Apostrophe (figure of speech)

Apostrophe (Greek ἀποστροφή, apostrophé, "turning away"; the final e being sounded)^[1] is an exclamatory figure of speech. It occurs when a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g. in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes absent from the scene. Often the addressee is a personified abstract quality or inanimate object.^[2][3] In dramatic works and poetry written in or translated into English, such a figure of speech is often introduced by the vocative exclamation "O". Poets may apostrophize a beloved, the Muse, God, love, time, or any other entity that can’t respond in reality.

Examples

• "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" 1 Corinthians 15:55, Saint Paul of Tarsus
• William Shakespeare
  • "O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, / That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! / Thou art the ruins of the noblest man / That ever lived in the tide of times." Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1
  • "O God! God!" Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2
  • "Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee! I have thee not, and yet I see thee still." Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1
  • "O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die." Romeo and Juliet, act 5, scene 3, 169-170).
• "To what green altar, O mysterious priest, / Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, / And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?" John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
• "O eloquent, just, and mighty Death!" Sir Walter Raleigh, A Historie of the World
• "Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium!" Thomas de Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
• "Roll on, thou dark and deep blue Ocean -- roll!" Lord Byron, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"
• "Thou glorious sun!" Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "This Lime Tree Bower"^[4]
• "Death, be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so." John Donne, "Holy Sonnet X"
• "And you, Eumaeus..." Homer, the Odyssey
• "O My friends, there is no friend." Montaigne, originally attributed to Aristotle^[5]
• "Ah Bartleby! Ah Humanity!" Herman Melville, "Bartleby, the Scrivener"
• "O black night, nurse of the golden eyes!" Electra in Euripides' Electra (c. 410 BC, line 54), in the translation by David Kovacs (1998).
• "Then come, sweet death, and rid me of this grief." [(Queen Isabel in Edward II by Christopher Marlowe)]

See also

• Literary technique
• Fourth wall
• Personification
• Simile

References

1. Apostrophe | Define Apostrophe at Dictionary.com
2. Hays, J. Daniel; Duvall, J. Scott (1 September 2011). The Baker Illustrated Bible Handbook (Text Only Edition). Baker Books. p. 891. ISBN 978-1-4412-3785-9.
3. Ford, Margaret L. (1984). Techniques of Good Writing. Irwin Pub. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-7725-5001-9. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
4. Greenblatt, Stephen (2006). The Norton Anthology of English Literature Ed. 8, Vol. D. New York: Norton. p. 429.
5. "Politics of friendship. (Cover Story)". American Imago. September 22, 1993.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Apostrophe". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.