Rhetoric and Composition/Rhetorical Analysis
← Oral Presentations · Grammar and Mechanics →
From Wikibooks, open books for an open world
< Rhetoric and Composition
Jump to: navigation, search
TODO


TODO
I'd like to see more generalizing/overview like approaches to this page; the huge lists are intimidating and probably not ultimately useful for getting a broader understanding of the topics. Try to structure the page so that the information is better integrated and consolidated. --Mattbarton.exe (talk) 20:10, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Overview of Rhetorical Analysis
* 2 Basic Rhetorical Strategies
* 3 Pathos
* 4 Ethos
* 5 Logos
* 6 Deductive Logic
* 7 Inductive Logic
* 8 Logical Fallacies
o 8.1 Critical Reading
o 8.2 Persuasive Appeals

[edit] Overview of Rhetorical Analysis

Rhetorical analysis refers to analyzing a text or a given source. That text may be writing or some different sort of communication which includes the consideration of the rhetorical situations-purpose, audience, genre, stance, and media/design. In other words, the analysis explores not only what everything means in the given source (content), but also why the author wrote about it (the purpose), who the author is (background), how the piece was organized (structure), and where and/or when it was published (forum), etc.

The rhetorical situation of a given source involves employing some reading strategies, being more specific, some critical reading skills, examining how and why a particular text is written in the first place, what kind of readers the text is intended for, and what the goal of the text is. Those goals may include context of issues, the writer, the publication, and other background information. The analyzer needs to observe the writer’s purpose and relationship to readers. The analyzer also needs to observe the writer’s language such as tone, denotation/connotation, figures of speech, and stereotypes.

Therefore, rhetorical analysis is one of the more challenging assignments in any writing class. Students often confuse a rhetorical analysis with a review: both analyze a text thoroughly. However, a rhetorical analysis reserves judgment on whether they agree/disagree with the topic presented. A review, of course, invites the reviewer to critique how "good" or "bad" the content of an article, book, or movie is. The sole goal of a rhetorical analysis is to analyze the author's writing (or visuals, if one is engaging in a visual rhetorical analysis). How did the author craft his/her argument? This should be the guiding question during any rhetorical analysis.

Rhetoric is a term that is widely used in many forms, and by itself can mean a great many things. Some use the term in association with political rhetoric, to name the voice and stance, as well as the language that becomes the nature of politics. Rhetoric can be thought of as the way in which you phrase what you are saying, and the forces that impact what you are saying. If you think about the different groups of people that you communicate with, you will see that you use different forms of rhetoric with each of them. You talk to your friends differently than you talk to your parents, or your teachers, or your employers. Each group you associate with calls for a different form of language, of voice, of rhetoric to be used.
[edit] Basic Rhetorical Strategies

For the purposes of writing, when we refer to rhetoric, we often talk about it as the art of persuasion. There are many different strategies a communicator may employ to get his message across. Below is a list of some of the more basic ones:

Exemplification: Provide examples or cases in point. Are there examples -- facts, statistics, cases in point, personal experiences, interview quotations -- added to the essay?

Description: Detail sensory perceptions of a person, place, or thing. Does a person, place, or object play a prominent role in the essay?

Narration: Recount an event. Are there any anecdotes, experiences, or stories in the essay? Process analysis: Explain how to do something or how something happens. Does any portion of the essay include concrete directions about a certain process?

Comparison and contrast: Discuss similarities and differences. Does the essay contain two or more related subjects? Does it evaluate or analyze two or more people, places, processes, events, or things? Are there any similarities and/or differences between two or more elements?

Division and classification: Divide a whole into parts or sort related items into categories. Does the essay reduce the subject to more manageable parts or group parts?

Definition: Provide the meaning of terms you use. Is there any important word in the essay with many meanings and is defined or clarified?

Cause and effect analysis: Analyze why something happens and describe the consequences of a string of events. Does the essay examine past events or their outcome? Does it explain why something happened?

Argumentation: Convince through reasoning. See more on inductive and deductive reasoning below.

Aristotelian appeals: Appeals to passion (pathos), ethics (ethos), or logic (logos). See more on appeals below.

Repetition: The constant use of certain words. Why, with all words at her disposal, does the writer choose to repeat particular words?

Counterpoints: Contrasting ideas such as black/white, darkness/light, good/bad. Does the writer acknowledge and respond to counterpoints to her position?

Imagery: Language that evokes one or all of the five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell. Does the essay use any provocative language that calls upon readers’ senses?

Metaphor and simile: A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by “like” or “as.” Does the essay make connections between things to make a point or elicit an idea?

Style, tone, and voice: The attitude a writer takes towards a subject or character: serious, humorous, sarcastic, ironic, satirical, tongue-in-cheek, solemn, objective. What tone does the essay have? How does the writer portray herself? What choices does she make that influence her position?

Analogy: The comparison of two pairs that have the same relationship. Are there any comparisons made by the writer to strengthen her message?

Flashback: Action that interrupts to show an event that happened at an earlier time which is necessary to better understand current information. Is the essay out of chronological order?

Hyperbole: Exaggeration or overstatement. Does the writer make any claims that seem extreme?

Personification: Giving human qualities to animals or objects. Is something without conscience thinking or talking?

"'Allusion"': A reference to something real or fictional, to someone, some event, or something in the Bible, history, literature, or any phase of culture.

Irony: An expression or utterance marked by deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning, often humorous. Does the writer really support her own assertions? Does she seem to be claiming the opposite you expect her to claim?

Oxymoron: A contradiction in terms such as “faithless devotion,” “searing cold,” “deafening silence,” “virtual reality,” “act naturally,” “peacekeeper missile,” or “larger half.” Do any of the writer’s terms seem to obviously clash?

Paradox: Reveals a kind of truth which at first seems contradictory; Red wine is both good and bad for us. Do any contradictions used in the essay contain some grain of truth?

Symbolism: Using an object or action that means something more than its literal meaning; A skull and crossbones symbolize death. Does the writer seem to assert that a thing has meaning outside of the obvious?

Parody: A humorous exaggerated imitation, or travesty. If there is humor, does it seem to be mocking or making fun or a particular person, place, thing, or action?

Sarcasm: A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound. Are there any caustic ironies in the essay?

Satire: Literary tone used to ridicule or make fun of human vice or weakness, often with the intent of correcting, or changing, the subject of the satiric attack. Does the writer’s humor aim to fix its target?

Diction: Choice of words. Why, with all words at her disposal, does the writer choose to use those particular words?

Parallelism: The use of identical or equivalent constructions in corresponding clauses. Are there any syntactic similarities between two parts of a sentence?
[edit] Pathos

Pathos is the appeal to passion, the use of emotion to persuade readers’ or listeners’ opinions in a rhetorical argument. Pathetic appeals (the use of pathos) are characterized by evocative imagery, description, visuals, and the like to create within the reader or listener a sense of emotion: outrage, sorrow, excitement, etc.

