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Climax (rhetoric) In rhetoric, a climax (Greek: κλῖμαξ, klîmax, lit. "staircase" or "ladder") is a figure of speech in which words, phrases, or clauses are arranged in order of increasing importance. [1] [2] In its use with clauses, it is also sometimes known as auxesis (lit. "growth").
A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from straightforward language use or literal meaning to produce a rhetorical or intensified effect (emotionally, aesthetically, intellectually, etc.). [1][2] In the distinction between literal and figurative language, figures of speech constitute the latter.
Accumulatio is a figure of speech, part of the more general group of enumeratio, [1] in which the statements made previously are presented again in a compact, forceful manner. It often uses a climax for the summation of a speech. [2] The word is Latin, from a verb meaning "to amass".
The easiest stylistic device to identify is a simile, signaled by the use of the words "like" or "as". A simile is a comparison used to attract the reader's attention and describe something in descriptive terms. Example: "From up here on the fourteenth floor, my brother Charley looks like an insect scurrying among other insects."
Word or phrase in a figure of speech in which a noun is referenced by something closely associated with it, rather than explicitly by the noun itself. This is not to be confused with synecdoche, in which a part of the whole stands for the thing itself. Metonomy: The boxer threw in the towel. Synecdoche: She gave her hand in marriage. Overstatement
Quintilian saw rhetoric as the science of the possible deviation from a given norm, or from a pre-existing text taken as a model. Each variation can be seen as a figure (figures of speech or figures of thought). [4] From this perspective, Quintilian famously formulated four fundamental operations according to the analysis of any such variation.
Chiasmus. In rhetoric, chiasmus (/ kaɪˈæzməs / ky-AZ-məs) or, less commonly, chiasm (Latin term from Greek χίασμα, "crossing", from the Greek χιάζω, chiázō, "to shape like the letter Χ "), is a "reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses – but no repetition of words". [1]
Isocolon is a rhetorical scheme in which parallel elements possess the same number of words or syllables. As in any form of parallelism, the pairs or series must enumerate like things to achieve symmetry. [1] The scheme is called bicolon, tricolon, or tetracolon depending on whether they are two, three, or four parallel elements.