Milton's Rhetoric: Examples of Milton's Use of Classical Schemes and Tropes

By Lee Jacobus

The Schemes: A schematic use of language does not change its apparent meaning. A scheme is an ordering or patterning of language.

Schemes of Words

• prosthesis. Adding a syllable in front of a word, for example, beloved for loved; "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" 155: "to those ychained in sleep"


• epenthesis. Adding a syllable in the middle of word, for example, visitating for visiting; "On Shakespeare" 4: "Under a Star-ypointing pyramid"


• proparalepsis. Adding a syllable at the end of word, for example, climature for climate; Paradise Lost 6.410: "The foughten field"


• aphaeresis. Subtracting a syllable from the beginning of word, for example, 'neath for beneath; Paradise Lost 4.50: "I sdeind subjection"


• syncope. Subtracting a syllable from the middle of word, for example, prosprous for prosperous; Paradise Lost 1.145: "orepow'rd"; Paradise Lost (1667) 2.175: "op'n'd"


• apocope. Subtracting a syllable from the end of the word, for example, even for evening; Paradise Lost 3.625: "golden tiar"


• metathesis. Transposition of letters in a word, for example, clapse for clasp; [Example needed]


• antisthecon. Change of sound, for example, wrang for wrong; Paradise Lost 1.247: "fardest"

Schemes of Construction

1. Schemes of Balance

• parallelism. Similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses; Paradise Lost 2.185: "Unrespited, unpitied, unrepreevd"


• antithesis. The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, often in parallel structure; Paradise Lost 3.19-20: "to venture down/ The dark descent, and up to reascend"

2. Schemes of unusual or inverted word order (hyperbaton)

• anastrophe. Inversion of the natural or usual word order; Paradise Lost 3.142: "Love without end, and without measure Grace"


• parenthesis. Insertion of some verbal unit in a position that interrupts the normal syntactical flow of the sentence; Paradise Lost 3.108-9: "When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice)/ Useless and vain"


• apposition. Placing side by side two coordinate elements, the second of which serves as an explanation or modification of the first; Paradise Lost 2.975: "Alone, and without guide, half lost"; Paradise Lost 3.99: "Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall"

3. Schemes of Omission

• ellipsis. Deliberate omission of a word (or words) which is readily implied by the context; Paradise Lost 3.210: "Dye hee or Justice must"


• asyndeton. Deliberate omission of conjunctions between a series of related clauses; Paradise Lost 2.620-21: "O'er many a Frozen, many a fierie Alpe,/ Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens, and shades of death"


• polysyndeton. Deliberate use of many conjunctions; Paradise Lost 2.1009-10: "go and speed;/ Havock and spoil and ruin are my gain"

4. Schemes of Repetition

• alliteration. Repetition of initial or medial consonants in two or more adjacent words; Paradise Lost 1.250-51: "Hail horrours, hail/Infernal world and thou profoundest Hell"; Paradise Lost 3.298: "So Heav'nly love shall outdoo Hellish hate"


• assonance. Repetition of similar vowel sounds, preceded and followed by different consonants, in the stressed syllables of adjacent words; Paradise Lost 3.274: "O thou in Heav'n and earth the only peace/ Found out for mankind under wrauth, O thou"


• anaphora. Repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginnings of successive clauses; Paradise Lost 1.242-3: "Is this the Region, this the Soil, The Clime,/ Said then the lost Arch-Angel, this the seat?"


• epistrophe. Repetition of the same word or group of words at the ends of successive clauses; Paradise Lost 1.105-6: "What though the field be lost?/ All is not lost"


• epanalepsis. Repetition at the end of a clause of the word that occurred at the beginning of the clause; Paradise Lost 3.294-95: "So man, as is most just/ Shall satisfie for man"


• anadiplosis. Repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause; Paradise Lost 3.124: "I formd them free, and free they must remain"


• climax. Arrangement of words, phrases or clauses in an order of increasing importance; Paradise Lost 1.133: "Whether upheld by strength, or Chance, or Fate"


• antimetabole. Repetition of words, in successive clauses, in reverse order; Paradise Lost 2.39-40: "Surer to prosper then prosperity/ Could have assur'd us"