Pathos is often easily recognizable—audiences tend to know when what they hear or read swells emotion within their hearts and minds. Be careful to distinguish between pathos as a rhetorical vehicle to persuade using emotion and the logical fallacy “appeal to pity.” Both use emotion to make their point, but the fallacy diverts the audience from the issue to the self while the appeal emphasizes the impact of the issue.

A good example of pathos is in public services announcements. Some of the most popular include drug warnings: A woman is at the stove in the kitchen with a skillet. She holds up an egg and says, “This is your brain.” She cracks the egg into the skillet where it immediately begins to cook. “This is your brain on drugs.” Or the more recent billboards cautioning against (meth)amphetamines which show an attractive young person juxtaposed against a mug-shot of the same person at a later date but with pustules, open sores, missing teeth, unkempt hair, acne, running makeup, and any other assortment of detrimental and hideous signs of the drug’s ruinous capabilities. Audiences are not meant to pity these individuals; rather, the audience is meant to reel in horror at the destruction meth can cause to a person in a short amount of time. In this case, horror or shock is the emotional tool rhetoric wields to persuade. It should be noted that people with acne, unkempt hair, or other traits listed are not necessarily uncommon—in fact, these traits can be found in vast numbers of high school students; the traits are merely shown in conjunction with the normative “before” picture to elicit the desired emotion. Either of the pictures alone would not be rhetorically effective, it is only by placing them together that the audience is passionately moved.
[edit] Ethos

Ethos is the appeal to ethics, the use of authority to persuade an audience to believe in their character. And while ethos is called an ethical appeal, be careful not to confuse it solely with ethics; it encompasses a large number of different things which can include what a person wears, says, the words they use, their tone, their credentials, their experience, their charge over the audience, verbal and nonverbal behavior, criminal records, etc.

To elaborate, the construction of authority is reflected in how the rhetorician presents herself, what diction she uses, how she phrases her ideas, what other authorities she refers to, how she composes herself under stress, her experience within the context of her message, her personal or academic background, and more.

Spokespersons are great examples of companies attempting to persuade the audience to purchase their product based on an authority. What a skeptical, intelligent, and analytical person would ask is: “Does the authority of the spokesperson the company is using have anything to do with the product?” When a celebrity is employed to advertise an unrelated product, the company selling the product is attempting to persuade using the fallacy “Appeal to the people” (often known as the “Bandwagon appeal”) and “Appeal to an unqualified authority” based on the assumption that the audience will want the product so they can be just like the popular artist, and not because that artist knows anything about the product. I wouldn’t buy a soft drink just because Madonna endorses it, but I would buy golf clubs from Tiger Woods.

Doctors are another authority tapped by companies to hock their wares. The question to ask here is: “Are those real doctors? Or are they a façade?” If they are real, they constitute an actual authority (assuming the item they’re supporting is medically related); if they are fake, they are just a ploy and fall again under the fallacy “Appeal to an unqualified authority.”

In academia, ethos can be constructed not only by diction, tone, phrasing, and the like, but by what the rhetorician knows. A works cited page reflects this. It says: this author has read these sources, and knows their contents. And if those sources are relevant, reputable, and well regarded, the author has just benefited from that association. At the same time, authors want to make sure they properly introduce their sources within their writing to establish the authority they are drawing from.
[edit] Logos

Logos is most easily defined as the logical appeal of an argument. Say that you are writing a paper on immigration and you say "55,000 illegal immigrants entered this country last year, of those, only 23,000 did it legally." There is obviously something wrong here. Although say 55,000 immigrants were "illegal" makes for an impressive statistic, it is apparently not correct if you admit that 23,000 of these people immigrated legally. The actual number of illegal immigrants would then be only 32,000, a significantly lower number.

False facts like this one are one example of faulty logos. To look into the matter further, one needs to take a look at the two different types of logos and how they function. These two types are known as "deductive" and "inductive."
[edit] Deductive Logic

A deductive logical argument is one that works from the top to the bottom. It begins with what is known as a "major premise," adds a "minor premise," and attempts to reach a conclusion. A major premise is a statement that names something about a large group, a minor premise takes a single member, and the conclusion attempts to prove that because this single member is a part of the larger group, they must also have the trait named in the original statement. For example:

MEN ARE TALL - a major premise as it works with a large group of people
BOB IS A MAN - a minor premise as we hear about only one individual of that group
BOB IS TALL - we attempt to make a conclusion based upon what we have already been told

Now, if it is true that men are tall, and that Bob is a man, then we can safely infer that Bob must be tall. However, beware the logical fallacy. Though it may be true that in certain cultures men are, on average, taller than women, certainly this is not always the case. Being that our major premise is not altogether true, we can now say that this argument is flawed. Furthermore, we might ask what our definition of "tall" is. Tall is different if we are talking about the average population, or basketball players. Also, what is a man? Do transgendered individuals count? We see that the problem becomes far more complex the more we look into it.
[edit] Inductive Logic

As some would argue that a deductive argument works from the top down, toward a conclusion, some comment that an inductive argument works from the bottom up. This is mildly misleading. What is meant by this is that an inductive logical argument begins with a firm affirmation of truth, a conclusive statement. By getting the audience to agree with this statement, the argument moves to the next "logical" step. It proceeds in this manner until the argument has led you from one seemingly reasonable conclusion to another that you may not have originally agreed with. Take the following as an example. Move through the argument slowly, making sure you understand and agree with each step in the process (and please forgive the religious content, you'll come to see it is irrelevant anyway).
The human soul is inherently free. This is its very nature. We are confined to our mortal, earthly bodies, but our souls must be kept free, or the nature of the soul is entirely negated. If one chooses to believe in a soul, they can only believe that it embraces this (vague idea of ) freedom.

At conception, a child is given a soul. Some may argue that it is not until birth, but if those very same persons are pro-life, they confuse their arguments. Thus, if someone is pro-life, and believes in a soul, they must believe in the freedom of that soul, and also accept that the soul is granted upon conception.

A soul cannot die. By the same means by which it is free over the body, a soul claims immortality while the body decomposes and is ruined. To deny that a soul is immortal is again to deny the very essence of a soul. Thus, if someone is pro-life, and believes in a soul, they must believe in the freedom of that soul, the immortality of the soul, and also accept that the soul is granted upon conception.

A soul cannot be born. It is immortal and cannot die, it is not earthly, it forever exists, and cannot be born. There are tales in Greek mythology of Athena’s birth, yet she bounds from her father’s head a fully decorated woman. She was not born. She existed previously, as Milton writes the Son in Paradise Lost. If one accepts the Bible’s teachings, there can be no reincarnation, another form of birth, a rebirth. Thus, if someone is pro-life, and believes in a soul, and does not accept reincarnation, they must believe in the freedom of that soul, the immortality of the soul that is always and forever (which cannot be born and cannot die), and also accept that the soul is granted upon conception.

