e.g. “Lips that have lost the note of joy, eyes that are
blinded by tears, chill hands and icy heart”. (p. 60)
“If we have enough of them, they will forgive us
everything, even our gigantic intellects”. (p. 142)
“And now tell me, what makes you leave you brilliant
Vienna for our gloomy London”. (p.180)
Epithet has remained over the centuries the most widely used stylistic device, which is understandable- it offers the ample opportunities of qualifying every object from the author’s partial and subjective viewpoint, which is indispensable in creative prose, Here we can see masterly touches in rich and vivid epithets. Wilde’s language is plain and understandable, it is wonderful and interesting. Wilde resorts to the use of colourful epithets, which sometimes help him to show the difference between pretence and reality. As we know Wilde was the leader of the “aesthetic movement”. He was brilliant in literature and tried to be brilliant in life. He used abundance of epithets in his speech. In fact, everybody uses epithets in his speech; without them our speech is dry, awfully plain and not interesting.
Wilde’s epithets give a brilliant colour and wonderful witticism to his plays. With the help of epithets Wilde’s heroes are more interesting, their speech is more emotive; they involve the reader in their reality, in their life.
e.g. ”I am not in a mood to-night for silver twilights, or rose-pink dawns.”(p.190)
“Those straw-coloured women have dreadful tempers.”
(p.48)
“Cecily, ever since I first looked upon your wonderful and
incomparable beauty, I have dared to love you wildly,
passionately, devotedly, hopelessly.”(p.319)
As we can see, epithets make the speech more colourful,
vivid and interesting. Wilde uses a great amount of epithets
in his plays. His epithets are based on different sources, such
as nature, art, history, literature, mythology, everyday life, man,
etc.
And all of them are wonderful. They reflect Wilde’s opinions
and viewpoints about different things. They give emphasis and
rhythm to the text. That is why Wilde may be also called a
master of colourful and vivid epithets.
METAPHOR
One of the most frequently used, well-known and elaborated among the stylistic devices is metaphor. The metaphoric use of the word begins to affect the dictionary meaning, adding to it fresh connotations of meaning or shades of meaning.
According to Prof. Sosnovskaya V.B., metaphor, a most widely used trop, is based upon analogy, upon a traceable similarity. But in the metaphor, contrary to the simile, there is no formal element to indicate comparison. The difference, though, is not merely structural. The absence of a formal indication of comparison in the metaphor makes the analogy it is based on more subtle to perceive.17
According to Prof. Kukharenko V.A., metaphor is based on the transference of names. This transference is based on the associated likeness between two objects.18
According to Prof. Galperin I.R., metaphor means transference of some quality from one object to another. A metaphor becomes a stylistic device when two different phenomena (things, events, ideas, actions) are simultaneously brought to mind by the imposition of some or all of the inherent properties of one object on the other which by nature is deprived of these properties.19
Such an imposition generally results when the creator of the metaphor finds in the two corresponding objects certain features, which to his eye have something in common.
I completely agree with these definitions. I also think that metaphors reveal the attitude of the writer to the object, action or concept and express his views. They may also reflect the literary school which he belongs and the epoch in which he lives.
As an illustration of Wilde’s skill in using every nuance of the language to serve some special stylistic purpose, we must mention his use of metaphors.
e.g. “We live in an age of ideals.”(p.293)
“She has all the fragrance and freedom of a
flower.”(p.175)
“The God of this century is wealth.”(p.206)
“But to suffer for one’s own faults,-ah!-there is the
sting of life.”(p.36).
Oscar Wilde was a man of art; and even these wonderful metaphors prove it. As we can see, his metaphors give a certain charm and musical perception through the plain language combinations.
A metaphor can exist only within a context. A separate word isolated from the context has its general meaning. Metaphor plays an important role in the development of language. Words acquire new meanings by transference.
e.g. “Lord Illingworth: That silly Puritan girl making a scene merely
because I wanted to kiss her. What harm is there in a kiss?
Mrs.Arbuthnot: A kiss may ruin a human life. I know that too
well.”(p.163).
The metaphorical effect of this sentence is based on the personal feelings of Mrs.Arbuthnot. Her sad experience of life sounds in this phrase. When she was young, she had a great love. But her passion had left her and “her life was ruined.” That is why this metaphor has a true effective power when it is pronounced by Mrs.Arbuthnot.
e.g. “I am a ship without a rudder in a night without a star.”(p.242)
The speaker of this phrase Sir Robert Chiltern gets lost, he does not know what to do in such situation. He says that he is a “ship without a rudder”, i.e. he does not know where he must go and what to do for better future.
