Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky.”. Here, Donne speaks to death, an abstract idea, as if it were a person capable of comprehending his feelings. Shakespeare uses apostrophe in many of his plays, but one of the most notable is Romeo and Juliet.

When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? Apostrophes show up in everyday speech all the time. Take a look at these lines and how Donne uses apostrophe to present the reader with an unusual image of death: Death, be not proud, though some have called thee. This could be a person they know or don’t know someone who is alive or dead, or someone who never existed at all. Apostrophe, in poetry, is a figure of speech in which a character or speaker addresses someone who is absent. Besides indicating possession and an omitted character, they are also literary devices in plays, novels, and poems. He knows, or claims to know, that the sound of the nightingale’s voice was the same voice heard “by emperor and clown” in the “ancient days”.

In this, Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy, there is a powerful and important use of apostrophe. She also talks to it about its parts, its “sheath” and its “rust”. Songwriters tend to do this a lot. Reference.com brings out this point: “The effect of an apostrophe in poetry is to personify or bring to life something not living, so the poet is able to address it directly. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be. thou marble-hearted fiend, / More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child / Than the sea-monster.”. This poem is one of nineteen sonnets included in Holy Sonnets or Divine Meditations, published after the poet’s death in 1633. She asks what blew out the candle, and then decides it was a zephyr (or a small breeze). He speakers reverentially to the creature, expressing his belief that it is, or should be, immortal. In that line, the apostrophe stands for the letter G of talking. Sciences, Culinary Arts and Personal In his Holy Sonnet “Death, be not proud,” John Donne denies death’s power by directly admonishing it. This one is addressed to friend, which refers to the zephyr. Then I’ll be brief. He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo. In this famous poem, Walt Whitman uses apostrophe to great effect. They show possession (e.g., Bonnie’s son; the dog’s bone). I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.”.

Every single person that visits PoemAnalysis.com has helped contribute, so thank you for your support. John Donne once more uses apostrophe in his poem The Sun Rising: “Busy old fool, unruly Sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains, call on us? Apostrophe in literature is an arrangement of words addressing a non-existent person or an abstract idea in such a way as if it were present and capable of understanding feelings.