Apostrophe (figure of speech)

Apostrophe (Greek ἀποστροφή, apostrophé, "turning away"; the final e being sounded) is an exclamatory rhetorical figure of speech, when a speaker or writer breaks off and directs speech to an imaginary person or abstract quality or idea. In dramatic works and poetry written in or translated into English, such a figure of speech is often introduced by the exclamation "O".

It is related to personification, although in apostrophe, objects or abstractions are implied to have certain human qualities (such as understanding) by the very fact that the speaker is addressing them as he would a person in his presence.

This rhetorical device addresses things which are personified; absent people or gods.

Apostrophe is often used to convey extreme emotion, as in Claudius's impassioned speech in Hamlet.

Examples

• "Where, O death, thy sting? where, O death, thy victory?" 1 Corinthians 15:55, (Saint) Paul of Tarsus
• "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." Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1
• "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." Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1
• "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
• "Roll on, thou dark and deep blue Ocean -- roll!" Lord Byron, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"
• "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..." the Odyssey
• "O My friends, there is no friend." Montaigne, originally attributed to Aristotle
• "Ah Bartleby! Ah Humanity!", from Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville
• "O black night, nurse of the golden eyes!" Electra in Euripides' Electra (c. 410 BCE, line 54), in the translation by David Kovacs (1998).
• "Then come, sweet death, and rid me of this grief." [(Queen Isabela in Edward II by Christopher Malowe)]

References

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

See also

• Literary technique
• Fourth wall