Episode Details
Back to Episodes
WHERE PASSION RULES
Description
Welcome to the Hall of Imagination - this episode is called Opposites!
Tonight’s rhetorical device is antithesis.
You might say that the rhetorical device of ANTITHESIS is a perfect “Shakespeare in conversation” device because he loves thinking in opposites. And this episode is going to deal with antithesis or balancing contrasting ideas in parallel structure. Two examples are in Romeo and Juliet with (“O brawling love, O loving hate…”) and then riffing to Hamlet (“To be, or not to be”). By the way, To be, or not to be is also a great example of parallelism. But I digress
GEORGE:
Master Shakespeare—tell me I’m saying it right: an-TI-thuh-sis.
SHAKESPEARE (smiling):
Near enough that Heaven will not strike you down.
GEORGE:
All right, for the listener who doesn’t want a grammar lecture: antithesis is when you place two opposing ideas side by side—often in a balanced structure—so the contrast hits hard.
Like: light and darkness, love and hate, life and death.
Well let me see let's say give me a famous example one that listeners will recognize
Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.