Hypallage


Hypallage is a figure of speech in which the syntactic relationship between two terms is interchanged, or—more frequently—a modifier is syntactically linked to an item other than the one that it modifies semantically. The latter type of hypallage, typically resulting in the implied personification of an inanimate or abstract noun, is also called a transferred epithet.

Examples

Hypallage is often used strikingly in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. Examples of transferred epithets are "the winged sound of whirling", meaning "the sound of whirling wings", and Horace's "angry crowns of kings". Virgil was given to hypallage beyond the transferred epithet, as "give the winds to the fleets", meaning "give the fleets to the winds."
Literary critic Gérard Genette argued that the frequent use of hypallage is characteristic of Marcel Proust's style.