An apostrophe 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
"And you, Eumaeus ...", Homer, the Odyssey, 14.55, κτλ ... "O black night, nurse of the golden eyes!", Electra in Euripides's, Electra, (, line 54), in the translation by David Kovacs (1998.) "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?", , Paul the Apostle "O My friends, there is no friend." Montaigne, originally attributed to Aristotle "O eloquent, just, and mighty Death!", Walter Raleigh, A Historie of the World "Then come, sweet death, and rid me of this grief.", queen Isabel in Edward II; by Christopher Marlowe. "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, "Death, be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.", John Donne, Holy Sonnet X "Thou glorious sun!", Samuel Coleridge, This Bower "Roll on, thou dark and deep blue Ocean – roll!", Lord Byron, Childe Harolds Pilgrimage "To what green altar, O mysterious priest, / Leadst thou that heifer lowing at the skies, / And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?", John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn "Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium!", Thomas Quincey, Confessions of an English
See also
List of narrative techniques Fourth wall Monologue Simile
References