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Definition of Hyperbole
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements are usually quite obvious exaggerations intended to emphasize a point... read full definition
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements are usually quite obvious exaggerations... read full definition
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements... read full definition
Act 3, Scene 5
Explanation and Analysis—Trinidado Tobacco:
Captain Bobadil employs hyperbole both in his description of past exploits and in his praise of tobacco:
I have been in the Indies (where this herb grows), where neither myself, nor a dozen gentlemen more (of my knowledge) have received the taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space of one and twenty weeks, but the fume of this simple only. Therefore, it cannot be but 'tis most divine! Further, take it in the nature, in the true kind so, it makes an antidote that, had you taken the most deadly poisonous plant in all Italy, it should expel it, and clarify you, with as much ease as I speak.
Bobadil fills his pipe with “Trinidado” tobacco (or in other words, tobacco cultivated on the Caribbean island of Trinidad) while visiting various friends at the home of the absent Kitely. He praises this form of tobacco with hyperbole, characterizing it as "divine" and arguing that its medicinal qualities are so effective that it can serve as an “antidote” to even “the most deadly poisonous plant in all Italy.” Tobacco, he claims, can “expel” the poison and “clarify” the smoker with “as much ease” as he can speak.
In addition to these hyperbolic claims on behalf of tobacco, which was newly available (and highly fashionable) in Elizabethan England, Bobadil also describes his own (alleged) experiences in the Americas in hyperbolic terms. While traveling through Trinidad as a soldier, he claims, he ate no food for 21 weeks other than the “fume” or smoke of tobacco, hyperbolically praising its nutrient value.
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