Litotes Types of Figurative Language

Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms Feather of lead, bright smoke , cold fire , sick health ‖ Here is the example taken from ―A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry‖ by Geoffrey Leech 1969: 141-142: 22 Party in such sweet sorrow . Romeo and Juliet II.ii 23 Thou art to me a delicious torment . Emerson, ‗Friendship‘, Essays 24 To live a life half-died, a living death . Milton, Samson Agonistes 25 And love‘s the noblest frailty of the mind. Dryden, The Indian Emperror, II.ii Example 20 and 21 testify the humanity‘s ability to experience pleasure mingled with pain: a type of apparent absurdity which has classical precedent of Catullus well- known paradox ‗Odi et amo‘ ‗I hate and I love. We probably interpret them as ‗a mixture of sweetness and sorrow‘, ‗a mixture of delight and torment‘, although it could be argued that it is a mysterious merging of contrary emotions that is imaginatively realized in such expressions rather than their coexistence. Milton‘s oxymoron 22 ‗a living death‘, referring to Samson‘s blindness, can be resolved by construing death , by metaphorical extension as ‗a condition which seems like death‘. Dryden‘s ‗noblest frailty‘ 23 is not so much a logical absurdity as a contradiction of accepted values. Nobility is associated with strength, and ignobilit y with weakness. Hence ‗noblest frailty‘ argues a reassessment of our moral assumptions, by telling us that nobility and weakness are compatible. Another possible interpretation would be to construe ‗frailty‘ as emotional vulnerability rather than moral weakness.

2.3. Meaning

2.3.1. Definition

The term meaning is simply derived from the word mean. The word ‗meaning‘ has a number of definitions as suggested by semanticist, for instance, Leech in Dewi 2010:16 notes three points of meaning. They are as follows: 1. Meaning involves the speaker‘s intention to convey a certain meaning that may or may not be evident from the message itself. 2. Consequently, interpretation by the hearer is likely to depend on the context. 3. Meaning in the sense is something, which is performed rather than something that exists is static way. It involves action the speaker produces and effects on the hearer and the interaction the meaning being negotiated between the speaker and the hearer on the basis of their mutual language. There are some opinions about meaning according to semanticist: 1. Lyons in Dewi 2010:17 says, ―The meaning can be distinguished by the technique of substituting other words in the same context and enquiry whethe r the resulting sentences are equivalent.‖