Oscar Wilde is always concerned with society. His fine metaphors play an important role in portraying his heroes, their feelings and thoughts.
e.g. “I had a wild hope that I might disarm destiny.”(p.209)
“I keep science for life.”(p.281)
“Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better. They wound, but they are better.”(p.85)
“The fire cannot purify her. The waters cannot quench her anguish.”(p.150)
“Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter.”(p.283)
Thus, we can see the unlimited power of the artist in showing his imagination. The emotional colouring is made by an ample use of bright metaphors. Metaphor takes one of the most honourable places in Wilde’s art. The main purpose of the author is to affect the reader emotionally through the images. The charm of O.Wilde’s plays is due to the mixture of poetic metaphors and real images. The author does not convince the reader to make the resulting points, but he makes him indirectly judge the heroes and clear the situation.
Metaphors, like all stylistic devices, can be classified according to their degree of unexpectedness. Thus, metaphors which are absolutely unexpected, that is are quite unpredictable, are called genuine metaphors. Here we can see some of them:
e.g. “She is a work of art”.(p.175)
“She has all the fragrance and freedom of a
flower. There is ripple after ripple of sunlight in
her hair. She has the fascinating tyranny of
youth, and the astonishing courage of
innocence”.(p.175)
“Divorces are made in Heaven”. (p. 283)
In genuine metaphors the image is always present and the transference of meaning is actually felt. These metaphors have a radiating force. The whole sentence becomes metaphoric. The metaphors, which are commonly used in speech and therefore are sometimes even fixed in dictionaries as expressive means of language, are trite metaphors.
e.g. “My farther really died of a broken heart”. (p.85)
“Love is easily killed! Oh! How easily love is killed”.
(p.86)
“The moment is entirely in your own hands”. (p.344)
Wilde’s metaphors develop the reader’s imagination. At the same time the author reflects his own point of view.
e.g. “Youth is the Lord of Life”. (p.135)
In these four plays Wilde preaches that youth is the so called “gift of nature”. It is very interesting to note, that almost all his main heroes are young people. And youth is their leading star in life. Oscar Wilde resorts to the use of his metaphors for more expressiveness and beauty of language. Their meanings are playing and understandable for any reader, of any age and any interests. They are the birds of Wilde’s thoughts, sometimes sensitive and sometimes bitter, sometimes joyful and sometimes sad, but they are always wonderful. They have an excellent quality to reflect different objects, actions and, of course, people in a new meaning. They produce a dynamic character of the plot and show that Wilde is a man of genius.
SIMILE
Simile is the next stylistic device used by Wilde in his plays. Simile is a likeness of one thing to another.
According to Prof. Sosnovskaya V.B., Simile is the most rudimentary form of trope. It can be defined as a device based upon an analogy between two things, which are discovered to possess some features in common otherwise being entirely dissimilar.19
According to Prof. Galperin I.R. the intensification of someone feature of the concept in question is realised in a device called Simile. Ordinary comparison and Simile must not be confused. They represent two diverse processes. Comparison means weighing two objects belonging to one class of things with the purpose of establishing the degree of their sameness or difference. To use a simile is to characterise one object by bringing it into contact with another object belonging to an entirely different class of things. Comparison takes into consideration all the properties of the two objects, stressing the one that is compared. Simile includes all the properties of the two objects except one which is made common to them.20
e.g. “All women become like their mothers.” (p.300)
is ordinary comparison. The words “women” and “mothers” belong to the same class of objects – human beings – so this is not a Simile but ordinary comparison.
But in the sentence:
“But she is really like a Tanagra statuette, and would be rather annoyed if she were told so”. (p.175),
we have a simile. “She” and “statuette” belong to heterogeneous classes of objects and Wilde has found that the beauty of Mabel Chiltern may be compared with the beauty of the ancient Tanagra statuette. Of the two concepts brought together in the Simile – one characterised (Mabel Chiltern), and the other characterising (Statuette) – the feature intensified will be more inherent in the latter than in the former. Moreover, the object characterised, is seen in quite a new and unexpected light, because the author as it were, imposes this feature on it. Thus, Simile is an imaginative comparison of two unlike objects belonging to two different classes.
Similes forcibly set one object against another regardless of the fact that they may be completely alien to each other. And without our being aware of it the Simile gives rise to a new understanding of the object characterising as well as of the object characterised.
The properties of an object may be viewed from different angles, for example, its state, actions, manners, etc. Accordingly, Similes may be based on adjective-attributes, adverbs-modifiers, verb-predicates, etc.
e.g. “Dear Agatha and I are so much interested in
Australia. Agatha has found it on the map. What a
curious shape it is! Just like a large packing case.”
