Semantic Rhetorical Devices in Xuân Quỳnh’s Love Poetry: A Stylistic and Expressive Analysis

Abstract

This article investigates the use of semantic rhetorical devices in Xuân Quỳnh’s love poetry from a stylistic and rhetorical perspective. Focusing on a corpus of ten representative poems, the study examines four major types of semantic rhetorical devices-metaphor, simile, metonymy, and personification-through qualitative close reading supported by quantitative overview. The analysis explores their distribution, expressive functions, and stylistic roles in the construction of poetic meaning.

The findings reveal that metaphor functions as the dominant rhetorical mechanism, enabling the poet to conceptualize abstract emotional states such as love, longing, devotion, and anxiety through symbolically rich and concrete imagery. Simile, metonymy, and personification operate as complementary devices that enhance emotional clarity, semantic compression, and lyrical animation of the external world. Together, these devices form an integrated expressive system that allows personal emotional experience to be generalized into shared human values while maintaining intimacy and emotional authenticity.

The study argues that semantic rhetorical devices play a central role in shaping Xuân Quỳnh’s distinctive poetic style, characterized by emotional depth, introspection, and a strongly articulated feminine lyrical voice grounded in everyday imagery. By foregrounding semantic rhetoric as a core mechanism of poetic meaning-making, the article contributes a linguistic and stylistic dimension to existing research on Xuân Quỳnh’s poetry and offers insights into the expressive dynamics of modern Vietnamese lyric poetry.