What Is an Oxymoron?
- Melchior Antoine
- Dec 16, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: May 25
An oxymoron is a literary device that combines two seemingly contradictory terms to create a paradoxical effect. It is used to provoke thought by contrasting two ideas against each other. An oxymoron is usually confused with a paradox.
While the two may have similar meanings, the difference lies in the fact that oxymoron is typically used to describe word pairs, sentences, or phrasings with contradictory terms, whereas a paradox describes a contradictory situation or idea.
In this article, we look at some examples of oxymorons from literature, including from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and further explain the difference between an oxymoron and a paradox.
Examples of Oxymorons
1. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1
In the following, Romeo is using oxymoronic phrasing to describe his heartbreak from the unrequited love of Rosalind (not Juliet):
Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.
Why, then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O anything of nothing first created,
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep that is not what it is.
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
The phrases highlighted are all oxymoronic phrases. This type of language is typical in literature to describe either doomed love or unrequited love. Phrases like "brawling love" and "loving hate" seek to show the turmoil and anguish of pining in love for someone who will not love you back. Other phrases such as "heavy lightness" and "serious vanity" also suggest that while love is supposed to be something beautiful, light-hearted, and fun, not having it returned has the opposite effect.
2. Macbeth
Shakespeare uses oxymoron to increase the tension and highlight the themes in Macbeth. One of the most famous examples occurs in Act 1, Scene 1, when the witches chant:
Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
This oxymoron encapsulates the play’s central theme of morality turned upside down and inside out, which culminates early in the play with Macbeth murdering King Duncan as Duncan slept innocently under Macbeth’s roof as a host.
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3. T.S. Eliot, ‘The Hollow Men”
T.S. Eliot masterfully uses oxymorons in his famous poem “Hollow Men” (1925):
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
From the first two lines, we see an oxymoron in the "hollow men" being simultaneously described as "hollow" and "stuffed” —- a contradiction that reflects their lack of purpose and meaning, although they are alive. This duality emphasizes the emptiness and despair that Eliot tends to associate with modern life.
The last two lines are also excellent examples of oxymoronic phrasing. How can shape be without form? How can a force be paralyzed? How can a gesture be without motion? All these phrases suggest men who are alive but whose lives are deprived of meaning or purpose.
Paradox versus Oxymoron
A paradox and an oxymoron are closely related to each other. They are both literary devices that portray a fundamental contradiction. However, there is a fundamental difference between the two. Here is a formal definition of paradox:
A statement or argument that may appear at first glance absurd or contradictory, but which on further investigation may prove to be well founded or true.
Paradoxes feature heavily in romantic poetry that describes doomed or unrequited love. For example, when Romeo says "O brawling love, o loving hate," he i sis using oxymorons to describe a paradox. The paradox is the fact that he is in love with Rosalind, but Rosalind does not love him back, which makes his love a source of torture when it should be a source of happiness.
We can say that oxymorons are phrases, word pairs, or sentences that express contradictory ideas, whereas a paradox expresses a contradictory idea, argument, or situation. Let's look at an example of a paradox to prove the point. This is from Andrew Marvell's famous poem "The Definition of Love" ():
My love is of a birth as rare
As ’tis for object strange and high;
It was begotten by Despair
Upon Impossibility.
Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing
Where feeble Hope could ne’er have flown,
But vainly flapp’d its tinsel wing.
The poem describes a kind of rare, divine, and ill-fated love, which is later explained as "the conjunction of the mind, / And opposition of the stars." In short, it is the love that could never be although both individuals are in love with each other. The poet uses oxymoronic phrasing such as "Magnanimous despair" and "feeble hope."
This is oxymoronic as despair is not typically associated with a trait as positive as magnanimity. Hope is also associated with positive words like "bright," but here it is described as feeble. We can say that Marvell is using oxymoronic phrasing to describe a paradox. The paradox is a form of love that can never be consummated, which makes it beautiful and despairing at the same time.
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2024, December 16). What Is an Oxymoron? EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/what-is-an-oxymoron |
