Apostrophe
is a rhetorical figure in which the speaker addresses a
dead or absent person, or an abstraction or inanimate object. In classical rhetoric,
the term could also denote a speaker's turning to address a particular member
or section of the audience.
Apostrophes are found frequently among the speeches
of Shakespeare's characters, as when Elizabeth in Richard III addresses the
Tower of London:
Pity, you
ancient stones, those tender babes Whom envy hath immured within your walls.