According to Prof. Sosnovskaya V.B., units of poetic speech called metonymy are also based upon analogy. But in them there is an objectively existing relationship between the object named and the object implied.225 “Analytical reading” by Sosnovskaya V.B., p.535

According to Prof. Kukharenko V.A., metonymy also becomes instrumental in enriching the vocabulary of the language and it is based on contiguity (nearness) of objects or phenomena.226 “A Book of Practice in Stylistics” by Kukharenko V.A., p.896

So, according to these three definitions, we can say that metonymy is a transference of meaning based on a logical or physical connection between things. In metonymy a thing is described by its action, its function or by some significant features. It is one of the means of forming the new meanings of words in the language.

e.g. “…a thing more tragic than all the tears the world has

ever shed”. (p. 65)

“She was stern to me, but she taught me what the

world is forgetting, the difference that there is between

what is right and what is wrong”. (p. 26)

“Do you think seriously that women who have

committed what the world calls a fault should never be

forgiven?” (p.27)

In these three examples we can see the same metonymy, that is used by the same word “world”. Here the author means the people who love in the world. Here we also can see that container is used instead of the thing contained: “world” instead of “people”. We can observe the same situation on the following example:

e.g. “The whole London knows it”. (p.32)

The author means people living in London, but not the city as itself. Through the combination of metonymical details and particulars Wilde creates the effect of powerful upper-class society. The scope of transference in metonymy is much more limited than that of metaphor, which is quite understandable: the scope of human imagination identifying two objects on the grounds of commonness of one of their innumerable characteristics is boundless while actual relation between objects are more limited. This is why metonymy, on the whole, is a less frequently observed stylistic device than metaphor.

Oscar Wilde does not pay much attention to metonymy. But his metonymies have a great potential power. They reach the emotional reliability, which creates the effect of reader’s presence in the literary world. Metonymical details and particulars sometimes serve the so called “evidences” of the actions and feelings of the heroes.

As a brief conclusion we can say that Oscar Wilde resorts to the use of a great number of stylistic devices in his plays.

For Wilde language is the most important way for expression of his thoughts and feelings. According to the examples mentioned above, we can see that Wilde’s language is very expressive and vivid, and at the same time it is plain and understandable to any reader.

The expressive means of a language exist as a certain system of literary devices within the literary form of the common language. The system of expressive means of language differs from that of another, not in the existence of some device but in the role which this device plays, and the place which it occupies in this system.

The syntactical level plays an important role in the system of language expressive means. Generally speaking, the examination of syntax provides a deeper insight into the stylistic aspect of the utterance.

Stylistics takes as the object of its analysis the expressive means and stylistic devices of the language which are based on some significant structural point in an utterance, whether it consists of one sentence or a string of sentences.

The problem of syntactical stylistic devices appears to be closely linked not only with what makes an utterance more emphatic but also with the more general problem of predication. As is known, the English affirmative sentence is regarded as neutral if it maintains the regular word order, that is subject – predicate – object (or other secondary members of the sentence, as they are called). Any other order of the parts of the sentence may also carry the necessary information, but impact on the reader will be different. Even a slight change in the word order of a sentence or in the order of the sentences in a more complicated syntactical unit will inevitably cause a definite modification of the meaning in the whole. An almost imperceptible rhythmical design introduced into a prose sentence or a sudden break in the sequence of the parts of the sentence, or any other change will add something to the volume of information contained in the original sentence.

Unlike the syntactical expressive means of the language, which are naturally used in discourse in a straight-forward natural manner, syntactical stylistic devices are perceived as elaborate designees aimed at having