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Synesthesia
to describe things through sensory domains, and especially sensory incongruity; not a Classical rhetorical term but a common literary device

Examples

Byron
The music breathing from her face

P.G. Wodehouse
The girl had a quiet but speaking eye.

Keats
And like a rose in vermeil tint and shape,
In fragrance soft, and coolness to the eye
Everyday
a bitter look [sight as taste]
loud colours [sight as sound]
sweet silence [sound as taste]
You're so cool! [person as touch]
She gave me a sour look. [sight as taste]
a rough day at work [experience as touch]
The garden is a riot of colour. [sight as sound]
the stench of corruption [abstraction as smell]

Purpose

Experiential Vividness
We experience the world through the senses so synesthetic representations help us see, taste, touch, hear and smell those world representations. Stronger sense representations create more immediate experiences. Synesthetic representations can be sub-classes of the five senses or additional senses.
a sharp sorrow [sadness as the pain sense of touch]
heavy reluctance [willingness as the sense of weight]
dizzy contortions [movement as the sense of balance]
burning passion [love as the temperature sense of touch]
pulsating gunfire [sound as the vibration sense of touch and movement]
Synesthesia may also appear in metaphor and personification.

Usage

Sweet Victory but Sour Defeat?
To use synesthesia we have to know which senses to combine. Only a few senses combine well with other things. Touch applies well to sound and sight. Taste and smell can give positive and negative evaluations.
Touch as sound and sight
a gravelly voice
the cold colours of winter
Taste as positive and negative
bitter defeat
sweet
victory
Smell as positive and negative
the odour of betrayal
the sweet perfume of success
The Complementarity Rule
To use synesthesia well we must find complementarity between the senses and the things described. Metaphor also follows this rule. But sensory incongruity can also work well.
Sensory Incongruity
P.G. Wodehouse
Below the surface of a frost-bound garden there lurk hidden bulbs which are only biding their time to burst forth in a riot of laughing colour.
Everyday
Martin Amis
blue music
a golden touch
deafening colours
We passed through the damp dust of the velvet curtain, into deeper noise, deeper smoke, deeper drink
© 2015 Danyal Freeman