The term is hyperbole. What is hyperbole? This is a special artistic device in literature: example sentences

Hyperbole, along with colloquial speech, is also used in literature. Litotes in literature is an artistic technique that is used both in poetry and in works of art by a variety of authors. Hyperbole in literature has its opposite - litotes. Litotes can also be used as a “weapon” against hyperbole and gigantism. For example, the offer of Bread in the house - not a crumb!

When using hyperbole in colloquial speech, the speaker is trying to draw attention to some event or object. Moreover, exaggerating so much that in reality it turns out to be beyond the realm of possibility.

We encounter this method of artistic expression back in ancient times, in works of oral folk art. This is hyperbole in its purest form. Everything that happens in our epics and fairy tales often takes on a hyperbolic form. The horse with the hero gallops “below a walking cloud, above a standing forest.”

Litotes in Russian

In simple terms, this is a beautiful expression, a turn of phrase, which at the same time softens words that have a “negative” connotation. With the help of litotes, you can express your disagreement with your interlocutor in a soft form.

Litotes are especially often used in poetry. Litotes are also often found in works of art. Basically, litotes is used by the author in an ironic context. Litotes is rare in Yesenin's poems. Increasingly, the poet uses luxurious metaphors. These litotes in Yesenin’s poems show the tragedy of the whole situation. Litotes in psychology is the underestimation, minimization or devaluation of the positive.

There is another feature of the use of litotes in English literary texts. If litotes in English is used in colloquial speech, then it conveys restraint, good manners, and sometimes the irony of a person.

Hyperbole is a significant exaggeration of something in order to give greater significance to an object or action. Imagine if such a stylistic figure as hyperbole did not exist, all the works of Russian writers and poets would lose their superiority and splendor.

Litotes in literature: the meaning of the word and examples of its use

We spent four years preparing our escape, we saved three tons of food...” - V. Vysotsky. Hyperbole is an exaggeration for special, artistic purposes. The poet resorts to it when he needs to make a particularly strong impression on the listener or reader. The people seem to admire their strength, and everything in their imagination grows to enormous proportions. Even in our everyday speech today, we often resort to this method of expression.

Hyperbole: what is it?

Yes! If all the tears, blood and sweat, shed for everything that is stored here, all suddenly emerged from the bowels of the earth, Then there would be a flood again - I would choke in my faithful basements. Litotes is an understatement of some object or phenomenon. The simplest litotes appear in the media. They represent the use of diminutive epithets.

Moreover, it can be either “mockery”, “sarcasm”, or “pity”, “tenderness”. Litotes are also used to significantly soften some harsh expression. So, for example, the American ambassador, reacting to the fact that the house of Trade Unions was burned in Odessa, said the following words: “The rebels are showing their discontent.”

Creating diminutive forms of words. For example, “pokemon”, “bun”, etc. Shifting the negation to the modal part of the sentence. So litotes is a deliberate understatement. It is important to place the emphasis correctly. Almost no poet has avoided this stylistic device. After all, litotes is a means of expression. There are even authors who base their works exclusively on litotes. Examples from the literature are very diverse.

Hyperbole usually occurs in a statement. In order to make a statement vivid and expressive, through deliberate exaggeration, there is such a concept in Russian as hyperbole. Many variants of litotes have already become idioms and phraseological units. In the Russian language today there are such expressions as “at a stone’s throw”, “the sky is as big as a sheepskin”, “the cat cried”, etc. Do not think that figurative expressions are an invention of the classics of the 16-17th centuries. Both hyperbole and other stylistic devices have been known since ancient times.

October 15, 2017

Literature is rich in means of artistic expression that help authors convey their thoughts to the reader in the best possible way. Thus, when studying the works of classics, students look for epithets, comparisons, personifications in them and try to figure out why the writer used this or that technique. Hyperbole is also an artistic means, which we will consider.

Definition

Let's consider what a hyperbole is, examples of which will be given below. This is a special artistic technique, a deliberate exaggeration that allows you to achieve the effect desired by the author. The term is very ancient; the technique began to be used in antiquity. To express hyperbole, linguistic means are used: words, combinations of words and sentences.

