ALLUSIONS

PYRRHIC VICTORY

• MEANING- A pyrrhic victory is one that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that is is considered equivalent, if not worse, than a defeat itself.
• A pyrrhic victory is gained at too great a cost and is characteristic of a net of zero gain for the situation.
• The term is often used to describe situations of war.

ORIGIN

• Coined by those who wrote on the Romans and Epirus War around 370BC. King Pyrrhus of Epirus gained a victory over the Romans led by Consul Publius Decius Mus in 379BC at the Battle of Asculum in Apulia.
• The death toll of the battle alone was 3,500 men from Epirus and 6,000 men from the Romans
• After the Battle ended, Pyyrhus himself was recorded to have said, “If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly destroyed.”

SENTENCES

• “She won the court case, but it was a Pyrrhic Victory because she had to pay so much in legal fees.” “The Pyrrhic Victory unfolded before Captain Jack Sparrow’s eyes as he sat in his sinking ship after killing his enemy.”

FLASH IN THE PAN

• Meaning- 1. A thing or a person whose sudden or brief success is not repeated or repeatable; a one-hit-wonder. 2. A sudden or spasmatic effort that accomplishes nothing; one that appears promising but turns out to be disappointing or worthless; something which disappoints by failing to deliver anything of value, despite a showy beginning.
• Today, the allusion is often used to describe the music or arts industry or something that looked fantastic but ended up being a “fluke”.

ORIGIN

• The Californian Gold Rush of the mid 19th century is one in which prospectors used to pan dirt to search for small chunks of gold. Prospectors would be come excited when they saw a shimmer or glimmer among the dirt in their pan and thought they had found gold, but it would actually turn out to be a flash in the pan.
• Flintlock muskets used to have small pans to hold charges of gun powder. A “flash in the pan” was an attempt to fire the musket without a bullet being fired.

SENTENCES

• “We’re hoping that this gig is the long-term opportunity we are hoping for and not just a flash in the pan.” “Although the group had a number one hit, it was only a one hit wonder making them a flash in the pan.” “If Cannons were so well bred in his metaphor as only to flash in the Pan, I dare lay an even wager that Mr. Dryden durst venture sea.”- Elkanah Settle (1687)

SCAPEGOAT

• Meaning- One who is blamed or punished for the mistakes or sins of others. Unfairly blamed for other people’s problems.
• Today, the phrase is often used when people are looking for someone to falsely accuse of their own misdoings and use them to take the heat.

ORIGIN

• The term was first coined by William Tydale in his 1530 Bible that he was translating to Latin. The original Hebrew text in Leviticus 16:8 stated in English, “And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other for Azazel.” The Hebrew word “Azazel” traditionally means fallen angel, but when Tydale translated he mistook it for the Hebrew word “ez ozel” meaning “the goat that departs” and thus wrote it in Latin as “scape-goote” meaning “the goat that escapes”.

SCAPEGOAT

• Many modern texts of the Bible have corrected this mistake, but the King James Version still uses scapegoat to refer to the goat sent into the wilderness on the Day of Atonement, symbolic bearer of the sins of people.

SENTENCES

• “I let Martha be my scapegoat to avoid my mother grounding me for watching a rated R movie.” “Country boys...are patient, too, and bear their fate as scape-goats, (for all their sins whatsoever are laid as matters of course to their door...) with amazing resignation.”- Our Village by Mary Russet Mitford (1824) “Let us not make one nation the scapegoat for all the world.” -Essay on Irish Bulls by Maria Edgworth (1803)

LITERARY TERMS

GRAVEYARD POETS

• a number of pre-Romantic English poets of the 18th century characterized by their fixations on mortality, 'skulls and coffins, epitaphs and worms'. They were often Christian writers who used the imagery of death, fear, and dreariness in spiritual view of human mortality and our relation to the God and religion.

GRAVEYARD POETS

• Thomas Parnell, Thomas Warton, Thomas Percy, Thomas Gray, Oliver Goldsmith, William Cowper, Christopher Smart, James MacPherson, Robert Blair, William Collins, Thomas Chatterton, Mark Akenside, Joseph Warton, Henry Kirke White and Edward Young. James Thomson.

GRAVEYARD POETS

• The Grave by Robert Blair (1743) shows the darkest and deepest parts of graveyard poems: Wild shrieks have issued from the hollow tombs; Dead men have come again, and walked about; And the great bell has tolled, unrung and untouched. (51–53)

GRAVEYARD POETS

• The original graveyard poem was written by Thomas Parnell and was titled A Night-Piece on Death (1705). The flat smooth Stones that bear a Name, The Chissels slender help to Fame, (Which e'er our Sett of Friends decay Their frequent Steps may wear away.) A middle Race of Mortals own, Men, half ambitious, all unknown.

GRAVEYARD POETS

• three themes: retirement, "memento mori" (the reminder that the grave awaits) and the vanity of human pretensions.

GRAVEYARD POETS

• Thomas Gray wrote a more contemplative and mellow graveyard poem called Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751): The curfew tolls the knell of parting day. The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. (1–4)

HYPERBOLE

• The use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech.
• In poetry, it emphasizes and creates strong feelings and impressions. As a figure of speech, it is usually not meant to be taken literally. Hyperbole is obvious, clear and almost humorous.

HYPERBOLE

• "He had the strength of ten men." "She was as big as a house." "That dog was heavier than a cow!"

LITOTES

• state something that is clearly false, universally known, or ironically says the opposite of what the reader knows as general knowledge. A litote is a massive understatement.

LITOTES

• "Being tortured with fire must have been somewhat uncomfortable." "Rap videos with dancers in them are not uncommon." "There are a few Starbucks in America."

HYPERBOLE VS LITOTE

• Hyperbole and litotes are similar devices with opposite effects. Hyperbole is a massive exaggeration, where something is described in a way that is so inflated that it could not be true. Litotes are more subtle than hyperbole and generally more difficult to pick up

INVECTIVE

• Speech or writing that attacks, insults, or denounces a person, topic, or institution, usually involving negative language.
• used by writers or poets to show the severity of their claims on an issue or a person. It is used to catch the attention or or gain a reaction from the opposite person.

ORIGIN

• Invective in poetry first originated in Greece and spread to Rome where they denounced or ridiculed public or political figures.

“Invective Against the Bumblebee” by Diane Lockward:

• Fat-assed insect! Perverse pedagogue! Henceforth, may flowers refuse to open for you. May cats chase you in the garden. I want you shellacked by rain, pecked by shrikes, mauled by skunks, paralyzed by early frost. May farmers douse your wings with pesticide. May you never again taste the nectar of purple clover or honeysuckle. May you pass by an oak tree just in time to be pissed on by a dog.

LOOSE SENTENCES

• a sentence structure in which a main clause is followed by one or more coordinate or subordinate phrases and clauses. Also known as a cumulative sentence or a right-branching sentence.
• main emphasis at the beginning

LOOSE SENTENCES

• MR. UTTERSO, the lawyer, was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable. -Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. -Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

PERIODIC SENTENCES

• long and heavily packed sentence, with continued syntax, in which the idea is not completed until the final word--Also called a period or a suspended sentence
• Main emphasis at the end

PERIODIC SENTENCES

• If, instead of listening to the war-mongers of the military-industrial establishment, the politicians had only listened to what people had been writing in their letters and in the newspaper columns, if they had only listened to what the demonstrators had been shouting in the streets and on the campuses, if they had only listened to what was in their hearts, the war would have ended long ago. - John F. Kennedy To these partial anticipations, however, Darwin owed little. -Introduction to Origin of the Species