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.

Couplet | Example of Couplet

 Couplet:

A couplet is a pair of successive lines of verse having the same meter and often forming a complete thought. Couplet generally appears in poetry. A couplet generally consists of two lines of verse which rhyme together & are of the same length. “The Night Before Christmas,”  “The Canterbury Tales” are written entirely in couplets. Shakespeare and Alexander Pope were both well known for their writing in heroic couplets.

Example of couplet:

"A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."

Here the last word of the first line and second line has the similar sounds ‘ing’.

Conceit | Example of Conceit

Conceit:

Conceit is an elaborate poetic image or a far-fetched comparison of very dissimilar things. Conceit is a witty or ingenious turn of phrase. A conceit invites the reader into a more sophisticated understanding of an object of comparison by manipulating images and ideas in surprising ways.

Example of Conceit:

In “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning “Donne compares between two lovers’ soul & the two arms of a pair of compasses.

 If they be two, they are two so

A stiff twin compasses are two;

Climax | Example of Climax

Climax:

Climax is the highest or more intense point or the peak of importance in a play or in a story. Climax is the point of which the rise of action ends and the fall of action begins. The climax of Hippolytus, written by Euripides, for example, is the point at which, when Phaedra hears Hippolytus react rudely because of her love for him. It is the time that Aphrodite's curse is finally fulfilled, and while not action-packed. It is the turning point of the whole play.

Classicism

Classicism:

Classicism is a doctrine of art and literature. Classicism was  followed by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Classicism is opposite to romanticism. Classicism's main features are:

a) Clarity, simplicity and balance:
b) Respect and tradition;
c) Restraint or control;
d) Precision;

e) Predominance of reason over emotion;
g) Importance to form rather than to content;

Chorus

Chorus:

Chorus is a group of performers in a play who comment on the action and provide mood and atmosphere for it. Milton uses such a chorus in Samson Agonistes. The number of persons in a chorus may be reduced from group to a single person; such a chorus is usually called single chorus. The Fool in King Lear is an example of a single chorus.