The simplest examples

Hyperbole is widely used in Russian. Examples will show that we often use this technique without even paying attention. For example, the words “I’ve already told you a thousand times!” In this case, “a thousand times” is an exaggeration, because the author of the statement, firstly, is unlikely to have said anything so many times. Secondly, she did not count the number of her repetitions. Another example of hyperbole in Russian: “We haven’t seen each other for a hundred years.” Here we are talking about the fact that people have not met for a long period of time, but certainly not for a hundred years.

By saying that he has a million problems, a person will emphasize that he now has a bad streak in his life, and there is no talk of a clear quantitative description of the problems. There are many similar examples:

“There are a hundred reasons why I still strive to get an education.”
“Grandfather has a thousand ailments, but he still works in the garden.”
“You won’t believe it, yesterday I saw such a big man. Not a man, but an elephant." Here the hyperbole is combined with an element of comparison. A person is like an elephant in terms of weight.
“Sit, work, you’ll earn a million!” There is clearly irony in this example. The speaker greatly exaggerates the earning potential of his opponent and mockingly makes fun of him.
“Are you saying Masha didn’t go to college? Yes, everyone knows this!” The example presents a lexical hyperbole; exaggeration is achieved through the phrase “known to everyone.” It is clear that this is not so, because residents of another city may not know about Masha’s problems, and they are not interested in them.

Often, without paying attention, we use hyperbole. The examples in Russian given above illustrate this idea.

Video on the topic

Varieties

There are several types of hyperboles in Russian:

Lexical. Exaggeration is achieved by using the words “completely”, “all”, “absolutely”. For example, a completely useless person, everyone has known this for a long time.
Metaphorical. This is a memorable comparison. For example, the forest of hands, golden mountains.
Phraseological. Using stable combinations of words. For example, a goat understands.
Quantitative. Using numerals: a million things to do, thousands of ideas.

All these types of exaggerations can be used by native speakers unconsciously, without being perceived as an artistic and stylistic device.

Modern options

Young people often use hyperbole in their speech. There are many examples in Russian:

“We’ve already gone through this 100,500 times! Is it really difficult to remember?
“We still have a carriage and a small cart of time, we’ll do everything.”

Such statements allow you to make speech more figurative and expressive.

From works of art

Writers often use hyperbole. Examples from the literature are quite varied. So, Pushkin very often turned to this technique: “All the flags will come to visit us.”

Yesenin, when creating the image of Rus', used exaggeration: “There is no end in sight, only the blue is sucking the eyes.”

There are hyperboles in Mayakovsky's lyrics:

“In battle I glorify millions, I see millions, I sing millions.”
The poem “Cloud in Pants” ends in a very interesting way, based on the technique of exaggeration: “Hey, you! Sky! Hats off! I'm coming! This helps the poet express the strength and power of the human personality.
Often the poet exaggerates the size of the human body, creating a capacious and sharp satirical image: “Two arshins of faceless pink dough, head in Kazbek, stomach in the ditch.”

We can give several interesting examples of hyperbole in the Russian language, when the exaggeration concerns inanimate objects: baobabs to the skies, a kilometer-long sting.

Often, for the effect of exaggeration, the poet uses words in a figurative sense: lump, carcass. Or combinations of words that individually do not have a similar property, but put together create hyperbolization: glasses are bicycles, eyes are two meadows.

An example of hyperbole from literature can be found in the works of other writers: “harem pants, the width of the Black Sea” (Gogol), “we spent four years preparing our escape, we saved three tons of grub” (Vysotsky).

We looked at what hyperbole is and examples of its use by wordsmiths. This technique makes it possible to make the writers’ speech figurative and more expressive, to draw the reader’s attention to any property or feature of the described object or person. Also, it was deliberate exaggeration that often helped the author express his attitude to what was happening.

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. All of us in our lives have said or heard similar expressions at least once (and some more than once): YOU ARE ALWAYS LATE or HAVEN'T SEEN SEEN FOR A HUNDRED YEARS.

And few people thought that these phrases were devoid of any common sense. So, a person simply cannot “always be late.” And it’s impossible for someone not to see each other for “a hundred years,” if only because people rarely live that long.

