Hereby the rose-tree / they planted once / of Love in Jeopardy / an Italian bronze.

Wolfe was describing an old statue and he wanted to suggest an old-fashioned effect. Had he written "Once upon a time they erected (or planted) a bronze figure named 'Love in Jeopardy' (or Danger) next to a rose-tree" it would have seemed commonplace, and the poet would have lost the quaintness of the picture as well as the arresting oddity of phrasing. Inversion used with restraint and care is an effective rhetorical device, but used too frequently or grotesquely, it will result in artificiality.

There are several types of inversion:

· the predicate/predicative is placed before the subject (complete inversion)

Came frightful days of snow and rain. (London) Yet certain am I of the spot. (Dickinson)

A slight, elegant man this Monsieur d’Ogeron was.

· the object is placed in pre-position to the subject-predicate group

A damsel with a dulcimer / In a vision once I saw. (Colleridge)

· the attribute is placed after the noun it modifies

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…(E.Poe)

So by the caverns of the forest green … (Shelley)

· the adverbial modifier is at the beginning of the sentence

Out into the street you go, and let me never see a whisker of your face again!

· both modifier and predicate stand before the subject

After dinner comes the reckoning.

Stylistic inversion mustn’t be confused with grammatical inversion ( as in interrogative sentences), which changes the communicative function of an utterance and has no emotional charge.

Detachment is a stylistic device in which a secondary member of the sentence (usually an attribute or adverbial modifier) is put at some distance from its headword, and is separated from the rest of the sentence by punctuation marks (commas, dashes or even a full stop). Detached constructions seem grammatically independent and assume greater semantic weight and significance.

e.g. And then, abruptly, she woke up beside him in her own bed one early spring morning.

A variant of detachment is parenthesis, that is, an explanatory remark thrown into the body of a statement and frequently separated from it by brackets.

e.g. A few flowers in a public park (if you have the time to visit it) may remind you that it is spring or summer.

Modern writers who are interested in the stream of consciousness and want to reveal the “fluid and unstable nature of thought and feeling” often employ parenthesis, as did Joyce and Faulkner.

Parallelism is similarity of syntactical structure in a pair or series of related phrases, clauses, sentences or larger parts of composition. Parallelism is a way to connect facts and ideas of equal importance and thereby give them added emphasis.

e.g. Singing a song or writing a poem is joyous. (parallelism of phrases)

“Perch are inexpensive; cod are cheap; trout are abundant; but salmon are best.” (parallelism of sentences)

Parallelism only involves a repetition of syntactical structures, but it is often supported by repetition of words, as in the following examples:

" We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender. " (W. Churchill)

"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." (J. Kennedy)

The purpose of parallelism is to make the writing clear and balanced, to add emphasis to some parts of the sentence, or to contrast them. Parallel constructions are widely used in poetic texts, as they generate rhythm and create a peculiar melodic arrangement of sentences. Orators employ this device, as well.

A common error among inexperienced writers is faulty parallelism – treating unlike grammatical structures as if they were parallel. This upsets the balance that the reader expects in a coordinate structure. Below are some of the more common types of faulty parallelism:

Myron is intelligent, charming, and knows how to dress.(F) Myron is intelligent, charming, and well-dressed. (C)

Denise has two great ambitions: to act and becoming a director.(F) Denise has two great ambitions: to act and to direct. (C)

Exercise 1. Say which sentences are effective and which contain faulty parallelism. Change the faulty ones: 1. I cannot decide whether to play my guitar or to read some science fiction. 2. To write simply is not as difficult as being good. 3. Three stars were drafted from the baseball team: One was a pitcher, one played shortstop, and one as a designed hitter. 4. Using a video display terminal can lead to fatigue, headaches, and is irritating to the eye. 5. The English courses are interesting, enjoyable, and to the student’s advantage. 6. Many women do not mind having their chairs pulled out for them, their doors opened, or a man picking up the tab. 7. During my freshman year, I received much helpful advice and many new friends. 8. I believe that everyone should study and be opposed to the proposed ordinance. 9. Jeff plans to be an engineer and develop skills as novelist. 10. The apartment is convenient, spacious, but costs a lot of money.

Parallelism (or syntactical repetition) should not be confused with lexico-syntactical r epetition – a rhetorical device reiterating a word or phrase, or rewarding the same idea, to secure emphasis.

e.g. Wherever you look it's people, people, people.

There are several compositional types of repetition (Galperin):

· anaphora (the same word is repeated at the beginning of two or more lines, clauses or sentences)

“ Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice” (King)

· epiphora (the repeated word comes at the end of consecutive clauses or sentences)

e.g. You win a few, you lose a few.

· chain repetition, or anadiplosis (the last word of one sentence is repeated at the beginning of the next sentence)

e.g. She felt guilty, but guilty in the way one feels guilty when about to discommode some clinging slug that has managed to attach itself to one's arm or leg.