A soul being always an essence, and not being able to be reincarnated, can only exist outside of the body, somewhere, until the act of conception occurs. That soul must then be placed in the body that was forever intended to receive it, as it belongs nowhere else. The soul is fated to that one body. Thus, if someone is pro-life, and believes in a soul, and does not accept reincarnation, namely a practicing Catholic, they must also believe in the freedom of the soul, and in the concept of fate. Fate, however, completely opposes the idea of freedom. One cannot then believe in a soul, for it immediately enforces a belief if fate which directly negates the belief in the soul. If our actions are written in a Divine plan, we are not free to make our own choices. Every action has been scripted.
Do not worry, it must be that you were meant to read this.
A sample inductive argument by Ben Doberstein.

Having seen this, some might say that the argument defeats Catholicism from an atheist standpoint. Others might find that it argues for the secularization of religion. Still, there are ways in which it supports Catholicism at the same time.

Though the argument might seem as if it is disagreeing with the Catholic religion, and some would agree that it is, we must always be looking for the logical fallacy. Upon closer inspection, you may notice that all this argument truly does, in one reading of the text, is to explain the complexity of God through the mind of a human. Catholicism has argued since the beginning that God is impossible to fully explain using the conceptions of man. In that way, this argument only supports that conclusion.

Be aware that there will be logic fallacies hidden in almost every argument. If there is more than one side to an argument, such as in religious or political debates, it is most likely because the argument is impossible to prove. Hence, there will be a logical fallacy present.
[edit] Logical Fallacies

Logical fallacies, often referred to by their Latin name “non sequitur” (which translates to “it does not follow”), are powerful tools in logic and rhetoric. When an arguer is able to identify her opponent’s fallacious positions, she can point them out and expose a weakness. She undermines her opponent’s position. Arguers comfortable with fallacies have an easier time avoiding them, thus making their positions more tenable.

Missteps in logic can be confusing for students: sometimes a fallacy will be called by its Latin name, other times they will be referred to by a synonym; some are clumped together, and others are overly specific. For example: “Argument against the person” is often called an “Ad hominem” argument; a “Complex question” can be referred to as a “Loaded question”; “Appeal to the people” occasionally loses its distinction between direct and indirect (referred to only as “Bandwagon fallacy”); and “Begging the question” many times implies only its aspect of circular reasoning and not the other aspects.

However, more important than agreeing on a name is the recognition of these non sequiturs. While a logician might dedicate her life to this topic, as a student you are expected only to avoid fallacies in your own writing and identify them in others’. The following is a fairly comprehensive list of fallacies:

Appeal to force
Arguer threatens reader/listener.
Example: If you don't agree with me, I will beat you up.

Appeal to pity
Arguer elicits pity from reader/listener.
Example: If you don't pass me in this course, I will get kicked out of school and have to flip burgers the rest of my life.

Appeal to the people (direct)
Arguer arouses mob mentality.
Example: The terrorists came from the middle east. Our only course of action is to turn it into a parking lot.

Appeal to the people (indirect)
Arguer appeals to the reader/listener's desire for security, love, respect, etc.
Example: Of course you want to read my book, it's what all the intellectuals read.

Argument against the person (abusive)
Arguer verbally abuses the other arguer.
Example: You're a moron, therefore your point is invalid.

Argument against the person (circumstantial)
Arguer presents the other arguer as predisposed to argue in this way.
Example: Of course you'd say I need braces; you're a dentist. (Anyone may be able to note I need braces.)

Argument against the person (tu quoque)
Arguer presents other arguer as a hypocrite.
Example: How can you tell me not to drink and drive when you did it last weekend? (Note: don't drink and drive.)

Accident
General rule is applied to a specific case it was not intended to cover.
Example: Americans are entitled to freedom of speech, so you cannot arrest him for yelling "fire" in the theater. (Note: don't yell "fire" in the theater.)

Straw man
Arguer distorts opponent's argument and then attacks the distorted argument.
Example: Our campus is "dry" and doesn't allow alcohol. Obviously the administration is composed of a bunch of puritans who don't speak for the majority and can be ignored.

Missing the point
Arguer draws conclusion different from that supported by the premises.
Example: College education costs are rising exponentially, therefore we should reduce the number of years needed to obtain a degree.

Red herring
Arguer leads reader/listener off track.
Example: People continually talk about the negative effects of tobacco, but did you know that the Native Americans used to smoke tobacco? Many Native American folk remedies are still used today in holistic medicine.

Appeal to unqualified authority
Arguer cites untrustworthy authority.
Example: My sixteen year old cousin Billy said that there was no moon landing, and he wants to be an astronaut, so it must be true.

Appeal to ignorance
Premises report that nothing is known or proved, and then a conclusion is drawn.
Example: There is no way of disproving the existence of God, therefore he exists. Or, conversely: There is no way of proving the existence of God, therefore he doesn't exist.

Hasty generalization
Conclusion is drawn from atypical sample.
Example: Mrs. Dobson's Rottweiler bit a neighbor boy, therefore all Rottweilers are violent dogs.

False cause
Conclusion depends on nonexistent or minor causal connection.
Example: Every time I change the channel, my sports team scores. Therefore, any time I want my team to score, I need only change the channel.

Slippery slope
Conclusion depends on unlikely chain reaction.
Example: If Americans' rights to bear arms is taken away, foreigners will view the country as weak and disarmed and attack, easily crushing our crippled defenses and enslaving our nation to submit to their will and whim.

Weak analogy
Conclusion depends on defective analogy.
Example: My cousin Billy is just like Yao Ming, he is tall and loves basketball; therefore he will be a pro ball player just like Yao Ming.

Begging the question
Arguer creates the illusion that inadequate premises are adequate by leaving out key premises, by restating the conclusion as a premise, or by reasoning in a circle.
Example: Of course animals have rights, just look at how they're being treated.

Complex question
Multiple questions are concealed in a single question.
Example: Have you stopped sleeping with your secretary?

False dichotomy
"Either/or" statement that hides additional alternatives.
Example: Either you buy Axe body spray or you risk not attracting the ladies. Obviously you want to attact the ladies, so you will buy Axe body spray.

Supressed evidence
Arguer ignores important evidence that requires a different conclusion.
Example: Of course that child can't practice medicine, he is only a boy. (If said child is Doogie Howser.)

Equivocation
Conclusion depends on a shift in meaning of a word of phrase.
Example: A squirrel is a mammal, therefore a large squirrel is a large mammal.

Amphiboly
Conclusion depends on the wrong interpretation of a syntactically ambiguous statement.
Example: John rode his bike past the tree with a helmet. (The tree has a helmet?)

