Question

Drag each label to the correct category.

Match the quotes with the literary devices they use.
"O miserable abundance, O
beggarly riches!"
- John Donne
"What a pity that youth must
be wasted on the young."
- George Bernard Shaw
"I can resist anything but
temptation."
- Oscar Wilde
"How is it possible to have a
civil war?
- George Carlin
Paradox
Oxymoron

Answer 1

In identifying literary devices, the quotes by John Donne, George Bernard Shaw, and Oscar Wilde are examples of paradoxes, as they present contradictions that may hold deeper truths, while the quote by George Carlin is an oxymoron because it juxtaposes contradictory terms.

Step-by-step explanation:

The student's task to match the quotes with the literary devices they use involves identifying whether a given quote is an example of a paradox or an oxymoron. A paradox is a seemingly self-contradictory statement or proposition that may in fact be true, whereas an oxymoron is a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction.

• "O miserable abundance, O beggarly riches!" by John Donne would be considered a paradox as it presents a seemingly contradictory situation that prompts the reader to think about how one can be rich yet still feel poor.
• "What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young." by George Bernard Shaw is also a paradox, as it highlights the irony that youth, with all its opportunities, is often not appreciated until it's gone.
• "I can resist anything but temptation." by Oscar Wilde is another paradox, playfully suggesting the impossibility of resisting temptation, as the nature of temptation is something that is not easily resisted.
• "How is it possible to have a civil war?" by George Carlin is an example of an oxymoron because it combines the terms 'civil' and 'war,' which are ordinarily seen as opposites, to question the concept of a war being civil.

Answer 2

Oxymoron:

1: O miserable abundance, O beggarly riches!

Paradoxes:

2: What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young.

3: I can resist anything but temptation.

4: How is it possible to have a civil war?

Step-by-step explanation:

Oxymoron:

It is a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction.

e.g Fully empty, living death, O loving hate.

Based on this definition only "O miserable abundance, O beggarly riches!" falls under the category of Oxymoron.

Paradox: It is similar to oxymoron, but it is usually a statement with logically contradictory statements which on investigation may or may not be logically true.

e.g "Everything I say is lie" , Barber Paradox: "A male barber shaves all and only those men who don’t shave themselves. Does he shave himself?"

As we can find out there are no contradictory terms/words, but the statements which may contradict each other.

Based on the above, we conclude that sentence 2, 3 and 4 are Paradoxes.