Monday, September 30, 2013

What are some literary devices used in the ghost's speech in Act 1, scene 5 in Hamlet?

of 's father
says,

My hour is almost come
When I to sulfurous
and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.


Here, the ghost substitutes the word "hour" to refer to time, using acalled
metonymy. Metonymy occurs when a writer substitutes a detail
associated with a thing for the thing itself. An hour is a measurement of time, and so we
understand what the ghost means when he says that his "hour" to return to Purgatory is
near.

Later, the ghost says tothat, if he could tell his son about Purgatory,
the tale

Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young
blood
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres
Thy knotted and
combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills
upon the fearful porpentine.
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of
flesh and blood.

In this passage, the ghost uses a
comparing Hamlet's soul to land that has been plowed and broken up
(harrow can also mean to cause distress to , but not
typically with the...



href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metonymy">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metonymy
href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/synecdoche">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/synecdoche

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