ENGLISH 313:
AUGUSTAN WRITERS I
(English Literature, 1660-1714)
Fall 1999
HOW TO SURVIVE THE COUPLET COMPONENT OF THE FINAL EXAM
If you have clicked onto this page, you are clearly exploring the more difficult of the two questions in part II of the exam. Good for you.
In order to understand how couplets work, it is helpful to be familiar with figures of speech. The definitions below come from or are adapted from Richard A. Lanham's A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms. One way of proceeding would be to explore one of Dryden's or Pope's poems to see if you can find the figures of speech below. Once you have identified them, ask yourself how these figures of speech help the writer get the most out of couplet form. Do they add to the couplet's flexibility? Do they help emphasize main points? Do they help the poet shape an argument? Asking and answering questions like these and illustrating your claims by using a specific poem by Pope or Dryden will help you prepare for the final exam question on couplets.
| Chiasmus | The term is derived from the Greek letter X (chi) whose shape,
if the two halves of the construction are rendered in separate verses, it resembles: A B Polish'd in courts, and harden'd in the field Renowned for conquests, and in council skill'd B A |
| Zeugma | One verb governs several congruent words or clauses, each in a
different way; as in The Rape of the Lock: "Here thou, great Anna!
whom three realms obey, |
| Parenthesis | (Greek: "to put in beside") A word, phrase, or
sentence inserted as an aside in a sentence complete in itself. In his elegy for
John Oldham, Dryden uses a parenthesis to pretend to excuse Oldham's poetic faults, even
as he calls attention to them. What could advancing Age have added more? It might (what Nature never gives the young) Have taught the numbers of thy native Tongue. |
| Hyperbaton | A generic figure of various forms of departure from ordinary word order. Separation of words usually belonging together. Churchill's humorous illustration of "good usage" is an example: "This is the kind of impertinence up with which I will not put." |
| Asyndeton | Omission of conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses: "Fayant,
wearie, sore, emboyled, grieved, brent |
| Polysyndeton | Use of a conjunction between each clause: opposite of Assyndeton.
Milton says of Satan, in his course through Chaos, that he pursues his way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies. Notice how the addition of a conjunction between each noun helps to emphasize the labor of Satan's voyage. |
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