Trope (literature)

A literary trope is the use of figurative language – viaword, phrase, or even an image – for artistic effect[1]such as using a figure of speech. The word trope hasalso come to be used for describing commonly recurringliterary and rhetorical devices,[2] motifs or clichés in cre-ative works.[3][4]

1 Origins

The term trope derives from the Greek τρόπος (tropos),“turn, direction, way”, derived from the verb τρέπειν(trepein), “to turn, to direct, to alter, to change”.[3] Tropesand their classification were an important field in classicalrhetoric. The study of tropes has been taken up again inmodern criticism, especially in deconstruction.[5] Tropo-logical criticism (not to be confused with tropologicalreading, a type of biblical exegesis) is the historical studyof tropes, which aims to “define the dominant tropes ofan epoch” and to “find those tropes in literary and non-literary texts”, an interdisciplinary investigation of whichMichel Foucault was an “important exemplar”.[5]

2 In medieval writing

A specialized use is the medieval amplification of textsfrom the liturgy, such as in the Kyrie Eleison (Kyrie, /magnae Deus potentia, / liberator hominis, / transgressorismandati, / eleison). The most important example of sucha trope is the Quem quaeritis?, an amplification beforethe Introit of the Easter Sunday service and the sourcefor liturgical drama.[2][6] This particular practice came toan end with the Tridentine Mass, the unification of theliturgy in 1570 promulgated by Pope Pius V.[5]

3 Types

• Allegory – A sustained metaphor continued throughwhole sentences or even through a whole discourse.For example: “The ship of state has sailed throughrougher storms than the tempest of these lobbyists.”

• Antanaclasis – is the stylistic trope of repeating asingle word, but with a different meaning each time.Antanaclasis is a common type of pun, and like otherkinds of pun, it is often found in slogans.

• Irony – creating a trope through implying the oppo-site of the standard meaning, such as describing abad situation as “good times”.

• Metaphor – an explanation of an object or ideathrough juxtaposition of disparate things with a sim-ilar characteristic, such as describing a courageousperson as having a “heart of a lion”.

• Metonymy – a trope through proximity or corre-spondence. For example, referring to actions of theU.S. President as “actions of the White House”.

• Synecdoche – related to metonymy and metaphor,creates a play on words by referring to somethingwith a related concept: for example, referring to thewhole with the name of a part, such as “hired hands”for workers; a part with the name of the whole, suchas “the law” for police officers; the general with thespecific, such as “bread” for food; the specific withthe general, such as “cat” for a lion; or an objectwith the material it is made from, such as “bricksand mortar” for a building.

Kenneth Burke has called metaphor, metonymy, synec-doche and irony the “four master tropes”.[7]

4 Examples

Rhetoricians have closely analyzed the great variety of“twists and turns” used in poetry and literature and haveprovided an extensive list of precise labels for these po-etic devices. Examples include:

• hyperbole

• irony

• litotes

• metaphor

• metonymy

• oxymoron

• synecdoche

For a longer list, see Figure of speech: Tropes.

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2 6 REFERENCES AND SOURCES

5 See also• Fantasy tropes and conventions

• Invariance principle

• Literary topos

• Scheme (linguistics)

• Stereotype

• Tropological reading

• TV Tropes, a site dedicated to cataloguing andstudying cliché

6 References and sourcesReferences

[1] Miller (1990). Tropes, Parables, and Performatives. DukeUniversity Press. p. 9. ISBN 0822311119.

[2] Cuddon, J. A.; Preston, C. E. (1998). “Trope”. The Pen-guin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (4ed.). London: Penguin. p. 948. ISBN 9780140513639.

[3] “trope”, Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield,Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2009, retrieved 2009-10-16

[4] “trope (revised entry)". Oxford English Dictionary.Oxford University Press. 2014.

[5] Childers, Joseph; Hentzi, Gary (1995). “Trope”. TheColumbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and CulturalCriticism. New York: Columbia UP. p. 309. ISBN9780231072434.

[6] Cuddon, J. A.; Preston, C. E. (1998). “Quem quaeritistrope”. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Lit-erary Theory (4 ed.). London: Penguin. p. 721. ISBN9780140513639.

[7] Burke, K. (1969). A grammar of motives. Berkeley: Uni-versity of California Press.

Sources

• “Silva Rhetorica”. rhetoric.byu.edu.

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