· framing (a word or phrase is placed both at the beginning and at the end of a syntactic unit)

e.g. Adieu, adieu – I fly, adieu,

I vanish in the heaven’s blue,

Adieu, adieu! (Byron)

Repetition used carelessly is unpleasantly noticeable and results in tautology. Employed by deliberate design, repetition adds force and clarity to a statement. Particularly effective in persuasion, repetition is a favourite device with orators. Repetition is found in many kinds of poetry, from nonsense rhymes to ballads. The repeated words or syllables add an extra beat and accentuate the rhythm. They are often heard in "choruses" or "refrains," as in Shakespeare's "With a hey and a ho and a hey nonino" or Rudyard Kipling's:

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, / an' Chuck him out, the brute! / But it's "Savior of 'is country" / when the guns begin to shoot.

Excellent use of repetition occurs in Alfred Noyes's The Barrel-Organ, especially in such lines as:

Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;

Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)

And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;

Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)

Chiasmus refers to two successive sentences or phrases which are arranged in a "criss-cross" pattern (A:B B:A). One part of the structure is syntactically balanced against the other and has an inverted word order.

"By day the frolic, and the dance by night ". (S. Johnson) "His time a moment, and a point his space. " (A. Pope).

"I love too much and too little hate. "

Chiasmus is a syntactical device and is used for structures that do not repeat the same words and phrases. Thus, one shouldn’t confuse chiasmus and lexical chiasmus or epigrams:

"America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way round. Human rights invented America. " (J. Carter) "What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight — it's the size of the fight in the dog. " (D. Eisenhower)

Suspense is a compositional device based on the poised anticipation of the reader as to the outcome. To build suspense, the author generally places the less important, secondary parts of the sentence at the beginning, withholding the main idea till the end of the sentence and making it more emphatic and significant.

e.g. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos – all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

Suspense is a major device for the securing and maintaining of interest in the narrative.

Climax is a figure of speech, in which words, phrases, or clauses are arranged in order of increasing importance. It is sometimes supported by anadiplosis, which uses the repetition of a word or phrase in successive clauses. This pattern helps authors make their work more suspenseful, guide readers to the details and ideas they believe are most important. For example, Anthony Lewis in his essay “The System Worked” waits until the end of the paragraph to mention the most important, to his mind, of all rights – the right to vote – which had been denied blacks in the South before 1954: “More than a third of America’s public schools were segregated by law. And not just schools: Black men and women and children were kept out of “white” hospitals, and parks, and beaches, and restaurants. Interracial marriages were forbidden. In the deep South, law and brutal force kept blacks from voting.”

"And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. " (Corinthians)

"I think we've reached a point of great decision, not just for our nation, not only for all humanity, but for life upon the earth. " (G.Wald) "... Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour”. (Shakespeare)

Antithesis is a figure of speech involving a seeming contradiction of ideas, words, clauses, or sentences within a balanced grammatical structure. Parallelism of expression serves to emphasize opposition of ideas. The familiar phrase “ Man proposes, God disposes ” is an example of antithesis, as is John Dryden's description in “The Hind and the Panther”: “Too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell. ” Another example of antithesis is: “The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, / And wretches hang that jury-men may dine ” (Pope)

