Students rarely read Julius Caesar these days illustrates ________

Analyzing the question

The sentence is "Students rarely read Julius Caesar these days." The question asks which literary term it illustrates. The key is the phrase "Julius Caesar," which here doesn't refer to the Roman man but to the play named after him.

Explaining the concepts

• Caesura: a pause or break within a line of verse, often marked by punctuation. It has nothing to do with this sentence.
• Eponym: a person (real or fictional) after whom something is named. For example, Julius Caesar is the eponymous title character of Shakespeare's play, and Macbeth, Hamlet and Othello are eponymous titles too.
• Oxymoron: two contradictory terms placed together, such as "deafening silence" or "cruel kindness".
• Zeugma: one word governing two or more others in different senses, such as "She broke his car and his heart."

Working through the solution

1. The sentence has no pause in verse, so it is not caesura (A).
2. It has no contradictory pair of words, so it is not oxymoron (C).
3. One verb ("read") is not being used in two different senses, so it is not zeugma (D).
4. "Julius Caesar" is the name of a character that also gives its name to the play. This is the idea of an eponym (B).

Answer: B. eponym

Exam tip: Remember that "eponym" comes from Greek epi (upon) + onyma (name), so it means "the name given to something." When a title is the name of its main character (Hamlet, Oliver Twist, Things Fall Apart is not one, but Jane Eyre is), think eponym!