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What is apostrophe? »Its definition and meaning

Anonim

In literature, it is known as an apostrophe, the literary device used to utter laments in the middle of a speech. Usually, an interruption appears before continuing to address a person or thing, whether real or imaginary and to which humanity can be granted if necessary, to dedicate words full of emotion, nostalgia, regret, among other emotional notions that can be shocking to the reader. On the other hand, apostrophes may simply be expletives or insults that are very offensive to the recipient; in this sense, it is used as a synonym for the word dictery.

This word comes from the Greek "apostrophe", a word that is composed of "apo-", which can be translated as "far from" and "-strophe", a word whose meaning is "turn to the other side". Originally, the word was used to indicate the situation in which an actor turned his back on the public, during a theatrical work, to address a real or imaginary character. With the passage of time, he began to refer to the sudden change of attention that the writing undergoes, interrupting the narration or description it makes, to focus on the exclamations that it launches at any being or object.

Apostrophes, in their most formal aspect, are often professed with vocative or imperative verbs. Similarly, the author can even direct the attention of his character to his person or a speaker who participates in the narration of the work. Soliloquies and prayers tend to exploit this resource, as a way of directly praising the invoked deities.