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LITERARY LANGUAGE
Selection of Betuel Bonilla Rojas

I. Rhetorical Figures

A. Figures of thought: they depend on the idea, not on the order of the words

Pathetic figures: to awaken emotions

a. Hyperbole: Exaggeration both in a laudatory and pejorative or mocking sense. Well

achieved can become a metaphor.

River of tears (Aeschylus–Prometheus Bound)

There was a man glued to a nose (Quevedo)
One ages faster in portraits than in real life (Gabriel García Márquez)
Safe travels, Mr. President
She truly felt that her soul was leaving through the wound.
The trace of your blood in the snow
*With my crying, the stones soften / their natural hardness and break; / the trees
it seems that they lean; / the birds, that listen to me when I sing (Garcilaso de la Vega)
* It screamed so stridently that Terrier felt his blood freeze in his veins.
Süskind - The Perfume
Dirty water streams run down his face as if the river had gotten inside.
she (Juan Rulfo–"It's just that we are very poor")
A storm was falling, one of those where the water seems to dig underneath you.
from the feet (Juan Rulfo–“The slope of the godmothers”)
Preacher was a short man, small, with a million wrinkles on his face.
Capote – "The Legend of Preacher"
At the gate of the lot, he greeted an old woman, so old, wrinkled and emaciated that she was barely
the shadow of a woman (Enrique Serpa–"Shark Fins")
She was so small and elastic that when she walked with her corduroy slippers and her suit
black completely shut seemed to have the virtue of passing through walls
The Colonel Has No One to Write to Him
She lies on this hard slab / A woman so thin, / That in the sheath of the sword / She brought herself to
the grave. (Baltasar de Alcázar)

b. Prosopopeia or personification: To attribute human qualities to objects, plants, or

animals, or establish dialogues with absent people.
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The jungles took up arms..., the bushes became defenders (R.P. Calasanz - "Prayer
funeral
* Oh forests and thickets planted by the hand of the beloved, oh meadow of greens, of
enamel flowers, decide if it has passed for you! (Saint John of the Cross)

c. Apostrophe: The speaker turns from one side to the opposite in his exposition. Or either
when addressing other people or referring to abstract things.

2.Logical figures: to highlight an idea

a. Simile: Comparison between inanimate things and living beings established through
of a grammatical link (which, how, seems, equal, such, similar).

She had the appearance of a model. She floated in his arms like a handkerchief.
Breakfast at Tiffany's
The sea, for a man locked up all the time in a steel ship, is something very
similar to a woman (Yukio Mishima–The sailor who lost the grace of the sea)
Paris is like a whore. From afar, she seems captivating, you can't wait to have her in.
the arms, and five minutes later you feel empty, disgusted with yourself (Henry Miller–
Tropic of Cancer
It returned him to the past like a hard bounce of a ball (Julio Cortázar - "Letters from Mom")
I felt the house like a fist tightening.
He was as alone as a wandering asteroid, like a man who already knows that he is leaving.
to die and surrender (Piedad Bonett–After all)
I feel a need for solitude like a sip of water that travels through deserts.
Greek Calendars
He was as strong as a resistant bacteria, and frugal like the tick, which immobilizes itself in
a tree and lives on the tiny drop of blood that it sucked years ago (Patrick Süskind–The
perfume
The train whistle sounded like a snake and disappeared into its hole.
451)
They looked like butterflies of light, the burning bills (Ricardo Piglia–Plata quemada)
It sounds more or less like the whisper of fallen leaves (Franz Kafka–'Odradek')
The time on the wall clock is as slow as a gentle blink (Evelio Rosero–“The
enclosure
I clung to her like a lifeline in the ocean (Evelio Rosero–'The Sitting Nun')
The unions of its members were like knots in a rope (Joseph Conrad –The
Heart of Darkness
The weeds remained motionless, like a heavy mask, like the closed door of
a prison (Joseph Conrad–Heart of Darkness)
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Like a cyclone, piano teacher Érika Kohut rushes into the house that
shares with her mother (Elfriede Jelinek–The Pianist)
The shoes he had taken off were running from one end of the cabin to the other.
jumping playfully, as if they were puppies (Joseph Conrad–Typhoon)
The sunlight scratched at his eyes. It came through the blinds, sharp as blades.
sickle (Manuel Rivas–“Conga-Conga”)
Behind them, like a flock of sparrows startled by the broom of autumn
all the dry leaves entered (Manuel Rivas - 'The arrival of wisdom with time')
As he pulled his arms out of the tub, they fell like overcooked noodles at his sides.
Gabriela Alemán - 'Jam Session'
He did not seem like a man who occupied a space, but rather an impenetrable block.
of space in the shape of a man (Paul Auster–The Invention of Solitude)
Some cities, like packages wrapped under Christmas trees, enclose
unexpected gifts, secret delights (Truman Capote–"Hidden Gardens")
In the solitude of the forest, the captain seemed like a broken doll thrown in the trash.
McCullers–Reflections in Your Golden Eyes
It was as subtle as an elephant strolling around the obelisk.
Giardinelli - 'The type'
It was raining the day Rahel returned from Ayemenem. Slender silver threads were embedded
in the soft ground and they lifted it as if they were rifle bullets (Arundhati Roy–The God of
the little things
Rahel seemed like a mosquito dancing on a thread (Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things)
things