• polyptoton. Repetition of words derived from the same root; Paradise Lost 1.642: "Which tempted our attempt"; Paradise Lost 3.296: "And dying rise, and rising with him raise"


• mirror repetition (this may be a Miltonic invention; I invented the name). Repetition of simple words or large sections of verse to simulate a mirror; Paradise Lost 4.460-464 and "sweet" in Paradise Lost 4.639-656 and Paradise Lost 10.1087-1104 (the last example courtesy of John Leonard)


• sequential repetition. Simple repetition of words, lines or phrases for effect; Paradise Lost 3.316: "Both God and Man, Son both of God and Man"; Paradise Lost 3.190-91: "to pray, repent, and bring obedience due./ To Prayer, repentance and obedience due"

Tropes. A trope is a use of language that changes its apparent meaning.

• metaphor. A figure of speech in which a name or descriptive word or phrase is transferred to an object or action different from, but analogous to, that to which it is literally applicable; Paradise Lost 9.432: "Her self, though fairest unsupported Flour"


• simile. An explicit comparison between two things of unlike nature that yet have something in common. Paradise Lost 1.768: "As Bees/ In spring time, when the Sun with Taurus rides,/ Pour forth thir populous youth about the Hive/ In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers/ Flie to and fro"


• synechdoche. A figure by which a more comprehensive term is used for a less comprehensive or vice versâ; as whole for part or part for whole, genus for species or species for genus, and the like; Paradise Lost 4.408-10: "when Adam first of men/ To first of women Eve thus moving speech,/ Turnd him all eare to hear new utterance flow"


• metonymy. Substitution of some attributive or suggestive word for what is actually meant; Paradise Lost 2.204: "I laugh, when those who at the Spear are bold"


• Puns in three kinds.
• antanaclasis. Repetition of a word in two different senses; Paradise Lost 9.648: "Fruitless to mee, though Fruit be here to excess"


• paronomasia. Use of words alike in sound but different in meaning; Paradise Lost 3.742: "till on Niphates top he lights" in the context of Uriel's speech from 3.712-35


• syllepsis. Use of a word understood differently in relation to two or more other words, which it modifies or governs; Paradise Lost 2.766-67: "my womb conceiv'd/ A growing burden"


• anthimeria. Substitution of one part of speech for another; Paradise Lost 2.656-58: "when they list, would creep,/ If aught disturb'd thir noyse, into her woomb,/ And kennel there"


• periphrasis (antomasia). Substitution of a descriptive word or phrase for a proper name or of a proper name for a quality associated with the name; Paradise Lost 2.410: "ere he arrive/ The happy Ile"


• prosopopœia (personification). Investing abstractions or inanimate objects with human qualities or abilities, or absent persons with a present voice; Paradise Lost 2.233: "fickle Chance"


• hyperbole. Use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect; Paradise Lost 1.632-33: "all these puissant Legions, whose exile/ Hath emptied Heav'n"


• litotes. A figure of speech, in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary; Paradise Lost 1.442: "In Sion also not unsung"; Paradise Lost 6.470: "Not univented that, which thou aright"; Paradise Lost 11.244: "Not unperceav'd of Adam."


• erotesis (rhetorical question). Asking a question, not for the purpose of eliciting an answer but for the purpose of asserting or denying something obliquely; Paradise Lost 1.661: "who can think Submission?"


• irony. Use of a word in such a way as to convey a meaning opposite to its literal sense; Paradise Lost 1.237: "Such resting found the sole/ Of unblest feet"


• onamatapoeia. Use of words whose sound echoes the sense; Paradise Lost 10.508-509: "A dismal universal hiss, the sound/ Of public scorn"; Paradise Lost 10.574: "ceasless hiss"


• oxymoron. Yoking of two terms which are ordinarily contradictory; Paradise Lost 1.63: "darkness visible"; Paradise Lost 1.692: "the precious bane"; Paradise Lost 2.6: "that bad eminence"


• paradox. An apparent contradiction; Paradise Lost 1.65-67 "where ... hope never comes/ That comes to all"; Paradise Lost 4.110: "Evil be thou my Good"


• pleonasm. Using too many words, redundancy of expression; Paradise Lost 2.197: "fate inevitable"