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Difficulty: MediumPoetic Imagery and Figurative Language

Read the poetic excerpt below and complete the literary analysis statement by filling in the missing term.

Answer:Consider the following opening line from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem:

"O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,"

The speaker's direct address to the inanimate wind as if it were a conscious entity capable of listening is an example of 【apostrophe】.

Answer

The literary device exemplified in the line is apostrophe.
Apostrophe is a figure of speech in which a speaker directly addresses an absent person, an abstract concept, or an inanimate object as though it were present and capable of understanding. The exclamation 'O' and the direct address 'thou' to the 'West Wind' make this a classic instance of apostrophe.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Examine the line 'O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being' for direct speech directed at a non-human entity.
The poet uses an exclamatory invocation ('O') and second-person pronoun ('thou') to speak directly to the wind.
Directly addressing an inanimate object, an abstract idea, or an absent person is the defining structural pattern of apostrophe.
2
Distinguish between personification and apostrophe in this context.
While the wind is endowed with living qualities (breath of Autumn), the primary rhetorical device of speaking directly to it is apostrophe.
Personification attributes human qualities to non-human things, but apostrophe requires the speaker to address them directly as a listener.

Key Concept

Apostrophe as a Poetic Device
Estimated Time:1m 0s
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Topics

Poetic Imagery and Figurative Language

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