Composition
Attribute is wrongly transferred from parts to whole.
Example: Bleach and ammonia individually are strong chemical cleaners, therefore if I mix them I will have a stronger chemical cleaner. (Note: don't mix bleach and ammonia.)

Division
Attribute is wrongly transferred from whole to parts.
Example: Our campus is over one hundred years old, therefore every building on campus is over one hundred years old.

[edit] Critical Reading

Critical reading is the first step for rhetorical analysis. In order to make a reasonable and logical analysis, you need to apply critical reading skills to a text that you are about to analyze. For example, when reading, you can break the whole text down into several parts. Then, try to determine what the writer is attempting to achieve and identify the writing strategies s/he is using. Use these findings to determine whether the argument is effective or not. Reading critically does not simply mean being moved, affected, informed, influenced, and persuaded by a piece of writing; it's much more than that. It refers to analyzing and understanding how the writing has achieved its effect. Some specific questions can guide you in your critical reading process. You can use them in reading the text, and if asked to, you can use them in writing a formal analysis. The following is a list of suggested questions that you may find useful for your reading. However, you don't need to apply all of these questions to every text. You may use them selectively according to the specific reading at hand. This is simply one method for getting you started on reading (and then writing) more critically.

Questions to Ask in Critical Reading:

* What is the subject? Does the subject bring up any personal associations? Is it a controversial one?

The "subject" is a topic that interests the author and is being explored by the author in the given text. The subject matter focuses on the author's interest and enthusiasm for it usually leads to a writing that is interesting. When you find the subject matter, think of it's "scope". How broad or narrow the author's approach to the subject is. You may consider the length in words in terms of the scope of the author's treatment of the subject. Then try to observe whether the author's topic associates you with your own personal related experience. What do you think of the subject? Do you think of it as a controversial topic? How?

* What is the thesis (the overall main point)? How does the thesis interpret the subject? If asked, could you summarize the main idea?

An effective argument centers on a clear thesis. The main body of an argument, however long or divided, should be continually moving towards proving the thesis in the reader's mind.

Good writers will usually unveil their thesis in the first or second paragraph. It's a good strategy to prepare the audience early, and set them up to properly filter the information that will follow.

Often, an author will alert the reader to the fact that he/she is introducing a thesis with a signaling statement. When an author begins a phrase with something like "This article will demonstrate...", or "My analysis will show that...", he/she is preparing readers for the thesis. As a reader, when you see these signals, it's time to pay attention. The author is about to reveal something important about the argument. That said, this is not the only way to introduce a thesis. Authors often are much more subtle. It is important to closely read the first couple of paragraphs to get a good idea what the essay will be about.

Here's an example of a research article that utilizes a signaling statement about its thesis. See if you can pick up on the cues that Stephen Fishman and Lucille Parkinson McCarthy provided in the first paragraph of their article, "Is Expressivism Dead?"

In the 1980s expressivism as a philosophy of composition came increasingly under attack, and social constructionism--the view that good writers must master the accepted practices of a discourse community--was widely adopted as an alternative. The purpose of this article is to defend expressivism against this attack, particularly against two charges. First, responding to the charge that expressivism, following the romantics, is tied to the ideal of the isolated writer, Steve Fishman argues on historical grounds that it was the social reform dimension of German romanticism that inspired expressivism. Second, Lucille McCarthy responds to the charge that expressivism disempowers students because it does not help them learn disciplinary and professional languages...
"Is Expressivism Dead?," Excerpted from College English, Vol. 54, no. 6, October 1992

Fishman and McCarthy get straight to business and introduce the problem, (post-structuralist attacks on their pet theory, expressivism) and then introduce the main point of their article. They introduce their thesis with the signaling statement: "The purpose of this article," preparing the audience for the main points to follow.

Other authors leave clues about their thesis after it has been introduced. Here's an example from Emily Bazelon's article published in Slate magazine, "Forget Homework":

Over the last decade, Japanese schools have been scrapping homework, while American elementary schools have been assigning more of it. What gives--aren't they supposed to be the model achievers while we're the slackers? No doubt our eagerness to shed the slacker mantle has helped feed the American homework maw. But it may be the Japanese, once again, who know what they're doing.
Such is my conclusion after reading three new books on the subject: The Case against Homework by Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish; The Homework Myth by Alfie Kohn; and the third edition of The Battle Over Homework by Duke psychology professor Harris Cooper...
Excerpt from "Forget Homework," Slate 9/14/2006

In this instance, the subject is a debate over homework. Japanese schools are cutting back while American schools are loading up. Which does Bazelon consider the best approach? She concludes paragraph one with the idea that she is at least leaning toward the Japanese method. But the reader can be certain that this is her position when she leads off the second paragraph with "Such is my conclusion...", a clear indication that the audience has just read a thesis.

* Who is the intended audience? What values and/or beliefs do they hold that the writer could appeal to?

Audience is vital to the rhetorical success of any text, speech, or effort to persuade. A writer must consider what type of audience he/she is writing for, and evaluate the values and beliefs that the audience is likely to have. The writer should take into account any assumptions held by his/her audience.

* What is the tone of the text? What is your reaction to the text, emotional or rational (think of pathos)? Does this reaction change at all throughout the text?

Paying attention to your individual reaction at different points throughout the text will help you critically assess the writer's goals in the piece. If you feel anger at what the writer is stating, make a note of why you feel it. Pay attention to the vocabulary the writer uses. It may be negative or positive.

* What is the writer's purpose? To explain? Inform? Anger? Persuade? Amuse? Motivate? Sadden? Ridicule? Attack? Defend? Is there more than one purpose? Does the purpose shift at all throughout the text?

If the writer's purpose is to simply explain something, chances are the text will contain scientific language or statistics. An example would be a flight manual or owner's manual for an automobile. Political ads are good examples of how writers will attempt to anger or persuade their audience about something. Using the voting histories of other candidates, audiences are encouraged to be angry or upset, and the result is a vote for the candidate the ad is supporting.

* What methods does the writer use to develop his/her ideas? Narration? Description? Definition? Comparison? Analogy? Cause and Effect? Example? Why does the writer use these methods? Do these methods help in his/her development of ideas?

* 'What pattern does the author use for the arrangement of ideas?' Particular to general, broad to specific, spatial, chronological, alternating, or block? Does the format enhance or detract from the content? Does it help the piece along or distract from it?

* Does the writer use adequate transitions to make the text unified and coherent? Do you think the transitions work well? In what ways do they work well?

* Are there any patterns in the sentence structure that make the writer's purpose clear to you? What are these patterns like if there are some? Does the writer use any fragments or run-ons?

* Is there any dialog and/or quotations used in the text? To what effect? For what purpose is this dialog or quotations used?

* In what way does the writer use diction? Is the language emotionally evocative? Does the language change throughout the piece? How does the language contribute to the writer's aim?

