The Literary Device Post

The former English major part of me is openly standing and cheering this week's prompt at The Blue Bookcase's Literary Blog Hop. The question: What are your favorite literary devices?

I have two. And, not coincidentally, they also happen to be two of my favorite words. Let me a drop a little juxtaposition and synecdoche on y'all. 

I remember learning about juxtaposition in a Shakespeare class in college. Apparently, Billy S. was the original DJ Juxtapositioner. After I learned what it meant, and that it could apply to many, many real-life situations outside of literature, I never missed (and still try not to) an opportunity to use it. It's fun. "Wow, today's weather is quite a juxtaposition to yesterday's, eh?" or "The floral hints in this chardonnay nicely juxtapose the boldness of flavor in these chicken wings." Anyway, having just read Eric Larson's In The Garden of Beasts, juxtaposition has been fresh in my mind. It was even the lead for the review. I also used it as a headline here. In fact, it could probably be argued successfully that I overuse that term. But that's a discussion for another time.

And so, also in the category of fun: Just saying the word "synecdoche." But I also like it as a literary device for its capacity to illustrate with brevity. An example: In Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace is describing one of Jim's crazy films and uses the phrase "camera as audience-synecdoche." Got it? It means a part standing in for the whole. Now that know you understand, can you spot the two examples of synecdoche in this made-up sentence: "I'ma cruise out in my new wheels on Sat. night and find me a real nice piece'o'ass, y'all."  By the way, have you ever seen Charlie Kaufman's film Synecdoche, New York? Good God. I love that PS Hoffman fellow, but that movie nearly drove me mad. I was not a fan. At all. But that's a discussion for another time.


(PS. My blog is the process of transition from its blogspot URL to its own domain. So, pardon my dust, vis-à-vis any irregularities in redirection to the right page, or goofs in page elements. Cheers!)