Exercise 2. Define the type of syntactical stylistic devices based on peculiar arrangement of the sentence members. 1. Harry looked nothing like the rest of the family. Uncle Vernon was large and neckless, with enormous black moustache; Aunt Petunia was horse-faced and bony; Dudley was blond, pink and porky. Harry, on the other hand, was small and skinny, with brilliant green eyes and jet-black hair that was always untidy. He wore round glasses, and on his forehead was a thin scar. 3. Love is patient and kind, it is not jealous or conceited or proud. Love is not ill-mannered, selfish or irritable. Love does not keep a record of wrongs. Love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. Love never gives up. Its faith, hope and patience never fail. 4. Arabella was very charming, Mr. Wardle very jovial, Mr. Pickwick very harmonious, Mr. Ben Allen very uproarious, the lovers very silent, Mr. Winkle very talkative, and all of them very happy. 5. If youth knew; if age could. 7. One equal temper of heroic hearts, / Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 8. The Old wolf rolled his single eye over Dyke, and opened his mouth to speak. Then he closed it again without having spoke; tightly. 10. Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. 11. And then down he came, his belly toward me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay. 12. Like all great leaders, Lincoln was hated by many; like all strong presidents, he was embattled by Congress; and, like many heroes, he was popular only after his death. 13. The Venetians loved this city, La Serenssima they called it. 14. But as he sprang, so also sprang the watchful blacks. 15. But to look for heaven is to live here in hell. 16. After a storm comes a calm. 17. The day is cold, and dark, and dreary; / It rains, and the wind is never weary; / The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, / But at every gust the dead leaves fall, / And the day is dark and weary. (Longfellow) 18. In addition to providing a chemical overload to the central nervous system Coca Cola (and to be fair, Pepsi) contributes to overweight gain and tooth decay due to its high sugar content. 19. To inspect them came Governor Steed 20. You are old enough to discuss this calmly and intelligently. In a reasonable manner. 21. Man has his will, but woman has her way. 22. Her principles were high, but down-to-earth was his common sense. 24. The Royal Mary – the vessel bearing that ingenious, tolerably accomplished, mildly dissolute, entirely elegant envoy of my lord Sunderland’s – made a good passage to St. Nicholas. 25. The two heroines of Chicago are perfect embodiment of the desire for female self-sufficiency. The dream of female go-getters, the curse of housewives. 26. You could say I lost my faith in science and progress, you could say I lost my belief in the holy Church, you could say I lost my sense of direction, you could say all of this and worse, but if I ever lose my faith in you there'd be nothing left for me to do. 29. Justifiable as his reasoning was, plausible as it may seem, yet he would have done better to have trusted the instinct. 30. My whole life, every white man’s life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at. 31. Round to this came the boat with Don Diego and his treasure. 32. Whenever flare-ups happened, Bill and his crew were right in the thick of it. Feverishly filming, wanting to be graphic, moving, vivid and hard-hitting. 34. It is the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen. 35. This week I watched a biker’s wedding. The groom arrived on a powerful motorbike, and I thought, “Oh, no, surely the bride won’t do the same?” But she did – and very happy she looked, too. 37. On and on the rain will fall like tears from a star. 39. What we want to see that child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child 40. His face is of a sinner, but his hands are of a priest. 41. Maybe the songs that we sing are wrong, maybe the dreams that we dream are gone. 42. The more you give, the more you get./ The more you laugh, the less you fret. / The more you do unselfishly, / The more you live abundantly, / The more of everything you share, / The more you’ll always have to spare. / The more you love, the more you’ll find / That life is good and friends are kind. / For only what we give away / Enriches us from day to day. 43. Most of them trailed the mammoth pikes as formidable to the eyes as they were clumsy to the hand. 44. Do all the good you can, / By all the means you can, / In all the ways you can, / In all the places you can, / At all the times you can, / To all the people you can, / As long as ever you can. 45. His paws were felt, his teeth examined, his whiskers counted, and his tail measured. 47. My mother bore me in the southern wild / And I am black, but O! my soul is white; / White as an angel is the English child, / But I am black, as if bereav’d of light. 48. The little man picked up the glass and put it to his lips. He tilted it gently. The he tilted it higher… and higher… and higher… and very soon all the whisky had disappeared down the throat in one long pour.

II. Peculiar linkage of the parts of the sentence

Polysyndeton is the use of several conjunctions in close succession, especially where some might be omitted (as in "he ran and jumped and laughed for joy"). It is a stylistic scheme used to slow down the rhythm of prose and can add an air of solemnity to a passage. It is used extensively in the Bible. For example:

“ And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.”

“ Or if a soul touch any unclean thing, whether it be a carcase of an unclean beast, or a carcase of unclean cattle, or the carcase of unclean creeping things, and if it be hidden from him; he also shall be unclean, and guilty.”

Writers of modern times have also used the scheme:

“I said, 'Who killed him?' and he said 'I don't know who killed him, but he's dead all right,' and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights or windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Key and she was right only she was full of water.” (E.Hemingway)

Polysyndeton is the opposite of asyndeton - a scheme in which conjunctions are deliberately omitted from a series of related clauses, as in Caesar’s Veni, vidi, vici. (“I came, I saw, I conquered.”). Its use has the effect of speeding up the rhythm of a passage and making a single idea more memorable. Aristotle believed that asyndeton can be used effectively in endings of works, and he himself employs the device in the final passage of the Rhetoric: “I have done. You have heard me. The facts are before you. I ask for your judgement.”

Several notable examples can be found in American political speeches:

"...and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." (A. Lincoln)

"...that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." (J. Kennedy)

Exercise 3. State the type of connection in the following sentences .1. I felt approaching footsteps, I stretched out my hand as I supposed to my mother. 2. Hereupon the coachman, and the guard, and Sam Weller, and Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass, and all the hostlers, and every one of the idlers, who are more in number than all the others put together, shout for the missing gentlemen as loud as they can bawl. 3. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. (Lincoln) 4. The witch was gone and Grimalkin too, the cauldron, the book of spells, the toads, the foxes, the magic herbs, the brews, the broomstick, everything that had once made magic. 5. May you always laugh happily, cry openly, sing loudly, dance wildly, love unashamedly! 6. There was an ordinary table in the middle, certainly, and some chairs, and a kettle on the hob that sang and hissed. there were saucepans a teapot and a blue-and-white china tea-set and a clock that had lost one hand, but all the way round the room were dozens of large cages, and in each cage, sitting on a blue velvet cushion, was a cat. 7. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! 8. Rum and limes and sugar were brought. 11. A few of the passengers glanced up from their food, hesitating, waiting, almost listening for the next roll, smiling nervously, little secret glimmers of apprehension in their eyes. 12. As we beg and steal and borrow life is hit. 14. The room was bursting with sofas and chairs and mahogany whatnots.

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