Thursday 21 September 2023

Poetic Devices 11: Metonymy


Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears! 
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. 
The evil that men do lives after them. 
The good is oft interred with their bones.
So goes the famous soliloquy speech of Marc Anthony in Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. Notice that Shakespeare uses the phrase 'lend me your ears' to indicate demanding attention. The word 'ears' is used as a substitute for the act of listening. In poetic and literature terms, this is known as metonymy - using a single word to indicate a larger idea or context. Metonymy is quite simply a concept or idea that is referred to by a word that is closely related to it. It's a stand-in or substitute word for a much larger idea. 

Metonyms occur more frequently in every day speech and conversation than we realise. And thus, they also appear in poetry and literature a lot. The actor Marlon Brando once said 'Most of the successful people in Hollywood are failures as human beings.' He was of course using Hollywood to refer to the entire movie making industry, including actors, directors, writers and so on. 

Musicians Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney once sang a wonderful refrain in a song they performed:
Ebony and ivory 
Live together in perfect harmony 
Side by side on my piano keyboard 
Oh lord, why don’t we?
Ebony is a metonym that refers to black culture and people from Afro-Carribbean origin, while ivory refers to white culture and Caucasian heritage people. The piano-keyboard is a metaphor that reflects life in general and in this case is a political statement. What they are really asking is why can't black and white people live peacefully and respectfully together? Why does there have to be such hatred? It's a colourful, poetic way of referring to racial tension in a community without overtly stating the problem. The fact that the two musicians were from two different ethic cultures spoke volumes, but the lyrics were even more powerful. 

Examples in poetry are many. Just remember that a single word can have as much power as an entire phrase in poetry. You might for example describe someone who is bleeding to death, as 'the life slowly drained out of him. The metonym used is 'life.' You might refer to the entire presidential administration of the United States of America as the 'White House' or 'Washington', or the Royal Family and household of the United Kingdom as the 'Crown'. Using a change of word to denote something larger, can change the perception of the reader or the tone of the poem, and make it even more memorable. 

Steve Wheeler


Image from Blue Diamond Gallery used via Creative Commons Licensing

3 comments:

  1. As usual thank you for this intriguing and informative piece Steve.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's most interesting. I have learnt a new word and new concept. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great piece. We learn something every day. I'll try to have a go at this.

    ReplyDelete

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