Apostrophe (figure of speech)
Template:Short description An apostrophe is an exclamatory figure of speech.<ref name="EB1911">Template:Cite EB1911</ref> It occurs when a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g., in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes absent from the scene. Often the addressee is a personified abstract quality or inanimate object.<ref name="HaysDuvall2011">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In dramatic works and poetry written in or translated into English, such a figure of speech is often introduced by the vocative exclamation, "O". Poets may apostrophize a beloved, the Muses, God or gods, love, time, or any other entity that can't respond in reality.
Examples
- "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?", Template:Nowrap, Paul the Apostle
- "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.", William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, act 3, scene 1
- "O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rest, and let me die.", Romeo and Juliet, act 5, scene 3, Template:Nowrap
- "To what green altar, O mysterious priest, / LeadTemplate:Apostrophest 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!", Walter Raleigh, A Historie of the World
- "Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium!", Thomas Quincey, [[Confessions of an English Opium-Eater|Confessions of an English Template:Nowrap]]
- "Roll on, thou dark and deep blue Ocean – roll!", Lord Byron, [[Childe Harold's Pilgrimage|Childe HaroldTemplate:Apostrophes Pilgrimage]]
- "Thou glorious sun!", Samuel Coleridge, [[This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison|This Template:Nowrap Bower]]<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- "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...", Homer, the Odyssey, 14.55, κτλ...
- "O My friends, there is no friend." Montaigne, originally attributed to Aristotle<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
- "O black night, nurse of the golden eyes!", ElectraTemplate:^ in EuripidesTemplate:Apostrophe, Electra, (Template:Circa, line 54), in the translation by David Kovacs (1998.)
- "Then come, sweet death, and rid me of this grief.", queen Isabel in Edward II; by Christopher Marlowe.