Literary Devices-Epigram-Figures of Speech-Poetic Devices

 5.Epigram: It is a pithy (condensed/full of meaning) remark made in a very clever and amusing way. It may be a short poem usually having a satirical tone.

  Read the following lines from William Blake’s ‘Auguries of Innocence’:

  “To see a world in a grain of sand,/And a heaven in a wildflower,

 Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,/And eternity in an hour.”

Some more brief epigrams, which are used as quotations:

 

“Candy /Is dandy,/But liquor/ Is  quicker” (Ogden Nash)

 “It comes once a year/But fades with fear.” (Harry Potter)

 “I can resist everything but temptation.” (Oscar Wild)

"It is better to light the candle than curse the darkness.” (Eleanor Roosevelt)

   “Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.” (Fran Lebowitz)

History of Epigrams

The Greeks had the tradition of using epigrams in fond memory of their loved ones. They did not use satire and humour in the epigram, so they were used like an elegy. The difference between these two is noticeable these days.

 Sometimes epigram might give the impression like that of a paradox.

For example: “I can resist everything but temptation.”

But, here it is a clever and amusing way of expressing an idea. At the first impression, it may look contradictory and absurd, but at the deeper level, it reveals a great meaning.

Literary Devices-Elegy-Figures of Speech-Poetic Devices

4. Elegy:

 An elegy is a poem of having serious thought, especially, written in memory or lamentation (weeping/expression of grief) at the death of someone very close to the person. It is written in elegiac meter.

In the elegiac couplet, each couplet consists of a hexameter verse followed by a pentameter verse.   It has its origin in classical Greek and Latin literature, in which it addressed various subjects including love, sorrow, and politics characterized by their metric forms.

It is derived from the Greek word ‘elegus’, which means to lament.

Elegy is composed to honour the life of a single individual of high importance to the poet, society, or the nation.

 The elegies were written in ancient time in Greece in elegiac couplets, alternative hexameter with pentameter lines.  

But in English literature, particularly since the sixteenth century, an elegy has come to acquire the status of a poem of lamentation on the death of someone. The poet chooses the meter according to his requirement.

Pastoral Elegy: In this form of elegy, the subject is represented following the traditional convention. There is an idealised shepherd in idealised pastoral background. It follows a formal pattern.

It begins expressing grief and the Muse is also invoked to help the poet express his grief appropriately.  

In Greek mythology, there are nine muses who are called the goddesses of various arts such as music, dance, poetry, etc.

The poet describes the funeral procession, mourning through various objects of nature, and some lines on the unkind death, and finally, the poem ends with the acceptance of the inevitable. 

 John Milton’s “Lycidas” (1638) is a superb example of pastoral elegy, which was written on the death of King Edward, his college friend. A few more examples of pastoral elegies are:  

 1. Adonais (1821) written by P. B. Shelley (Percy Bysshe Shelley) on the death of John Keats

2. Thyrsis (1867) written by Mathew Arnold on the death of the poet Arthur Hugh Clough

3. An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751) by Thomas Gray. It is a tribute paid by the poet to the generation of the humble and unknown villagers buried in the cemetery (graveyard) of the village churchyard.

In literature dirge, threnody, monody, and lament are variations of almost the same theme. They are generally shorter versions of the elegy".

 To conclude, it may be said that the genre of elegy has not remained static, rather it went through the process of evolution.  It has broadened its range.

Literary Devices-Irony-Figure of Speech-Poetic Devices

 

3.  Irony:

  When the speaker intends something and in reality, it happens just opposite to it, that is called irony. This may be found in the use of words giving just opposite effect or meaning to what the speaker has thought or wished. We find the use of dramatic irony in plenty in Shakespeare’s plays and In Greek tragedy also.

There are three types of irony: Verbal, Situational and Dramatic

   In verbal irony, the speaker intentionally uses the words which he does not really mean to say. He may exaggerate (overstate/inflate) or overestimate the character of a thing or person.   

 

If you say, “You are a great scholar” to someone and, in your opinion, you intend to make fun of the person only to please yourself or you may intend to please others while the person for whom you have uttered the words is rather flattered and pleased at the words, it is an example of verbal irony.

 

Here, we may note the difference between sarcasm and verbal irony. In sarcasm, mostly, the person directly hits the listener to cause pain or insult to the listener by using harsh words.

                                    

Irony becomes dramatic when the audience knows what is going to happen and the characters do not know.  For example, in Act 1, Scene 4, King Duncan says that he trusts Macbeth.

But the audience knows what Macbeth intends and what he is going to do to the King in near future. So this is the best example of dramatic irony.

 

Ironies may occur in stories also. For example, in the story ‘The Tiger King’, a living tiger could not kill the king, but a wooden tiger happened to be the cause of his tiger. In such a case, it will be a situational irony.

 

In simple words, we may say that the use of irony to highlight the difference between the appearance and the reality of things.  In situational irony, the actual result of a situation is totally different from what was expected.