§ 7. Irony • Ирония

Irony is a trope consisting in the use of words or phrases with a meaning opposite to their literal sense, designed to achieve a derisive effect, e.g.: Отколе, умная, бредешь ты, голова? (Кр.) - words addressed by the Fox to the Donkey.

The most marked degree of irony is known as sarcasm, which amounts to cruel derision, e.g.: [117]

За все, за все тебя благодарю я:

За тайные мучения страстей,

За горечь слез, отраву поцелуя,

За месть врагов и клевету друзей

(Лерм.).

§ 8. Allegory • Аллегория

Allegory is a trope consisting in a figurative description of some ab­stract concept under the guise of some other concrete object of aptly suggestive resemblance. Allegory is frequently used in fables and fairy­tales, in which animals, objects and natural phenomena are frequently endowed with human qualities; for instance, cunning is often conveyed through the image of the fox, avarice through the image of a wolf, perfidy through the image of a snake, etc. Cf. generally accepted graphic allegories: the allegory of justice is a woman with her eyes blindfolded and holding scales in one hand; the allegory of faith is a cross; the alle­gory of hope is an anchor; the allegory of freedom is a broken chain and the allegory of peace is a dove, etc.

§ 9. Personification • Олицетворение

Personification is a trope consisting in the transfer of human proper­ties to inanimate objects and abstract concepts, e.g.: Утешится безмолв­ная печаль, и резвая задумается радость (Пушк.). Cf. an example of personification in this translation from Heine:

Ведь счастье — девочка пустая. На месте не сидится ей: Откинет волосы и чмокнет Разок-другой и прочь скорей. Старуха-горе та любовно Тебя к груди своей прижмет, Все говорит, что ей не к спеху, И знай сидит себе да шьет.

Plentiful use of personification is to be found in fables, fairy-tales and other works of literature. [118]

§ 10. Periphrasis • Перифраза

Periphrasis is the substitution of the name of an object or pheno­menon by a description of its essential characteristics or by an indication of its distinctive traits, e.g.: Ты знаешь край, где все обильем дышит, где реки льются чище серебра... (А. К. Толст.) (in place of Италия); автор "Героя нашего времени" (instead of Лермонтов); царь зверей (instead of лев); царица цветов (instead of роза); Страна восходящего солнца (instead of Япония).

Cf. Pushkin's reference to Shakespeare as творец Макбета, to By­ron as певец, Гяура и Жуана and to Mickiewicz as певец Литвы.

7. Compose several examples of periphrasis to express the following:

(I) names of writers, scholars, public figures; (2) names of animals; (3) names of plants; (4) geographical names.

Stylistic devices стилистические приемы

As was noted earlier, syntax has at its disposal considerable stylistic possibilities. A rich synonymy of phrases and some types of simple sen­tences, variant forms for joining words in the sentence (agreement, go­vernment), parallel syntactical constructions - all these help to provide a wide stylistic choice of language means. Apart from those already named and also various other possibilities provided by stylistic syntax, special syntactical constructions, so-called stylistic (or rhetorical) devices, can be used to heighten the graphic expressive function of speech. The more important of these are discussed in the paragraphs that follow.