* Is there anything unusual in the writer's use of punctuation? What punctuation or other techniques of emphasis (italics, capitals, underlining, ellipses, parentheses) does the writer use? Is punctuation over- or under-used? Which marks does the writer use where, and to what effect?

* Are there any repetitions of important terms throughout the text? Are these repetitions effective, or do they detract from the text?

* Does the writer present any particularly vivid images that stand out? What is the effect of these images on the writer's purpose?

* Are there any tropes--similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, comparisons, contrasts, etc. that are employed by the writer? When does he/she use them? For what reason(s)? Are those devices used to convey or enhance meaning?

* Are there any other devices such as humor, wordplay, irony, sarcasm, understatement, or parody that are used in the text?' Is the effect comic relief? Pleasure? Hysteria? Ridicule?

* Is there any information about the background of the writer? Is the writer an acceptable authority on the subject? How do you know?

[edit] Persuasive Appeals

One of the first steps in rhetorical analysis is to determine what persuasive appeals the author is employing. There are three persuasive appeals (or rhetorical strategies): logos, pathos, and ethos. A good argument will combine all three; however, not all pieces of writing (scholarly included) utilize all three appeals.

Logos: Logos relies on logic or reason and depends on deductive and/or inductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning begins with a generalization and then applies it to a specific case. The generalization you start with must be based on a sufficient amount of reliable evidence. Inductive reasoning takes a specific representative case, or facts, and then draws generalizations or conclusions from them. Inductive reasoning must be based on a sufficient amount of reliable evidence. In other words, the facts you draw on must fairly represent the larger situation or population.

Pathos: Pathos appeals to an audience's needs and/or values. It is a highly emotional appeal. Though argument emphasizes reason, there is usually a place for emotion as well. Emotional appeals can use sources such as interviews and individual stories to paint a moving picture of reality, or to illuminate the truth. For example, telling the story of a specific child who has been abused may make for a more persuasive argument than simply stating the number of children abused each year. The story provides the numbers with a human face. However, a writer must be careful not to employ emotional appeals which distract from the crux of the debate, argument, or point trying to be made.

Ethos: Ethos gives the author credibility. It is important to build credibility with your audience because without it, readers are less inclined to trust you or accept the argument presented to them. Using credible sources is one method of building credibility. A certain amount of ethos may be implied solely from the author's reputation, but a writer should not rely only on reputation to prop up his/her work. A sure way to damage your ethos is by attacking or insulting an opponent or opposing viewpoint. The most effective ethos should develop from what is said, whether it is in spoken or written form. The most persuasive rhetoricians are the ones that understand this concept.

Examples of how Rhetorical Appeals are Used

The following example shows how the aforementioned rhetorical appeals function in Martin Luther King Jr.'s, "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." [1]

* Literary technique
* Literary element
* Writing style
* Writer's block
***************
Writing style is the manner in which a writer chooses among different strategies to address an issue and an audience. A style reveals the writer's personality or voice, but it also shows how she or he sees the audience of the writing. The writing style reveals the choices the writer makes in syntactical structures, diction, and figures of thought. Similar questions of style exist in the choices of expressive possibilities in speech.

[edit] Constraints on style
[edit] Occupation

The position of a writer and his or her concept of the audience impose style constraints on the writing style. Scholarly writing, for example, usually avoids figures of speech and prefers precise descriptions to colloquial terms that might be found more often in more familiar forms of writing, such as text messages or personal blogs. News reporting requires precise words, even if colloquial, and shorter sentences, to be easy to read by a general audience. Fiction writing, in contrast, is designed to entertain and arouse the reader and is improved by the judicious use of figures of speech. A judge's verdict needs to explain how the verdict corresponds to other rulings, but often uses literary devices to persuade the reader of its correctness.

A writer can combine personal style with the expectations of the audience, but many choices may be too personal. A scientific paper with excessive personal style may make the reader question its seriousness; a news article with excessive personal style may make the reader doubt the author's neutrality. Fiction written in the customary style of a scientific paper would not keep the reader interested. Notes in class, text messages and personal blogs are better occasions for personal and more familiar choices in style.
[edit] Situation and purpose

The writer needs to tailor style to the situation. For example, the same person writing a letter to the same reader would use a different style depending on whether it is a letter of complaint, a letter of condolence, or a business letter. The author needs to decide whether the goal of the writing is to inform, persuade, or entertain.
[edit] Stylistic choices
[edit] Sentence forms

A writer controls not only the density of prose but its distribution. Within the rules of grammar, the writer can arrange words in many ways. A sentence may state the main proposition first and then modify it; or it may contain language to prepare the reader before stating the main proposition.

Varying the style may avoid monotony. However, in technical writing, using different styles to make two similar utterances makes the reader ask whether the use of different styles was intended to carry additional meaning.

Stylistic choices may be influenced by the culture. In the modern age, for instance, the loose sentence has been favored in all modes of discourse. In classical times, the periodic sentence held equal or greater favor, and during the Age of Enlightenment, the balanced sentence was a favorite of writers.
[edit] The loose sentence

The most common sentence in modern usage, the loose sentence begins with the main point (an independent clause), followed by one or more subordinate clauses. For example:

Uncle Tom's Cabin is a very influential novel, having its self-righteous, virtuous sentimentality, much in common with Little Women'.

The cat sat on the mat, purring softly, having licked his paws.

According to Francis Christensen:

The loose sentence ... characterized the anti-Ciceronian movement in the seventeenth century. This movement, according to Morris W. Croll [“The Baroque Style in Prose,” (1929)] began with Montaigne and Bacon and continued with such men as Donne, Browne, Taylor, Pascal. To Montaigne, its art was the art of being natural; to Pascal, its eloquence was the eloquence that mocks formal eloquence; to Bacon, it presented knowledge so that it could be examined, not so that it must be accepted. (in Winterowd, 'Contemporary Rhetoric: A Conceptual Background with Readings,' p.348)

[edit] The periodic sentence

In contrast, a periodic sentence places the main point in the middle or at the end of the sentence. In the former case, the main point is modified by subordinate clauses before and after its position in the sentence. In the latter case, the main point is modified by preceding subordinate clauses.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. (Henry David Thoreau)

The purpose of such form is well-stated by Adams Sherman Hill in The Foundation of Rhetoric (1897):

To secure force in a sentence, it is necessary not only to choose the strongest words and to be as concise as is consistent with clearness, but also to arrange words, phrases, and clauses in the order which gives a commanding position to what is most important, and thus fixes the attention on the central idea.