Such exaggerations in Russian are called hyperboles and they will be discussed in this publication.

Hyperbole is a beautiful exaggeration

This word itself is Greek - “hyperbole” and it means “excess, excess, exaggeration.”

Hyperbole is one of the means strengthening emotional assessment, which consists in excessive exaggeration of any phenomena, qualities, properties or processes. This creates a more impressive image.

Moreover, exaggeration often reaches completely incomprehensible concepts, sometimes even. Any foreigner, if translated literally, will be clearly puzzled. We have long been accustomed to them, and perceive them as completely normal.

Here are examples of the most commonly used hyperboles in everyday life:

SCARE TO DEATH
A THOUSAND APOLOGIES
AT LEAST FLY
RIVERS OF BLOOD
MOUNTAINS OF CORPSES
I'VE BEEN WAITING FOREVER
GO OVER A THOUSAND KILOMETERS
STANDED ALL DAY
A LOT OF MONEY
A Feast FOR THE WHOLE WORLD
SEA OF TEARS
NOT SEEN FOR 100 YEARS
OCEAN OF PASSIONS
WEIGHS ONE HUNDRED POUNDS
Smother in your arms
SCARED TO DEATH

All listed expressions we constantly use in colloquial speech. And for the sake of experiment, just try to parse them verbatim and see how funny and sometimes absurd some of them are.

Well, for example, “at least fill yourself up” - this should be such an amount of liquid that it is enough for a whole pool into which you could plunge headlong. Although in fact, with this expression we just want to say that we have a lot of drinks - even more than we need.

Or the phrase “a lot of money” actually just means a good financial condition, and not that a person has collected all his savings and let’s put them in one pile.

And we do not use the expression “to travel a thousand kilometers” when we are talking about a real distance, for example, from Moscow to Volgograd or Rostov-on-Don. But simply in the sense of “far”, although in fact in real numbers the distance there may be only a few kilometers.

And this way you can “debunk” absolutely any hyperbole. But you shouldn't do this. They do not have to mean the absolute truth; their task is to characterize a specific situation or thought in the most picturesque way, enhancing her emotional coloring.

Examples of hyperbole in fiction

In fact, such exaggerations are a very old literary device. It was used, and this was almost a thousand years ago. With the help of hyperboles, the strength of the heroes and their opponents was repeatedly strengthened.

The heroic sleep lasted 12 DAYS (well, a person cannot sleep for almost two weeks)
Countless forces stood in the way of the hero - A WOLF WILL NOT OUTRUN THEM IN A DAY, A RAVE WILL NOT FLY FROM THEM IN A DAY (how many enemies should there be - a million?)
The hero waves his hand - A STREET IS AMONG ENEMIES, he waves another - AN ALLEY (that is, with one blow the hero kills several dozen at once)
Ilya Muromets took a club WEIGHTING ONE HUNDRED POUDS (here you must understand that one hundred pounds is one and a half tons)
The Nightingale the Robber whistles - THE FOREST IS STOPPING TO THE GROUND, AND PEOPLE ARE FALLING DEAD (well, this is something out of a fairy tale)

Exactly the same hyperboles occur in "The Tale of Igor's Campaign". For example:

“The Russians blocked wide fields with scarlet shields, seeking honor for themselves and glory for the prince” or “The army is such that you can splash the Volga with oars and scoop up the Don with helmets.”

Among writers, Nikolai Vasilyevich has the most hyperbole Gogol. There are exaggerations in almost every of his famous works. For example, he describes the Dnieper River:

A rare bird will fly to the middle of the Dnieper.
The Dnieper is like a road without end in length and without measure in width.

Or he uses exaggerations in his words, putting them in the mouths of the heroes:

I would destroy you all into flour! (Governor)
Thirty-five thousand couriers alone... The State Council itself is afraid of me. (Khlestakov)

And in “Dead Souls” there are these words: “Human passions are as countless as the sands of the sea.”

Almost every writer or poet uses hyperbole. With their help, they, for example, more colorfully describe the character of the heroes of the works or show their author’s attitude towards them.

Moreover, writers often do not use already established expressions, but try to come up with something of their own.

