Hyperbole. Meiosis. Litotes. Oxymoron

Hyperbole - is a deliberate overstatement or understatement (the V)intended to intensify some idea(the T). H. is meant to produce a more striking effect than a plain statement.

H of understatement is deliberately intended to intensify the smallness of some quantity, quality,size etc. H.is often used in humorous writings.

Familiar H: a person of no brains, was scared to death, tons of money.

H. cb expressed by all notional parts of speech:

-pronouns(all,every(body))

-numerical nouns(a million, a 100)

-adv. of time(ever, never)

H. mb the final effect of other stylistic devices: metaphor, similie, irony.

A thousand hearts are great within my bossom.

We shall obey, were she ten times our mother.

Meiosis (opposite to H.; making smaller)is a deliberate diminution of a certain quality of an object or phen-n. M. underlines insignificance of such qualities of obj-s as their size, volume, distance, time, shape.(It was a cat-size peony)

"I think we might do worse"; "He is rather a decent chap"; "I have not seen him the greater part of some time"

Litotes -is a special kind of M. whereby an affirmation is expressed by denying its contrary. L. has a peculiar synt.structure. It’s a combination of the negative particle “not” and a word with negative meaning or a negative prefix. Such a combination makes positive sense “not bad”.

Love overcometh no small things.

Soames, with his lips and his squared chin was not unlike a bull dog.

L. extentuate positive qualities of obj-s or ph-na. It also expresses irony. “The decision wasn’t unreasonable”

Oxymoron - is a trope in which the parts are contradictory. V and T is in contradiction with T; T and V are diametrically opposite, antonymous (his faith(T) unfaithful(V)); A specific kind of trope is found in oxymoron (Gk. oxus, sharp + moros, foolish) in which the tenor and vehicle are diametrically opposite, antonymous, and, therefore, the vehicle is in contradiction with the tenor it qualifies

O:- discloses the contradictoriness of the world

-emph-s contradictory qualities as a dialectal unity simultaneously existing in the described ph-non

-foregrounds the subjective emotive meaning(though either of the members)

-discloses the complexity of things

(i) His faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. (Tennyson)

(ii) Speaking silence, dumb confession, Passion's birth, and infant's play.

(From Burns' To a Kiss)

Who can express the great littleness and little Greatness; the childish manliness and manly Childishness of that blind God?