[edit] The balanced sentence

A balanced sentence is characterized by parallel structure: two or more parts of the sentence have the same form, emphasizing similarities or differences.
[edit] Diction

Depending on the mode in which the writer is writing, diction can also pertain to the writer's style. Argumentative and expository prose on a particular subject matter frequently makes use of a set of jargon in which the subject matter is commonly discussed. By contrast, narrative and descriptive prose is open to the vast variety of words. Insofar as a style of diction can be discerned, however, it is best to examine the diction against a number of spectrums:

* Abstract-concrete: how much of the diction is physical?
* General-specific: to what degree is the diction precise, to what degree is it vague?
* Denotation-connotation
* Literal-metaphorical

Other attributes of diction include:

* Density
* Length

[edit] Connotation

The connotation of a word refers to the special meaning , apart from its dictionary definition, that it may convey. Connotation especially depends on the audience. The word "dog" denotes any animal from the genus canis, but it may connote friendship to one reader and terror to another. This partly depends on the reader's personal dealings with dogs, but the author can provide context to guide the reader's interpretation.

Deliberate use of connotation may involve selection of a word to convey more than its dictionary meaning, or substitution of another word that has a different shade of meaning. The many words for dogs have a spectrum of implications regarding the dog's training, obedience, or expected role, and may even make a statement about the social status of its owner ("lap dog" versus "cur"). Even synonyms have different connotations: slender, thin, skinny may each convey different images to the reader's mind. The writer should choose the connotation, positive, negative, or neutral, that supports the mood.

Writing for the learned, connotation may involve etymology or make reference to classic works. In schoolbooks, awareness of connotation can avoid attracting extraneous ideas (as when writing "Napoleon was a bigger influence than Frederick the Great on world history" provokes thoughts of Napoleon's physical stature). In encyclopedias, words should connote authority and dispassion; the writer should avoid words whose connotations suggest bias, such as pejorative words.
[edit] Punctuation

Punctuation is now so standardized that it rarely is a factor in a writer's style. The same is true for gratuitous changes to spelling and grammar, unless the goal is to represent a regional or ethnic dialect in which such changes are customary.
[edit] Clichés

Some figures of speech are phrases that briefly describe a complicated concept through connotation. However, some of these phrases are used so frequently that they have lost their novelty, sincerity, and perhaps even their meaning. They are disparagingly referred to as clichés or bromides. Whether a given expression has fallen into this category is a matter of opinion. A reader who knows, or is a member of, the target audience may have a strong opinion that one or the other alternative seems better-written.
*********************

Techniques to Establish Pacing

By Gerry Visco

Pacing, as it applies to fiction, could be described as the manipulation of time. Though pacing is often overlooked and misunderstood by beginning writers, it is one of the key craft elements a writer must master to produce good fiction. Best-selling author Elmore Leonard recommends simply 'cutting out everything, but the good parts.' While this is interesting advice, the following article covers the matter of pacing in a bit more detail.

The elements of time delineated in your story or screenplay include the time of day or period; scene versus summary; flashback; and foreshadowing. Elements of time raise the following questions:

1) When is the story being told as compared to when the events of the story took place?
2) Is there a distance in terms of time?
3) Does the story begin with the birth of the protagonist and end with the death? or Is the time more limited?
4) What narrative strategies should you use to convey the sense of time passing or the distance of the narration?

Scene is necessary to all fiction. You can't have a story without it. In order to have a crisis moment, for example, it has to be in a moment in time and, therefore, it cannot be summarized. A summary covers a longer period of time in a shorter passage. A scene covers a short period of time in a longer passage. What could take only a few seconds in real time might be covered in paragraphs, even pages, depending upon the writer and the event.

On the whole, one mistake you need to avoid is summarizing events. Instead, realize them in the moment. Sometimes, when you are writing a first draft, you might be tempted to put the moment into summary, but the scene is how you dramatize the action. The question is to try to balance the scenes and use the exposition gracefully. Most short stories have at least three scenes. A 'short' might only have one scene. A chapter could have three or four scenes, although it could just as easily have one.

The scene should probably have movement. Just as in a story you have conflict, crisis and resolution, a scene might have the same sort of shape. You should use scenes in one specific moment in time to show important behavior in your characters. Stretches of time or activities in the story that are secondary to the story's development should be expressed through a 'narrative bridge.' You use summary in the narrative. Now, that doesn't have to mean boring. For example, 'The Things They Carried,' an excellent short story by the writer Tim O'Brien, goes back and forth between summary and scene.

Here's an example of summary that is hardly dull:

'After the chopper took Lavender away, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross led his men into the village of Than Khe. They burned everything. They shot chickens and dogs, they trashed the village well, they called in artillery and watched the wreckage, then they marched for several hours through the hot afternoon and then, at dusk, while Kiowa explained how Lavender died, Lieutenant Cross found himself trembling.'

Dialogue that is secondary can similarly be summarized by indirect discourse. So, if you find dialogue that expresses information that is fairly routine or not too interesting, you should summarize it. For example: 'Hi, John. How's it going? You feeling better?' 'I'm OK, thanks a lot,' said Mary.' Instead, just say, 'They exchanged greetings, and Mary confessed she felt OK.'

Arrange your pages on a large table and look at them like an artist would.: How many scenes do you have? Are there too few or too many? Do there seem to be any missing scenes? What about if you rearranged the sequence of events? Could you use the beginning of the ending scene to frame the story? Take the sheets of paper, and 'cut and paste' the sections that need moving

If there is a scene that you are having trouble with, especially one that provides a turning point in the story, focus in on that scene. Could it use action, not necessarily physical action, but movement, change? Try to expand the scene into three to five pages to give you a greater opportunity to explore the interpersonal dynamics. Think about dramatizing how the balance of power in the scene changes.

Setting incorporates place, but you also have to consider the time of the year, the time of day and how you reveal this information without being too obvious. This information is not always essential - - it depends upon the story in question. Basically, it is similar to an 'establishing shot' in a film. Just remember to be consistent and to make the timing logical. It might be boring to mention 'in the evening,' but you could use other words to show the time of day. However, don't skip the time element altogether since it adds veracity to the lives you are portraying. If a family is having breakfast, then we know the time of day. If a character is wearing mittens, this establishes the time of year.

Both flashback and foreshadowing are techniques that play with narrative time. It's possible they may be used to enrich the narrative, and you might add them during revision since they provide emphasis and balance.

A flashback is a narrative passage that takes us to the past of when the story is set. The flashback reveals something about the character that we didn't know before that explains things by showing not telling. You should use it when the character is going into a situation that varies from the behavior we have come to expect from him or her. However, you need to be sure that the flashback you have selected tells us something relevant to the story. There's nothing worse than slowing down the action with a flashback that doesn't contribute to the story.

Instead of flashback, you might use dialogue, narration or some detail to give the required information. Also, remember the power of inference. There may be more going on in the background of a character than you reveal in the actual prose. Be economical with your words. Imply what you can about the character or situation without being obvious. Flashback reveals information at the right time, but it may not be part of the central action. Flashback is an effective technique to show the reader more about character and theme.

