Wisdom Speaking Eloquently

Over 400 years ago, an English curate named Henry Peacham characterized the figures of speech as "wisdom speaking eloquently." Through the play of language, he said, "the singular partes of mans mind are most aptly expressed, and the sundrie affections of his heart most effectuallie uttered."

In The Garden of Eloquence (1577, revised 1593), Peacham defined and illustrated 184 figures of speech, many of which also appear in our Tool Kit for Rhetorical Analysis. But whereas Peacham's favorite sources were Cicero and the Bible, we've plucked our examples of eloquence from more contemporary gardens.

• Anadiplosis, for instance, is illustrated by Yoda in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menance:
  

  Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you.



• Anaphora by Senator Barack Obama, in his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention:

  It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.
  
  Hope--hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!



• Chiasmus by a commercial jingle:

  I am stuck on Band-Aid, and Band-Aid's stuck on me.



• Epanalepsis by the character of Jack Sparrow in The Pirates of the Caribbean:

  The man who did the waking buys the man who was sleeping a drink; the man who was sleeping drinks it while listening to a proposition from the man who did the waking.



• Hypophora by Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the dark days of 1940:

  You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalog of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.



• Parechesis by rapper Eminem:

  And just know that I grow colder the older I grow
  This boulder on my shoulder gets heavy and harder to hold
  And this load is like the weight of the world.



• Synecdoche by late-night growler Tom Waits:

  And the swizzle stick legs
  jackknifed over naugahyde stools and the
  witch hazel spread out over the linoleum floors,
  the pedal pushers stretched out over midriff bulge,
  and the coiffed brunette curls over Maybelline eyes
  wearing Prince Machiabelli, Estee Lauder, smells so sweet.



• And understatement by the Black Knight, after having both of his arms cut off, in Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

  It's just a flesh wound.

Before visiting some of the rarer specimens in our garden, you may want to begin your tour with our Top 20 Figures of Speech. No, there wasn't a contest, and as far as I know these 20 figures haven't won any medals at the Chelsea Flower Show. But I trust you'll find some familiar names--and still hear "wisdom speaking eloquently."

More About the Figures of Speech:

• Top 20 Figures of Speech
• Tool Kit for Rhetorical Analysis
• Homer Simpson's Figures of Speech
• Quiz on Commonly Confused Figures of Speech