Grammar Lessons, Shakespeare Style

Shakespeare's Grammar: Rhetorical Devices is really something out of a high school English class, but I love the use of examples from Shakespeare to show such vocabulary lesson concepts as alliteration, anaphora, and onomatopoeia. Ok, I'll admit some of the terms are new to me, too. Fair is foul and foul is fair? That's your basic "chiasmus" right there, ya see. And "Take thy face hence?" What you've got there is a synecdoche.

Did I ever tell you about the time I tried a new Mexican restaurant, and told the waiter, "I'd like the chicken and cheese chimichanga, because you can't pass up an alliteration like that." He didn't appreciate the poetic significance.

How do you spell onomatopoeia? Just like it sounds.

Tags: Shakespeare