reflection, by observation or by practice.

12.

Antithesis

(1) Speech is silver; silence is gold.

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