Into the lean and skippered pantaloon : identify the figure of speech and explain
Answers
Answer:
To put it simply, it is an adjective attached to a personified noun. Here, it is not the pantaloon which is lean and slipper'd. Rather, it is the man who has become lean with old age and wears slippers and pantaloon. By attaching the modifiers lean and slipper'd, the inanimate noun pantaloon is personified.
Explanation:
By transferred epithet it means to see attributive quality designated by an adjective ‘transferred’ onto a noun which is essentially different in nature. As in ‘weary road’, or ‘tired pages’, etc.
Following ones make a fine case for transferred epithets in the poem ‘All the World's a Stage’.
1 ‘shining morning face’ for jolly, chirpy childhood
2 ‘bubble reputation’ for ephemeral nature of fame in the world
3 ‘lean and slippered pantaloon’ for getting old
4 ‘youthful hose…shrunk shank’ (considering Shakespeare's flair for fun) for one's receding virility
5 ‘strange eventful history’ for one’s course of life.
Transferred epithet is also comparable to hypallage in Rhetoric. In fact, transferred epithet was a favored device for Modernist writers later, such as James Joyce, as it allowed them effective psycho-narration.