Calvino’s “Why Read the Classics?” is full of rhetorical devices. Rhetorical devices are used to make essays or other literary works more appealing to read. I noticed a simile, personification, and hypophora. A simile is when you compare two or more things together, while using ‘like’ or ‘as’. A few times on page four, Calvino mentions how reading a classic for the first time is like when you are young. He also mentions how when we reread classics it is like growing up, because we understand them more. (Calvino 4). Personification is when you give non-human or inanimate objects human-like characteristics. One example of personification I found in this essay was, “-while we continue to follow the discourse of the classics which resounds clearly and articulately inside our room.” (Calvino 8). As far as I know, books do not make sounds, so this appeared to be an example of personification. Hypophora is when the author of a literary work asks a question and then answers it within said literary work. After thinking about it for a little while, I realized that the essay itself is somewhat of a hypophora, seeing as though the title of the essay is a question and the essay is the answer.
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