"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me
your ears…”
… and listen to this PowerPoint presentation on William
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
Mr. Balicki
Objectives
Slide Program Menu
Objectives
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Name the eight different
types of figurative
speech used in the play
when asked.
 Be able to locate an
instance of each figure
of speech in the play
OR be able to compose
your own example when
asked.
Slide Program Menu
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Slide 1- Home Slide
Slide 2- Objectives
Slide 3- Program Menu
Slide 4- List of Figurative
Speech in Julius Caesar
Slide 5- Anaphora
Slide 6- Metaphor
Slide 7- Alliteration
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Slide 8- Hyperbole
 Slide 9- Apostrophe
 Slide 10- Personification
 Slide 11- Allusion
 Slide 12- Irony
 Slide 13- Simile
 Slide 14- Two figures of
speech at work
 Slide 15- Romans, ho!
Why is Julius Caesar such an effectively
written play?
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Figures of Speech!
Anaphora
Metaphor
Alliteration
Hyperbole
Apostrophe
Personification
Allusion
Irony
Anaphora
“You blocks, you
stones, you worse than
senseless things!” –
Marullus to commoners,
Act I, Scene I
 The deliberate repetition
of a word or phrase at
the beginning of several
successive verses,
clauses, or paragraphs is
anaphora.
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Metaphor
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a figure of speech in which an
expression is used to refer to
something that it does not literally
denote in order to suggest a
similarity
“You blocks, you stones, you
worse than senseless things!” Marullus to commoners, Act I,
Scene I
“I know he would not be a wolf,/
But that he see the Romans are
but sheep:/ He were no lion, were
not Romans hinds.” –Casca to
Cassius and Brutus, Act I, Scene
III
Alliteration
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The repetition of the same
sounds or of the same kinds
of sounds at the beginning
of words or in stressed
syllables; predominantly
consonantal
“There are no tricks in plain
and simple faith;/ But
hollow men, like horses hot
at hand,/ Make gallant show
and promise of their
mettle…”- Brutus, Act IV,
Scene II
Hyperbole
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A figure of speech in
which exaggeration is
used for emphasis or
effect
 “For if thou path, thy
native semblance on,/
Not Erebus itself were
dim enough/ To hide
thee from prevention.” Brutus, Act II, Scene I
Apostrophe
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The direct address of an absent or
imaginary person or of a
personified abstraction, especially
as a digression in the course of a
speech or composition.
“O conspiracy,/ Shamest thou to
show thy dangerous brow by
night,/ When evils are most free?
O, then by day/ Where wilt thou
find a cavern dark enough/ To
mask thy monstrous visage? Seek
none, conspiracy;/ Hide it in
smiles and affability”- Brutus, Act
II, Scene I
Personification
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A figure of speech in which
inanimate objects or abstractions
are endowed with human qualities
or are represented as possessing
human form. Also called
prosopopeia.
“Danger knows full well/ that
Caesar is more dangerous than
he.”- Caesar, Act II, Scene II
“O murd’rous slumber!/ Layest
thou thy leaden mace upon my
boy,/ That plays thee music?”Brutus, Act IV, Scene III
Allusion

The act of alluding;
making an indirect
reference
 “A friendly eye could
never see such faults.”
“A flatterer’s would not,
though they do appear/
As huge as high
Olympus.”- Cassius and
Brutus, Act IV, Scene III
Irony
 a. The use of words to express
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something different from and often
opposite to their literal meaning. b.
An expression or utterance marked by
a deliberate contrast between apparent
and intended meaning. c. A literary
style employing such contrasts for
humorous or rhetorical effect.
Marc Antony’s funeral oration in Act
III, Scene II is ironic throughout. He
comes to “bury Caesar, not to praise
him,” he does praise Caesar for the
burgeoning treasury, his sympathy to
the poor, and for refusing the crown.
Antony goes on to praise Brutus as an
“honourable man” even though the
context indicates he means anything
but.
Simile
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A figure of speech in which
two essentially unlike things
are compared, often in a
phrase introduced by like or
as
“Why, man, he doth bestride
the narrow world/ Like a
Colossus, and we petty men/
Walk under his huge legs
and peep about/ To find
ourselves dishonourable
graves.”- Cassius to Brutus,
Act I, Scene II
“Veni, Vidi, Vici!”