Machinery | Definition of Machinery | Example of Machinery

Machinery

The supernatural agents used in an epic or a mock-epic. For example, the whole battalion of the sylphs and nymphs under Ariel's command in The Rape of the Lock is called the machinery of it.

Litotes | Examples of Litotes | Litotes Definition

Litotes

Litotes is a figure in which the negative statement suggests a very strong affirmative. For example, " He is not a bad student" means he is a good student.

Irony | Examples of Irony

Irony

Irony is a statement or a situation which actually means the opposite of its surface meaning. An often quoted example of irony is " Brutus is an honourable man" from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Antony says this in his oration over dead body of Caesar. This appreciation of Brutus really means that Brutus who killed Caesar is an ignoble man. The first sentence of Pride and Prejudice is another example of irony

" It is truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

After reading the novel one, however, finds that it is not the rich man who needs a wife but, quite opposite to it, it is the lady who needs a rich husband.

Heroic couplet | Example of Heroic Couplet

Heroic couplet:

A pair of iambic pentameter verse lines which rhyme together. A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry. It is commonly used for epic and narrative poetry. It refers to poems constructed from a sequence of rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter lines

 

Example of Heroic Couplet:

But when/ to mis / chief mor / tals bend / their will

How soon / they find / fit ins / truments/ of ill!

(Pope: The Rape of the Lock)

Each of these lines consists of five iambic feet. In each pair the first syllable is unstressed and the second syllable is stressed. Such five feet arranged in a verse line are called iambic pentameter. When two such iambic pentameter lines end with similar sounds as in these lines (will=ill) they are called heroic couplet.

 

Hamartia | Example of Hamartia | Hamlet's Hamartia

Hamartia: 

Hamartia has often traditionally been described as a hero's fatal flaw. It is called tragic flaw. Hamartia is an error or a flaw for which the hero of a tragedy falls from the zenith of his success to the nadir of his misery.

Example of Hamartia:

Hamlet, for example, suffers from the tragic flaw of indecision. He hesitates to kill his cruel and villainous uncle, which leads to the ultimate tragedy of the play. By struggling with an inherent moral flaw, Hamlet brings about his own destruction. His hesitation, therefore, is the action to which the term hamartia is applied. If the flaw is pride it is called hubris

Epic simile definition | Epic simile examples

Epic simile:

Epic simile is a formal and sustained simile. Like a regular simile, an epic simile makes a comparison between one object and another using "like" or "as." However, unlike a regular simile, which appears in a single sentence, the epic simile may be developed at great length, often up to fifty or a hundred lies. It is called epic simile because the epic poets introduced the tradition of such similes.

Example of epic simile:

 In Book-XII of Iliad Hector has been compared to a boar and a lion:

 “He was like a wild-boar or a lion when he turns this way and that among the hounds and huntsmen to defy them in his strength.”

Dramatic Irony | Example of Dramatic Irony | Definition of Dramatic Irony

Dramatic Irony:

Dramatic irony is a dialogue or a situation in a play when the words and actions of the characters of a work of literature have a different meaning for the reader than they do for the characters. This is the result of the reader having a greater knowledge than the characters themselves. It is used both in tragedy and in comedy to heighten respective effects.

Example of Dramatic Irony: 

In “Oedipus Rex” when Oedipus says, “I, Oedipus, whom all men call great” he knows that he is really great but the audience knows that he is the most ignoble.