Metaphor & Figuration
Catachresis
A deliberately strained or 'wrong' metaphor — a word forced outside its normal use until the misfit itself is the effect. It reads as slightly broken on purpose, and makes an ordinary thing look new.
"the watery part of the world" — Melville, for the ocean
Don't confuse it with Metaphor. A dead metaphor ('table leg') no longer registers as figurative; catachresis keeps its torque — it must still feel misapplied.
In the Reader — 5 excerpts
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes
Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. They were coming toward where the flag was and I went along the fence. Luster was hunting in the grass by the flower tree.
Travels with
Devices that share a passage with catachresis most often — company reveals character.
Anaphora 6 Asyndeton 5 Parataxis 3 Metaphor 3 Enjambment 3 Polyptoton 3 Prosopopoeia 3
The rest of the family
Metaphor Simile Metonymy Synecdoche Personification Prosopopoeia Pathetic Fallacy Transferred Epithet / Hypallage Metalepsis Symbol Allusion Mythopoesis