(p.42)
“She looks rather like an orchid and makes great
demands on one’s curiosity.” (p.176)
“Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a
ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something
like a public building.” (p.108)
Similes have formal elements in their structure:
A pair of objects (for example: woman + ruin; woman + orchid; Australia + a large packing case).
Connective words such as: like, as, such as, as if, as though, seem, etc.
Here are some more examples of similes taken from Wilde’s plays.
e.g. “She looks like an “edition de luxe” of a wicked French novel,
meant specially for the English market.”(p.48)
The structure of this simile is interesting for it is sustained. This simile goes through the whole sentence. The author finds a certain resemblance of Mrs. Erlynne and an “edition de luxe” of a wicked French novel. He shows that this woman is as bright and attractive as a coloured journal.
e.g. “It is as if a hand of ice were laid upon one’s heart. It is as if
one’s heart were beating itself to death in some empty
hollow.”(p.211)
This simile is the perfect work of imagination. This is an example of a simile, which is half a metaphor. Let us analyse it. If not for the structural word “as if”, we could call it a metaphor. Indeed, if we drop the word “as if” and say: “a hand of ice is laid upon one’s heart…”, this sentence becomes a metaphor. But the word “as if” keeps apart the notions of metaphor and makes this sentence a real simile. As for the second sentence of this example, the situation is the same: if we drop the word “as if”, the sentence becomes a metaphor. In other words, this example is the action that is described by means of simile.
The semantic nature of the simile-forming elements “seem” and “as if” is such that they only remotely suggest resemblance. Quite different are the connectives “like” and “as”. They are more categorical and establish quite straightforwardly the analogy between the two objects in question.
e.g. “Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom
is gone.”(p. 296)
In this example of a simile the object characterised is seen in a quite new and unexpected meaning. This simile is also may be considered as a half metaphor. The author confers to ignorance a new sense and the qualities of an exotic fruit. That is why this simile has a metaphoric character. And all the above-mentioned formal elements make the simile of easily recognisable unit of poetic speech.
e.g. “ You are like a pink rose, cousin Cecily.”(p.311)
This is the real simile. This simile is used for purposes of expressive evaluation, emotive explanation, and highly individual description. In a simile two objects are compared on the ground of similarity of some quality. So “a pink rose” of this case allows to simultaneously foreground such features as “fresh, beautiful, fragrant, attractive”, etc.
So, we can see that simile is another interesting stylistic device used by Oscar Wilde in his plays. It shows the individual viewpoint of the author on different objects, actions, and phenomena. Everybody uses the similes in his everyday speech. But the literary similes gain especially wonderful character. They make our speech more expressive and our world more interesting.
HYPERBOLE
Frankly speaking, every person sometimes uses hyperbole and exaggeration in his speech for more expressiveness.
According to Professor Galperin I.R., another stylistic device which also has the function of intensifying one certain property of the object described is hyperbole. It can be defined as a deliberate overstatement or exaggeration of a feature essential to the object or phenomenon. In its extreme form this exaggeration is carried to an illogical degree. 20
According to Professor Kukharenko V.A., hyperbole is a stylistic device in which emphasis is achieved through deliberate exaggeration. The feelings and emotions of the speaker are so ruffled that he resorts in his speech to intensifying the quantitative or the qualitative aspects of the mentioned object.21
According to Prof. Sosnovskaya V.B., hyperbole (overstatement) as the word itself suggests is an expression of an idea in an exceedingly exaggerate language. The supra-average cases of overstatement are characteristic of an obviously emotional, if not altogether impassioned, manner of representation.22
V.V.Vinogradov, developing Gorki’s statement that “Geniune art enjoys the right to exaggerate”, state that hyperbole is the law of art which brings the existing phenomena of life, diffused as they are, to the point of maximum clarity and conciseness.23
So, hyperbole is aimed at exaggerating quantity or quality. It is a deliberate exaggeration. In hyperbole there is transference of meaning as there is discrepancy with objective reality. The words are no used in their direct sense.
e.g. “I wish I had known it was your birthday, Lady
Windermere, I would have covered the whole street in
front of your house with flowers for you to walk”. (p.
24)
“I have never loved anyone in the world but you”.
(p.34)
In order to depict the degree of the love of his character Wilde resorts to the use of these hyperboles. I think that the most important function of hyperbole is the emotional expressiveness.
e.g. “I have met hundreds of good women”. (p.71)
“You have seen me with it a hundred times”. (p.303)
In these hyperboles Wilde uses the exaggeration of the quantitative aspect. They make their way not on the direct meaning, but on the great emotional influence. But literary hyperbole is not the simple speech figure. It is one of the most important means of building up the plot of the text, the imagery and expressiveness. It is the transmission of the author’s thought.
e.g. “I never can believe a word you say!.” (p.49)
“He talks the whole time”. (p.115)