Here's another examples of hyperbole in literature:

And a mountain of bloody bodies prevented the cannonballs from flying (Lermontov)
The sunset glowed with a hundred and forty suns (Mayakovsky)
A million torments (Griboedov)
A decent person is ready to run away to distant lands for you (Dostoevsky)
And the pine tree reaches the stars (Mandelshtam)
In the dream, the janitor became as heavy as a chest of drawers (Ilf and Petrov)

Examples of hyperbole in advertising

Of course, without such an interesting technique that allows enhance the real meaning of words, advertisers couldn’t get through either. A lot of slogans are based on this principle. After all, the task is to attract the client’s attention, while promising “mountains of gold” and in every possible way emphasizing the uniqueness of the product:

Taste on the verge of possible (chewing gum "Stimorol")
Control over the elements (Adidas sneakers)
King of salads (Oliviez mayonnaise)

The principle of hyperbole is also often used in the creation of advertising videos. For example, a series of famous videos about Snickers bars with the slogan “You are not you when you are hungry.” Where various characters turn into completely different people and start doing all sorts of stupid things, and only a candy bar can bring them back to normal.

These commercials clearly exaggerate (greatly exaggerate) the feeling of hunger and the “miraculous” power of Snickers itself.

Well the simplest example The hyperbole that is used in advertising is expressions like “the best”, “the most stylish”, “the most comfortable” and so on, but about prices, on the contrary, they say “the lowest”.

Instead of a conclusion

You can add greater expressiveness and emotional coloring to any expression not only with the help of hyperbole. There is a technique in the Russian language that is its complete opposite. He does not exaggerate, but, on the contrary, reduces the significance.

Before you can blink an eye, the years have already flown by.

This technique is called "". This will be discussed in detail in our next article.

Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog site

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Hyperbole (literature)

Hyperbola(_gr. ὑπερβολή, “transition, exaggeration”) - a stylistic figure of obvious and deliberate exaggeration, in order to enhance expressiveness and emphasize the said thought, for example, “I have said this a thousand times” or “we have enough food for six months.”

Hyperbole is often combined with other stylistic devices, giving them an appropriate coloring: hyperbolic comparisons, metaphors, etc. (“the waves rose like mountains”). The character or situation portrayed may also be hyperbolic. Hyperbole is also characteristic of the rhetorical and oratorical style, as a means of pathetic elation, as well as the romantic style, where pathos comes into contact with irony. Among Russian authors, Gogol is especially prone to hyperbole, and among poets, Mayakovsky.

Examples

Phraseologisms and catch words

* "sea of tears"
* “quick as lightning”, “lightning fast”
* "numerous as the sand on the seashore"
* “We haven’t seen each other for a hundred years!”
* “The (drunk) sea is knee-deep [and the puddle is head-deep]”
* “Whoever remembers the old - look out! And whoever forgets, both!”

Ancient examples

Give me a fulcrum and I will move the Earth.

::::Archimedes (ancient Greek: Dos moipu sto, kai tan gan kinas.)

Hyperbolic metaphors in the Gospel

* “Why do you look at the straw in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” (Gospel of Matthew 7:1-3). In this figurative picture, a critical person proposes to take the straw out of his neighbor’s “eye.” The critic wants to say that his neighbor does not see clearly and therefore is not able to judge sensibly, while the critic himself is prevented from judging sensibly by a whole log.
* On another occasion, Jesus condemned the Pharisees for being “blind guides, straining out gnats and swallowing up camels” (Matthew 23:24). Additionally, Jesus knew that the Pharisees strained their wine through a cloth. These rule-breakers did this to avoid accidentally swallowing a mosquito and thereby becoming ceremoniously unclean. At the same time, they figuratively swallowed a camel, which was also considered unclean (Leviticus 11:4, 21-24).
* “Faith the size of a [tiny] mustard seed” that could move a mountain is a way of emphasizing that even a little faith can do a lot (Matthew 17:20).
* The camel is trying to pass through the eye of the needle - also a hyperbole of Jesus Christ, which clearly shows how difficult it is for a rich man, leading a materialistic lifestyle, to try to serve God. (Gospel of Matthew 19:24).