You might use a flashback if, in the present of the story, the character is unsympathetic and you want to provide another viewpoint. For example, think of Scrooge in 'A Christmas Carol,' where we get the examples demonstrated by the appearance of the Ghost of Christmas Past. We see Scrooge as a boy in flashback and feel sorry for him. The same thing happens with the character Anders in the wonderfully constructed story, 'Bullet in the Brain,' by Tobias Wolff. Anders is portrayed as especially unsympathetic. The story is told entirely in the present tense, except for a long flashback in expository prose that enumerates all the events in Anders' life that flashed through his brain as a bullet went through his head during a bank robbery. The passage begins by noting what Anders did NOT remember during this scene.

'He did not remember his first lover, Sherry, or what he had most madly loved about her, before it came to irritate him -- her unembarrassed carnality, and especially the cordial way she had with his unit, which she called Mr. Mole, as in 'Uh-oh, looks like Mr. Mole wants to play,' and 'Let's hide Mr. Mole!' Anders did not remember his wife, whom he had also loved, before she exhausted him with her predictability, or his daughter, now a sullen professor of economics at Dartmouth.' And it goes on for paragraphs. This information is expository, rather than in a scene, but it flashes back to Anders' past.

Some writers rely on flashback as a way of avoiding the central conflict of the story. Sometimes, it's easier for the writer to avoid the conflict altogether, since conflict produces anxiety -- fiction is trouble, after all, and we want to produce some tension and anxiety. You, too, may be able to re-order time and use flashback in your story, though you often have to wait until after you have a first draft. Sometimes an entire tale can be told in flashback with a frame (for example, think of the movie 'Sunset Boulevard,' and its dead narrator), or 'Heart of Darkness,' also a frame story (actually a novella). Sometimes the mechanics of the flashback technique can cause you to use cumbersome verb constructions. Keep this simple. If you are writing the story in the past tense, you can begin the flashback in past perfect. You can use 'had' plus the verb a couple of times. Then you can switch to the simple past. I gleaned this nugget from Janet Burroway in her helpful book on writing fiction. As she says, 'the reader will be with you.'

What is foreshadowing? It is not conflict, but the promise of conflict. One example would be the opening of Truman Capote's 'Children on Their Birthdays': 'Yesterday afternoon the six o'clock bus ran over Miss Bobbit.' Or the opening of Richard Yates' novel, 'The Easter Parade': 'Neither of the Grimes sisters would have a happy life, and looking back, it always seemed that the trouble began with their parents' divorce.' Both of these openings promise that things go from bad to worse. Or how about, 'The boy woke up, got dressed and slung a rifle over his shoulder as he ran out to the school bus.' We know that something's going to happen with the rifle, which raises a story question. If the story questions are strong, then your reader will stay interested in the narrative.

Foreshadowing can be used to get the reader through a dull section of a narrative. For example, you could create suspense by something that WILL happen: 'Susan had no idea when she paid her $5 for the afternoon matinee that she had just made one of the biggest mistakes of her life. She would've been better off staying home that day.' We don't know what calamity is about to befall Susan, but we get the feeling she made a huge miscalculation, and we look forward to knowing what it was, the worse the better really, in terms of entertainment value.

Of course, you need to use this technique judiciously. You can employ the minor characters to foreshadow the actions of the major characters, for example. If you make a promise by foreshadowing, then make sure to fulfill the promise; otherwise, the reader will feel gypped.

With foreshadowing, it might be better to err on the obvious side because if your attempts are too subtle, there will be no shadows to see.

Checklist: Elements of Literary Style



1. Sentence Structure




Are the sentences long or short? Why do they change?

Do they contain many subordinate clauses, or are they often fragments?

Are there any digressions or interruptions?

Is the word-order straightforward or unconventionally crafted?

2. Pace




Is the writing heavily descriptive, with emphasis on setting and atmosphere, or does it focus on action and plot movement?

3. Expansive/Economical Diction


Is the writing tight and efficient, or elaborate and long-winded?

When does the author use one or the other mode, and why?

4. Vocabulary




Are the words simple or fancy? Are they technical, flowery, colloquial, cerebral, punning, obscure (and so on...)?

5. Figures of speech




Are there any metaphors, similes, or symbols?

Are there any other uses of figurative language (personification, metonymy, and so on)?

6. Use of Dialogue




How often does dialogue tell the story?

Do we see whole conversations or just fragments?

Does the conversation use slang or is it formal? Does it appear natural or contrived?

Does the dialogue give a sense of pacing, of pauses, of the unsaid?

How much does it substitute for narration?

7. Point of View




Possibilities: first, second, third, omniscient, limited omniscient, multiple, inanimate, free indirect discourse.

8. Character development






How does the author introduce characters, and how do we see their evolution in the story? What is their function and motivation?

What kinds of characters are they? Full/round? Stock characters? Stereotypes? Caricatures?

9. Tone




What is the author’s attitude? What is the mood of the story?

Does the author seem sarcastic? Aggressive? Wistful? Pessimistic? In love? Philosophically detached? Hopeful? Ironic? Bitter? (And so on...)

Whatever the tone, where is it visible in the narrative?

10. Word Color, Word Sound




How much does the language call attention to or depend on the quality of its sound, e.g. through alliteration, assonance, consonance, dissonance, rhythm, unusual word choice, and so on?

11. Paragraph / Chapter Structure




Are paragraphs very short, or are they enormous blocks running across many pages?

Are the chapters short or long? How many are there, how are they organized, and why is this important?

12. Time Sequencing / Chronology


How has the author organized the chronology of events? To what effect? What is the work’s structural “rhythm”?

13. Allusions


How and how often does the author refer to other texts, myths, symbols, famous figures, historical events, quotations, and so on?

14. Experimentation in Language


Are there any unusual techniques, such as stream-of-consciousness, mixing styles and genres, unusual layout on the page, breaking rules of grammar and form, odd or unstable narrative perspectives, onomatopoeia, aporia, and so on?

15. Metafictional techniques


Does the author call attention to his or her own process of narration?

Are the narrator’s position, role, and thoughts as a storyteller mentioned explicitly in the text? What function does this serve?

1. A Sentential Adverb is a single word or short phrase, usually interrupting normal syntax, used to lend emphasis to the words immediately proximate to the adverb. (We emphasize the words on each side of a pause or interruption in order to maintain continuity of the thought.) Compare:

* But the lake was not drained before April.
* But the lake was not, in fact, drained before April.

Sentential adverbs are most frequently placed near the beginning of a sentence, where important material has been placed:

* All truth is not, indeed, of equal importance; but if little violations are allowed, every violation will in time be thought little. --Samuel Johnson

But sometimes they are placed at the very beginning of a sentence, thereby serving as signals that the whole sentence is especially important. In such cases the sentence should be kept as short as possible:

* In short, the cobbler had neglected his soul.
* Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. --John 4:14 (NIV)

Or the author may show that he does not intend to underemphasize an objection or argument he rejects:

* To be sure, no one desires to live in a foul and disgusting environment. But neither do we want to desert our cities.

