ELEMENTS OF ELOQUENCE:

From the author of the Sunday Times number one bestseller The Etymologicon, Mark Forsyth presents the secret of writing unforgettable phrases, uncovering the techniques that have made immortal such lines as 'To be or not to be' and 'Bond. James Bond'. He takes apart famous quotations and shows how you too can write like Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, or John Lennon, and how writers through the ages have turned humble words into literary gold. With his considerable knowledge we look at alliteration, antithesis, merism, the blazon, synaesthesia, anadiplosis, periodic sentences, rhetorical questions, epistrophe, tricolon, syllepsis to Zeugma and with some laugh-out-loud examples showing for example the use of the isocolon: Brutus explaining why he killed Julius Caesar, John F. Kennedy in his inauguration address and Winston Churchill beating that with the slightly ridiculous: 'Fill the armies, rule the air, pour out the munitions, strangle the U-boats, sweep the mines, plough the land, build the ships, guard the streets, succour the wounded, uplift the downcast, and honour the brave.' Silly? Not this highly entertaining book for all wordsmiths. 205pp, shiny softback.