Practice Paper 1

The following speech “The Pleasure of Books” is written by William Lyon Phelps, an American educator, literary critic and author. The speech was delivered on April 6th, 1933 during a radio broadcast where Phelps conveyed and developed his affection of books through the use of comparison (similes and metaphors), rhetorical devices and diction to engage with the audience.

In the opening paragraph, Lyon indulges with the essence of reading and his disgust for borrowed books, introducing his audience to the literary world’s authentic beauty as his central topic. He opens with an analogy through the lines “The habit of reading is one of the greatest resources of mankind; and we enjoy reading books that belong to us much more than if they are borrowed.”, crafting a comparison between borrowed and owned books. He uses this to further emphasize the relevance of one’s own possession by adding a simile depicting a borrowed book as a guest, with diction in the words punctiliousness and formality, outlining the varied moods a member of the house would have towards an outsider. He follows up with personification in the text “You must see that it sustains no damage; it must not suffer while under your roof. You cannot leave it carelessly, you cannot mark it, you cannot turn down the pages, you cannot use it familiarly.” Where he provides the book with feelings of pain and suffering, soon implementing an anaphora, directly towards the listeners, through the repetition of “you cannot”, listing the limitations of a borrowed book, once more finalizing its relevance of not belonging to the household. Throughout this paragraph, we can see that Lyon relates towards a general audience of literature, who read and adore books just as himself by providing a common event in any booklovers life.

Subsequently, he continues his focus towards the conflict of borrowed and owned books, now tilting towards the supremacy of books that belong to ourselves. In the first line “But your own books belong to you; you treat them with that affectionate intimacy that annihilates formality.” Lyon supports the understatement presented previously on the limitations of borrowed books, now scoping the advantages of the items in our possession as he unfolds his viewpoint on the situation. The passage follows with a hyperbole as Williams exaggerates the freedom one can and should experience with a book they own, “Books are for use, not for show; you should own no book that you are afraid to mark up, or afraid to place on the table, wide open and face down.”.  He follows up with this argument through the simile “it is like a forest where you once blazed a trail.” as well as certain imagery in the lines to follow, “You have the pleasure of going over the old ground, and recalling both the intellectual scenery and your own earlier self.”, using this to back-up and express his support towards owned books by including the audience’s past experiences into the vast tails and lands explored within their childhood (“and your own earlier self”).

In the third paragraph, William cherishes the broad knowledge stored within such fascinating sources of fiction and non-fiction, as he presents the themes of intellectual property and free will within the paragraph. Lyon establishes the lines “Everyone should begin collecting a private library in youth; the instinct of private property, which is fundamental in human beings, can here be cultivated with every advantage and no evils.”, using diction in the word “Everyone” to relate to any individual within the audience as he convinces them that “private property can be here cultivated with every advantage and no evil” providing a bias upon the topic as being completely pure. Moreover, the writer portrays the climax of his speech in the text “they should be free and accessible to the hand as well as to the eye.” Through the encouragement of knowledge as being open-ended, referring to the theme of freedom. William then lists the physical characteristics associated with a book by using imagery as the main device in the passage, expressing the beauty of such hubs of knowledge, providing personal insight of his time with books through the lines “Most of my indoor life is spent in a room containing six thousand books; and I have a stock answer to the invariable question that comes from strangers. "Have you read all of these books?" "Some of them twice." This reply is both true and unexpected.”. He inserts a rhetorical question matched with a hypophora providing an indirect response to the question to enhance his own viewpoint of interest in literature.

As the text concludes, Lyon now examines fictional characters with real human beings, preaching the great variables we are able to study while observing certain personalities and their lifestyle. This is clearly evident through the inclusion of the lines “There are of course no friends like living, breathing, corporeal men and women; my devotion to reading has never made me a recluse.” where Williams uses a simile to compare people in the real and fictional world. He then follows up with the lines “How could it? Books are of the people, by the people, for the people.” where a rhetorical question is paired with an antistrophe to explain that books are never a sign of mere isolation by repeating the word people. In the lines “Literature is the immortal part of history; it is the best and most enduring part of personality. But book-friends have this advantage over living friends; you can enjoy the most truly aristocratic society in the world whenever you want it.”, Lyon uses a stream of metaphors alongside diction in the words “immortal”, “enduring” and “aristocratic society” to validate the relevance and entertainment received from reading, explaining the everlasting possibilities books can exhibit as well as communicating with deceased, yet popular authors in the text “But in a private library, you can at any moment converse with Socrates or Shakespeare or Carlyle or Dumas or Dickens or Shaw or Barrie or Galsworthy. And there is no doubt that in these books you see these men at their best.”. As a result, in the final line “You are necessary to them as an audience is to an actor; only instead of seeing them masked, you look into their innermost heart of heart.”, Williams, once again, directly engages with the listeners by adding a simile to contrast an author with the role of an actor, he inserts imagery as well, to once more praise the exquisite outlook a book can provide over a movie.

In conclusion, William speaks with an appealing tone and mood, connecting his personal insights with the audience and attempting to create a bright and innovative atmosphere. He shapes his argument by quarreling with the ideas of the literary world as a sight that can only be observed and explored on a personal level unlike practical adventures. He contemplates with the themes of freedom and intellectual property to further develop his central viewpoint and perspective of fictional characters and ecosphere.