Antithesis

Yaitu pernyataan yang diungkapkan dengan kata-kata yang saling bertentangan maknanya.. Result
when a pair or more of strongly contrasting terms are presented together. If words, ideas, or clauses
are widely divergent but present together there is a certain amount of resulting tension which makes
the line highly provocative. In antithesis there is usually grammatical balance as well as contrast in
meaning.

In alexander pope’s description of man we find the following:

In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast

In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer

Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err

Alike in ignorance, his reason such,

Whether he thinks too little, or too much

Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl’d

The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

Wee see many examples of antithesis as Pope yokes opposites together:

1. God and Beast,

2. Mind and Body,
3. Ignorance and reason,
4. too little and too much, Truth and Error, Each line presents an example of anthitesis and
Pope is consciously working to produce an effect of tension caused by competing opposites;
this tension, he is suggesting, expresses the essence of man who is, after all, a series of
contradictions.

Personification

The process of assigning human characteristics to nonhuman objects, abstractions or ideas.

Attributing personal form to such nonhuman objects and ideas is a standard rhetorical device in
poetry. Thus we frequently find poets addresing the moon as a lady, referring to her beauty. We talk
about the lady beauty and about old man river. In allegorical dramas or poems certain characters are
personifications of various qualities like virginity or virtue, evil or eternity, etc. the poet thus
personifies qualities or describes them as if they were in fact people.