Chit-chat-lit

Syllepsis   - JS.N (22/03/2024) Syllepsis is a rhetorical method in which one word, applied differently to each word, governs or modifies two or more other words in a sentence. This creates a kind of semantic ambiguity that can be used for humorous or rhetorical effect. Syllepsis, as a figure of speech, is a type of zeugma, which specifically refers to cases where the word is used in a way that creates semantic ambiguity, meaning that it applies differently to each of the words it modifies. In other words, syllepsis is a technique for using a single word to create a double meaning or pun, in which the term implies one thing when applied to one word in the phrase and something else when used to another. This can be used to create a comic effect with a deeper and layered meaning in a statement. For example, consider the sentence: "She lost her ring and her temper at the party."  Here, the word "lost" is used sylleptically, because it applies differently to "ring&

  Sonnet Sequences in English Literature - JS.N (19/03/2024) " Astrophil and Stella, 108 " by Sir Philip Sidney (1591, Elizabethan period) " Delia, 50 " by Samuel Daniel (1592, Elizabethan period) " Amoretti, 89 " by Edmund Spenser (1595, Elizabethan period) " Idea, " by Michael Drayton (1594, Elizabethan period) " Diana " by Henry Constable (1594, Elizabethan period) " Holy Sonnets, 19 " by John Donne (1635-9, Jacobean period) " Emblems of Love " by Francis Quarles (1635, Jacobean period) " Cynthia, with Certain Sonnets " by Richard Barnfield (1595, Elizabethan period) " Fidessa " by William Drummond (1616, Jacobean period) " The Forest of Love " by Thomas Watson (1570, Elizabethan period) " The Shepherd's Pipe " by Nicholas Breton (1595, Elizabethan period) " The House of Life, 101 " by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1881, Victorian period) " Monna Innominata, 14

Iambic Pentameter - JS.N (19/03/2024) Definition of Iambic Pentameter: Iambic pentameter is a type of poetic metre that consists of five iambic feet per line. An iambic foot is a unit of unstressed and stressed syllables, with the stress falling on the second syllable. This creates a da-DUM da-DUM rhythm that can sound like a heartbeat or a drumbeat. Example of Iambic Pentameter: One famous example of iambic pentameter comes from Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night": Each line of this passage is written in iambic pentameter, meaning it consists of five iambs. Each pair of syllables forms an iambic foot, with the stress falling on the second syllable. This creates a pattern of five iambic feet, or iambic pentameter. Explanation of Iambic Pentameter: "If MU-sic BE the FOOD of LOVE, play ON," This line consists of 10 syllables, with the stress falling on every other syllable, creating a pattern of five iambic feet. This rhythm creates a musical quality that is pleasing to

The Road Not Taken: Summary - JS.N (04/12/2022) Robert Lee Frost is an American poet who was much admired for his depictions of the rural life of New England, and his realistic verse portraying ordinary people in everyday situations. The Road Not Taken is one of Robert Frost’s most familiar and most popular poems. Frost wrote the poem in the first person, which raises the question of whether the speaker is the poet himself or a character created by him. According to Lawrance Thompson’s biography on Robert Frost, Frost would often introduce the poem in public readings by saying that the speaker of the poem was based on his Welsh friend ‘Edward Thomas’. The poem is about his friend Edward Thomas who had gone off to war.  The first stanza sets the scene for the extended metaphor of choices in the form of two roads which the speaker faces.  “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both” The road splitting in the woods is a metaphor for choice. Wherever