| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Alliteration | Ross speaking to Malcolm: "...make our women fight, To doff their dire disresses." |
| Allusion | Macbeth: "Why should I play the Roman fool and die /On mine own sword?" (refers to Brutus in Julius Caesar) |
| apostrophe | Lady Macbeth: "Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, /And fill me from the crown to the toe, topfull /Of Direst Cruelty!" |
| aside | Macbeth has just been told he will be given the title of Thane of Cawdor. While still on stage with the other actors he turns away, toward the audience and vocalizes his thoughts: "This supernatural soliciting /Cannot be ill, cannot be good, If ill,/Why hath it given me earnest of success..." |
| assonance | Malcolm speaking of Scotland: "It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash is added to her wounds." |
| comic relief | Immediately after the murder the drunk Porter begins a humorous drunken rant against the affects of alcohol. |
| conceit | Macbeth reacting to Lady Macbeth's death: Out, out, brief candle!/Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player /That struts and frets his hour upon the stage /and then is heard no more." |
| dramatic foil | Banquo is also given prophecies of future glory as is Macbeth but he responds very differently and honorably. |
| dramatic irony | Macduff speaking to Lady Macbeth, who the audience knows plotted Duncan's death, "O gentle lady, /'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak." |
| foreshadow | Banquo, on hearing the prophecies: "And often times, to win us to our harm, /The instruments of darkness tell us truths, /Win us with honest trifles, to betray 's /in deepest consequence." |
| hyperbole | Lady Macbeth hallucinating about the blood on her hands, "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." (not for the allusion this time) |
| irony | Macbeth speaking to Duncan as he arrives: "And our duties /Are to your throne and state, children and servants, /Which do but what they should, by doing everything /Safe toward your love and honor." |
| metaphor | Macbeth speaking of Duncan. "That Prince of Cumberland! That is a step/On which I must fall, or else o'erleap,/ For in my way it lies." |
| metonymy | "Norway himself, with terrible numbers, /Assisted by that most disloyal traitor /The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict;..." (Norway = King of Norway) |
| oxymoron | Macduff: "I know this is a joyful trouble to you, But yet 'tis one." |
| paradox | Witches: "Fair is foul, and foul is fair." |
| Personification | Porter, speaking of alcohol: "But I requited him for his lie, and I think being too strong for him, though he took up my legs sometime, yet I mad a shift to cast him." |
| simile | Sergeant": "Doubtful it stood. /As two spent swimmers that do cling together and choke their art. |
| synecdoche | That swiftest wing of recompense is slow to overtake thee. (wing= bird) |
| soliloquy | Lady Macbeth, alone on stage reads Macbeth's letter and then gives the speech about her fears that Macbeth has too much of the milk of human kindness. |
Combine with other sets
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