Metaphor & Figuration
Transferred Epithet / Hypallage
An adjective moved from the noun it logically belongs to onto a neighbor — a sleepless night, a condemned cell. The feeling leaks from the person into the scenery, and the misplacement is the point.
"Once more the storm is howling, and half hid / Under this cradle-hood and coverlid / My child sleeps on" → "murderous innocence of the sea" — Yeats
Don't confuse it with Epithet. A plain epithet sits on its rightful noun; hypallage is the deliberate misdelivery.
In the Reader — 4 excerpts
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With
April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain.
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix
Travels with
Devices that share a passage with transferred epithet / hypallage most often — company reveals character.
Anaphora 5 Metaphor 4 Asyndeton 4
The rest of the family
Metaphor Simile Catachresis Metonymy Synecdoche Personification Prosopopoeia Pathetic Fallacy Metalepsis Symbol Allusion Mythopoesis