Antithesis
Antithesis (an-tith'-e-sis) is the juxtaposition of contrasting or opposite ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction. “The evil that men do lives after them, / The good is oft interred with their bones;” Julius Caesar, 3.2.82. Similar to alliosis, which presents contrasting ideas as alternatives or choices.
Notes on Antithesis
Seduction or Harassment?
Read the NoteShakespeare delights in the seduction ceremonies of bright men with even brighter women. These dialogues, whether between adolescents like Romeo and Juliet, more mature characters like Henry V and Princess Katherine, or seasoned adults like the widow Lady Grey and the sexual harasser King Edward, in this scene (3HenryVI 3.2.36), give Shakespeare opportunities to employ dazzling webworks of rhetorical exchanges.
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Sexual Extortion
Read the NoteIn Measure for Measure (2.4.95), Angelo, the classic sexual harasser, adopts a method of sexual extortion similar to King Edward’s in Henry VI Part 3 (3.2.36). Both men begin with oblique insinuations about their desires, which can be innocently misread. When the women, Isabella in Measure for Measure and Lady Grey in Henry VI,
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Quotes including the Figure of Speech Antithesis
Now is the winter of our discontent
Read the QuoteNowHyperbaton is the winter of our discontentMetaphor
Made glorious summerMetaphor by this son of York,Paronomasia
And all the clouds that louredMetaphor upon our houseMetonymy
In the deep bosom of the ocean MetaphorburiedHyperbaton & Ellipsis.
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Let us sit and mock the good huswife Fortune
Read the QuoteCelia
Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune
from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be
bestowed equally.Personification
Rosalind
I would we could do so, for her benefits are
mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman
doth most mistake in her gifts to women.
Celia
‘Tis true,
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I am sorry that the Duke of Buckingham Is run in your displeasure
Read the QuoteQueen Katherine, to the King
I am sorry that the Duke of Buckingham
Is run in your displeasure.
When these so noble benefits shall prove
Not well disposed, the mind growing once corrupt,
They turn to vicious forms ten times more ugly
Than ever they were fair.
King
It grieves many.
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Not for that neither. Here’s the pang that pinches
Read the QuoteAnne
Not for that neither.Anapodoton Here’s the pang that pinches:
His Highness having lived so long with herAlliteration, and she
So good a lady that no tongue could ever
Pronounce dishonor of her—Parenthesesby my life,
She never knew harm-doing!—O, now,
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Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come
Read the SonnetHero
Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,
As we do trace this alley up and down,
Our talk must only be of Benedick.
When I do name him, let it be thy part
To praise him more than ever man did merit.
What fire is in mine ears?
My talk to thee must be how Benedick
Is sick in love with Beatrice.
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Now tell me, madam, do you love your children?
Read the QuoteKing Edward
Now tell me, madam, do you love your children?
Lady Grey
Ay, full as dearly as I love myself.
Anadiplosis & EpistropheKing Edward
And would you not do much to do them good?
Lady Grey
To do them good I would sustain some harm.
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Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!
Read the QuoteAntony
Friends, Romans, countrymenExordium, lend me your earsSynecdoche!
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.Antithesis
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bonesAntithesis;
So let it be with Caesar.
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