b. Antithesis: Union of ideas, contradictory by nature, in the same thought.

which generally contains a profound truth. It consists of opposing phrases or
words of opposite significance to highlight one of them.

What is life, a frenzy / What is life, a passion / A farce, an illusion / That the
Better to be small / For in life everything is a dream / And dreams are just dreams.
Calderón de la Barca – Life is a Dream
*If with unmatched anxiety / you seek their disdain / why do you want them to act well / if the
you incite evil (Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz–Redondillas)

c. Paradox: It is the seemingly contradictory expression of a thought or

complex feeling

I live without living in myself / and such a high life I hope for / that I die because I do not die.
Jesus
Because I see you and die / and worse than dying / if I don't see you, love / if I don't see you
Benedetti)
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d. Synesthesia: To evoke through one sense sensations that can only be perceived by
through another. Description of a sensory experience in terms of another.

The cold was smelled (William Faulkner-The Sound and the Fury)
He seemed to look at the music (Manuel Mejía Vallejo–The House of Two Palms)
With my eyes I perceive the crash (Aeschylus–The Persians)
He was laughing out loud with his eyes (Luis Cardoza y Aragón–Novels of Chivalry)
I listen with my eyes to the dead (Quevedo)
I understood what the old man was feeling and felt pity for him, even though I was laughing inside.
bottom of my heart (Edgar Allan Poe - 'The Tell-Tale Heart')
This eye smiled (Sandor Marai–The Last Encounter)
My eyes seemed to sing (Germán Espinosa - "News from a convent by the sea")

d. Oxymoron: To attribute to a noun adjectives that contradict its own essence

Silent Music (Michael Ende–Momo)

Pale Fire
Mom handed it to me with a sad smile (Fernando Villamía–“The Suit”)
Dark light (of the Gnostics)
Black sun (of the alchemists)
Cruel pity, which irresistibly pushed me to caress her (Luigi Pirandello –The
Matías Pascal's family
I felt a love-filled hatred for that coastal man I had unintentionally learned from.
memory (Hétor Abad Faciolince–Trash)
The general maintained an irritated serenity.
Torcuato
In every detail, a poor luxury could be seen (Gabriel García Márquez–La mala hora)
They are bringing Mª Dolores, the holy witch, and those nearby can hear her hoarse voice.
(Gina Picart–"The Angel's Pool")

3. Oblique figures: to express thoughts indirectly

a. Paraphrase or circumlocution: Expresses a feeling or an idea through a roundabout way of

words. It is more intellectual than the metaphor.

The goddess of the fearsome father (Athena)

The city of light (Paris)
The spring city (Rome)
The one with the winged feet (Apollo)
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B. Figures of speech or diction: they are based on the special placement of words

1.Add words

a. Epithet: An unnecessary adjective placed before the noun to express a

inseparable quality of what is meant by the noun.

White snow
Green thicket

2.Remove words

b. Asyndeton: Omit conjunctions (and, or, but, nor, if)

There are blows in life so strong! I don't know (César Vallejo-Trilce)

3.Repeat words

a. Anaphora: Repetition of one or several words at the beginning of a sentence or a verse

with poetic meaning. It is to reinforce the significance of the word that is repeated.

* Green how I want you green / green wind, green branches (Federico García Lorca)
Gypsy Ballad
* Because I have you and I don't / because I think of you / because the night is with open eyes /
because the night passes and I say love / because you have come to gather your image / and you are better
that all your images / because you are beautiful from your feet to your soul / because you are
good from the soul to me / because you hide sweetly in pride / little and sweet /
heart armor... because you are mine / because you are not mine / because I look at you and die / and worse
that I die / if I do not look at you love / if I do not look at you... because you always exist wherever
but you exist better where I want you / because your mouth is blood / and you are cold / I have to
to love you love / I have to love you / even if this wound hurts like two / even if you
I searched and did not find you / and although / the night passes and I have you / and not
Benedetti–Inventory I)
* And she has traveled and traveled, dizzy from the noise of conversation, from the clattering
from the wheels and by the smoke, by the smell of stale nicotine. (Dámaso Alonso)

b. Polysyndeton: More conjunctions than necessary are used. It consists of repeating

unnecessarily the conjunction between the elements that form an enumeration.
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And they were one / And they were one / And they were one long shadow / And they were one long shadow / And
they were a single long shadow (José Asunción Silva–Nocturno III)
Your garden without a flower / And your woods without an oak / And old / And tired / By the seaside
He drank his past sip by sip. (Antonio Machado)

4. Combine words

a. Alliteration: The initial sound is repeated in several words to create an effect.

special. It is a figure of diction that is essentially musical.

