Antithesis

A phrase that opposes contraries is called an antithesis . "I see a chief who leads my chosen sons, All armed with points, antitheses , and puns." The following are examples: "Though gentle, yet not dull; Strong, without rage; without o'erflowing, full." "Contrasted faults through all their manners reign; Though poor, luxurious; though submi ive, vain; Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue; And e'en in penance planning sins anew." The following is an excellent example of personification and antithesis combined: "Talent convinces; Genius but excites: That tasks the reason; this the soul delights. Talent from sober judgment takes its birth, And reconciles the pinion to the earth; Genius unsettles with desires the mind, Contented not till earth be left behind." In the following extract from Johnson's "Life of Pope," individual peculiarities are contrasted by means of antitheses: "Of genius—that power which constitutes a poet; that quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates—the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred that of this poetical vigor Pope had only a little, because Dryden had more; for every other writer, since Milton, must give place to Pope; and even of Dryden it must be said that, if he has brighter paragraphs, he has not better poems. Dryden's performances were always hasty, either excited by some external occasion or extorted by domestic nece ity; he composed without consideration and published without correction. What his mind could supply at call or gather in one excursion was all that he sought and all that he gave. The dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condense his sentiments, to multiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might produce or chance might supply. If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpa es expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and leveled by the roller." There are forms of antithesis in which the contrast is only of a secondary kind.