Classics of Marxism

What a lump, huh? What a seasoned little man!

::::V.I.Lenin - “Leo Tolstoy as a mirror of the Russian revolution” (1908)::::V.I.Lenin - “Three sources and three components of Marxism” (July - November 1914)

Prose

...Ivan Nikiforovich, on the contrary, has trousers with such wide folds that if they were inflated, the entire yard with a barn and buildings could be placed in them...

::::N. Gogol - story “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich” (1835)

A million Cossack caps suddenly poured onto the square...
For one hilt of my saber they give me the best herd and three thousand sheep.

::::N.Gogol - story “Taras Bulba” (1835)

And at that very moment there were couriers, couriers, couriers on the streets... can you imagine, thirty-five thousand couriers alone!

::::N. Gogol - comedy “The Inspector General” (1851)

Poems, songs

And if I were a black man of advanced years,
and then without despondency and laziness,
I would learn Russian just because
that Lenin spoke to them.

::::Vladimir Mayakovsky - poem “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin” (1925)

I would eat bureaucracy like a wolf.
There is no respect for mandates...

::::Vladimir Mayakovsky - “Poems about the Soviet passport” (1929)

Friends, I will go out to meet a bear without fear,
If I am with a friend, and the bear is without a friend.

::::Song from the film "A Secret to the Whole World". Music: V. Shainsky, lyrics by M. Tanich

About our meeting - what can I say,
I was waiting for her, as they wait natural Disasters,
But you and I immediately began to live,
Without fear of harmful consequences! "(2 times) "
…
What I asked for, I did instantly,
To me each hour I wanted to do wedding night,
Because of you I jumped in front of a train,
But, thank God, it was not entirely successful... "(2 times)"
...And if you had waited for me that year,
When I was sent to the "dacha" [ Country house- bunks (Criminal jargon)] , -
I would steal everything for you firmament
And two Kremlin stars in addition! "(2 times) "
And I swear - I will be the last bastard! -
Don't lie, don't drink - and I will forgive the betrayal!
And I will give you Grand Theatre
AND Small sports arena! "(2 times) "
But now I’m not ready for the meeting -
I'm afraid of you, I'm afraid of intimate nights,
Like residents of Japanese cities
Afraid of repetition Hiroshima. "(2 times) "

:::: Vladimir Vysotsky ,

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

See what “Hyperbole (literature)” is in other dictionaries:

- (Greek υπερβολη) a stylistic figure of obvious and deliberate exaggeration, aimed at enhancing expressiveness, for example. "I've said this a thousand times." Hyperbole is often combined with other stylistic devices, giving them the appropriate... ... Literary encyclopedia

This term has other meanings, see Hyperbole. Hyperbole and its tricks ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see Hyperbole. Hyperbole (from other Greek ὑπερβολή “transition; excess, excess; exaggeration”) is a stylistic figure of obvious and deliberate exaggeration, in order to enhance expressiveness and ... ... Wikipedia

Hyperbola and its foci Hyperbola is the locus of points M of the Euclidean plane for which the absolute value of the difference in distances from M to two selected points F1 and F2 (called foci) is constant, that is | | F1M | − | F2M | | = C... ... Wikipedia

Islamic Studies Sections History Early Islam Philosophy Early Modern Eschatology Theology The Concept of God Tawhid Mysticism Jurisprudence ... Wikipedia

The meaning of the word HYPERBOLE in the Literary Encyclopedia

HYPERBOLA

[Greek - ??????????] - a stylistic figure of obvious and deliberate exaggeration, aimed at enhancing expressiveness, for example. "I've said this a thousand times." Hyperbole is often combined with other stylistic devices, giving them an appropriate coloring: hyperbolic comparisons, metaphors, etc. (“the waves rose like mountains”). The character or situation portrayed may also be hyperbolic. G. is also characteristic of the rhetorical, oratorical style, as a means of pathetic elation, as well as

538 romantic style, where pathos meets irony. Of the Russian authors, Gogol is especially inclined to G., of the newest poets - Mayakovsky (see “Stylists”).

Literary encyclopedia. 2012