logo

Notes on style

  1. Periphrasis is a stylistic device consisting in the replacement of one word denoting an object by its description in a round-about way, which brings out one of its features or qualities e.g. "a woman of few ideas with an immense power of concentration".

  2. Polysyndeton is a repetition of conjunctions in close succes­sion e.g. "older and wiser and better people"

  3. Framing In the paragraph "How did she howl", said Nicholas cheerfully, as the party drove away without any elation of high spirit that should have characterized it" and "She'll soon get over that", said the aunt; "it will be a glorious afternoon for racing about over those beautiful sands. How they will enjoy themselves "the same pattern (the exclamatory sentences) is repeated at the beginning and at the end. This device is called framing and, as often the case with syntactical parallelism, can be used for antithesis or contrast (see Unit 2, Notes on style).

  4. Zeugma is a stylistic device, typical of English, in which the word is used in relation to two (or more) other words in a different sense, e.g. Nicholas "felt perfectly capable of being in disgrace and in a gooseberry garden at the same time".

  1. Give a summary of the text, dividing it into several logical parts.

  2. Make up and act out dialogues between:

  1. The aunt and Nicholas.

  2. The two aunts after the tea.

  3. Nicholas and the children after they all went to bed.

  1. 20. Suppose Nicholas turned up at the same house twenty years later after his aunt's death. Describe his reactions to his childhood surrounding.

  2.