* Teresa, what light is that

In the silence, only a whisper of bees could be heard.

b. Onomatopoeia: Real sounds are imitated through the rhythm of words.

The tick-tock of the clock

c. Hiperbaton: Alteration of the logical syntactic order of the phrase.

These that dictated to me sonorous rhymes (Luis de Góngora y Argote)

From green willows there is a thicket (Garcilaso de la Vega)
The trees I present, among the hard rocks, as witnesses of how much I have hidden from you.
Garcilaso de la Vega

d. Reduplication: It is the repetition of a word two or more times within the same.
phrase.

Run, moon, moon, / for I can already feel the horses.

II. Tropos
The use of words in a figurative sense

a. Metonymy: A word is used to symbolize something. A relationship is established between

contiguity. It is naming an object after another due to a relationship of cause or origin.
Sign for the signified.

Laureles–Triunfo
Honeys–Happiness
Thorns–Pain
Roses–Love, sweetness
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Pillow silences. Proximity 'the silences of the night.'

b. Synecdoche: To designate an object with the name of another because there is a

relationship of coexistence (designate the whole by the part). It is governed by relationships of
inclusion.

Spring, spring / you do not speak the truth (Rubén Darío–Letters and poems)
Works from sun to sun (Patrick Süskind–Perfume)

c. Allegory: A sustained metaphor throughout the work. Image or group of

images that refer to a hidden meaning. Each element of the real plane is
corresponds with its image. Personification of feelings and attitudes.

Virgil, Beatrice, the she-wolf, the mountain, the serpent from Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy
* The sea is the black night, / The cloud is a shell, / The moon is a pearl. (Dante Alighieri)

d. Parable: A didactic allegory. It has a moralizing function.

e. Metaphor: Relationship between two concepts, or between man and the object, that only
it works in a poetic sense. Knowing how to find metaphors consists of knowing how to perceive the
similar in diversity. It comes from detranslatio, in Greek, which means translation.
(Galvano Della Volpe–Critique of Taste). It arises from the intuition of an analogy between
dissimilar things (Aristotle–Rhetoric)

When I turn to look at them, the days of my youth seem to flee from me (Vladimir
Nabokov–Lolita
When darkness fell, the small number of guards was no longer enough to
prevent the night from taking over the fortress (Dino Buzzati–The Tartar Steppe)
Hell finally yawned to receive them, and closed over all of them.
paradise lost
The air is blue and the sky is clear.
The boat began to dance on the waves (Gabriele D'Annunzio–Tales of the Pescara River)
The road was a huge scar (William Faulkner–Sanctuary)
The flower of your skin (Squirrel–Prometheus Bound)
The insolent breasts curl the bodice (Luis Cardoza y Aragón –Novels of
cavalries
Their honeymoon was a long shiver (Horacio Quiroga – "The Feather Pillow")
Violet of thoughtful vultures drying in the sun (Gabriel García Márquez - “One Day of
these
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It was the only thing that time's rust had left intact.
Maria of Pleasures
Children are swallows that leave one day (Julio Cortázar - 'Letters from Mom')
Do not turn your days into a cemetery field, full of beautiful graves to which each
Tomorrow you will put flowers for them (Piedad Bonett - After all)
The icy wind was worsening, it penetrated his bones, he was going to die in his heart (Piedad
Bonett – After all)
We all carry in our soul a note that has ceased to sound.
The Penultimate Dream
Time is a vulture that robs us of life with pecks.
dream
The sun was breaking into pieces on the sand and on the sea (Albert Camus–The Stranger)
During the first years, he felt that he loved her, but now that love was a dried fruit.
Antonio García Ángel - Human Resources
Loneliness, the only close relative, a stepmother with dry and sad breasts, has turned them
resentful, sullen, hostile
The eyes of the Indian are humid stones set in a mask of wrinkles.
Alessandro Baricco–City
Then his silence tore through the air (Amos Oz–Towards Death)
Autumn was wrapping everything in a thick fog.
Do not this tough cowhide that is called the plain (Juan Rulfo–“They have given us the land”)
My face was a cold stone without life (Luis López Nieves - The true death of Juan
Ponce de León