Apostrophe (figure of speech)

Apostrophe (Greek ἀποστροφή, apostrophé, "turning away"; the final e being sounded) is an exclamatory figure of speech. 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. 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?" 1 Corinthians 15:55, 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, 169–170.
• "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
• "Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium!" Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
• "Roll on, thou dark and deep blue Ocean – roll!" Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
• "Thou glorious sun!" Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "This Lime Tree Bower"
• "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
• "Ah Bartleby! Ah Humanity!" Herman Melville, "Bartleby, the Scrivener"
• "O black night, nurse of the golden eyes!" Electra in Euripides' Electra (c. 410 BC, 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

See also

• Anthropomorphism § In literature
• List of narrative techniques
• Fourth wall
• Simile