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Difficulty: HardLiterary Devices and Figurative Language

Match each literary excerpt on the left with the primary figure of speech or literary device it demonstrates on the right.

  • "O silent night, wrap your dark mantle over my grief before the break of dawn."Apostrophe
  • "Her soft voice fell upon the quiet room like a warm, soothing velvet touch."Synesthesia
  • "We must never negotiate out of fear, but we must never fear to negotiate."Chiasmus
  • "The village was ravaged by tyranny, their lands were stolen by tyranny, and their dignity was crushed by tyranny."Epistrophe

Answer

The correct matches are: the direct invocation to the night pairs with Apostrophe; the combination of sound and touch imagery pairs with Synesthesia; the inverted structural clause pairs with Chiasmus; and the repetitive clause-ending phrase pairs with Epistrophe.
Each literary passage exhibits a distinct rhetorical device: addressing the night is an Apostrophe; connecting voice to tactile velvet is Synesthesia; reversing the order of 'negotiate' and 'fear' is Chiasmus; and repeating 'by tyranny' at the end of consecutive units is Epistrophe.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the first excerpt: 'O silent night, wrap your dark mantle...'
Identified an exclamatory direct address to an abstract, non-human concept ('night').
Directly speaking to an absent person, inanimate object, or abstract idea as if present defines Apostrophe.
2
Analyze the second excerpt: 'Her soft voice fell... like a warm, soothing velvet touch.'
Identified the description of sound (auditory) in terms of physical texture and heat (tactile/thermal).
The juxtaposition or integration of different physical senses constitutes Synesthesia.
3
Analyze the third excerpt: 'never negotiate out of fear, but... never fear to negotiate.'
Identified crisscross phrasing where words in the first clause are inverted in the second.
Reversing the order of words or ideas in two parallel structures is the defining feature of Chiasmus.
4
Analyze the fourth excerpt: '...ravaged by tyranny, ...stolen by tyranny, ...crushed by tyranny.'
Identified identical phrase endings across three consecutive clauses.
Repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses is known as Epistrophe.

Key Concept

Identification and analysis of contextual literary devices and figures of speech in prescribed textual excerpts.
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Literary Devices and Figurative Language

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