In a few instances, especially with short sentences, the sentential adverb can be placed last:

* It was a hot day indeed.
* Harold won, of course.

A common practice is setting off the sentential adverb by commas, which increases the emphasis on the surrounding words, though in many cases the commas are necessary for clarity as well and cannot be omitted. Note how the adverb itself is also emphasized:

* He without doubt can be trusted with a cookie.
* He, without doubt, can be trusted with a cookie.

A sentential adverb can emphasize a phrase:

* The Bradys, clearly a happy family, live in an old house with squeaky floors.

Transitional phrases, accostives, some adverbs, and other interrupters can be used for emphasizing portions of sentences, and therefore function as kinds of quasi-sentential adverbs in those circumstances.

* We find a few people, however, unwilling to come.
* "Your last remark," he said, "is impertinent."
* There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. --Samuel Johnson

Some useful sentential adverbs include the following: in fact, of course, indeed, I think, without doubt, to be sure, naturally, it seems, after all, for all that, in brief, on the whole, in short, to tell the truth, in any event, clearly, I suppose, I hope, at least, assuredly, certainly, remarkably, importantly, definitely. In formal writing, avoid these and similar colloquial emphases: you know, you see, huh, get this. And it goes without saying that you should avoid the unprintable expletives.

2. Asyndeton consists of omitting conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses. In a list of items, asyndeton gives the effect of unpremeditated multiplicity, of an extemporaneous rather than a labored account:

* On his return he received medals, honors, treasures, titles, fame.

The lack of the "and" conjunction gives the impression that the list is perhaps not complete. Compare:

* She likes pickles, olives, raisins, dates, pretzels.
* She likes pickles, olives, raisins, dates, and pretzels.

Sometimes an asyndetic list is useful for the strong and direct climactic effect it has, much more emphatic than if a final conjunction were used. Compare:

* They spent the day wondering, searching, thinking, understanding.
* They spent the day wondering, searching, thinking, and understanding.

In certain cases, the omission of a conjunction between short phrases gives the impression of synonymity to the phrases, or makes the latter phrase appear to be an afterthought or even a substitute for the former. Compare:

* He was a winner, a hero.
* He was a winner and a hero.

Notice also the degree of spontaneity granted in some cases by asyndetic usage. "The moist, rich, fertile soil," appears more natural and spontaneous than "the moist, rich, and fertile soil - "

Generally, asyndeton offers the feeling of speed and concision to lists and phrases and clauses, but occasionally the effect cannot be so easily categorized. Consider the "flavor" of these examples:

* If, as is the case, we feel responsibility, are ashamed, are frightened, at transgressing the voice of conscience, this implies that there is One to whom we are responsible, before whom we are ashamed, whose claims upon us we fear. --John Henry Newman
* In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee things to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth the laws of peace. --Richard de Bury
* We certainly have within us the image of some person, to whom our love and veneration look, in whose smile we find our happiness, for whom we yearn, towards whom we direct our pleadings, in whose anger we are troubled and waste away. --John Henry Newman

3. Polysyndeton is the use of a conjunction between each word, phrase, or clause, and is thus structurally the opposite of asyndeton. The rhetorical effect of polysyndeton, however, often shares with that of asyndeton a feeling of multiplicity, energetic enumeration, and building up.

* They read and studied and wrote and drilled. I laughed and played and talked and flunked.

Use polysyndeton to show an attempt to encompass something complex:

* The water, like a witch's oils, / Burnt green, and blue, and white. --S. T. Coleridge
* [He] pursues his way, / And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies. --John Milton

The multiple conjunctions of the polysyndetic structure call attention to themselves and therefore add the effect of persistence or intensity or emphasis to the other effect of multiplicity. The repeated use of "nor" or "or" emphasizes alternatives; repeated use of "but" or "yet" stresses qualifications. Consider the effectiveness of these:

* And to set forth the right standard, and to train according to it, and to help forward all students towards it according to their various capacities, this I conceive to be the business of a University. --John Henry Newman
* We have not power, nor influence, nor money, nor authority; but a willingness to persevere, and the hope that we shall conquer soon.

In a skilled hand, a shift from polysyndeton to asyndeton can be very impressive:

* Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him. --Isaiah 24:1-2 (KJV)

4. Understatement deliberately expresses an idea as less important than it actually is, either for ironic emphasis or for politeness and tact. When the writer's audience can be expected to know the true nature of a fact which might be rather difficult to describe adequately in a brief space, the writer may choose to understate the fact as a means of employing the reader's own powers of description. For example, instead of endeavoring to describe in a few words the horrors and destruction of the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, a writer might state:

* The 1906 San Francisco earthquake interrupted business somewhat in the downtown area.

The effect is not the same as a description of destruction, since understatement like this necessarily smacks of flippancy to some degree; but occasionally that is a desirable effect. Consider these usages:

* Henry and Catherine were married, the bells rang, and everybody smiled . . . . To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen is to do pretty well . . . . --Jane Austen
* Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it altered her person for the worse. --Jonathan Swift
* You know I would be a little disappointed if you were to be hit by a drunk driver at two a.m., so I hope you will be home early.

In these cases the reader supplies his own knowledge of the facts and fills out a more vivid and personal description than the writer might have.

In a more important way, understatement should be used as a tool for modesty and tactfulness. Whenever you represent your own accomplishments, and often when you just describe your own position, an understatement of the facts will help you to avoid the charge of egotism on the one hand and of self-interested puffery on the other. We are always more pleased to discover a thing greater than promised rather than less than promised--or as Samuel Johnson put it, "It is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke." And it goes without saying that a person modest of his own talents wins our admiration more easily than an egotist. Thus an expert geologist might say, "Yes, I know a little about rocks," rather than, "Yes, I'm an expert about rocks." (An even bigger expert might raise his eyebrows if he heard that.)

Understatement is especially useful in dealing with a hostile audience or in disagreeing with someone, because the statement, while carrying the same point, is much less offensive. Compare:

* The second law of thermodynamics pretty much works against the possibility of such an event.
* The second law of thermodynamics proves conclusively that that theory is utterly false and ridiculous.

Remember, the goal of writing is to persuade, not to offend; once you insult or put off your opponent, objector, or disbeliever, you will never persuade him of anything, no matter how "obviously wrong" he is or how clearly right you are. The degree and power of pride in the human heart must never be underestimated. Many people are unwilling to hear objections of any kind, and view disagreement as a sign of contempt for their intellect. The use of understatement allows you to show a kind of respect for your reader's understanding. You have to object to his belief, but you are sympathetic with his position and see how he might have come to believe it; therefore, you humbly offer to steer him right, or at least to offer what you think is a more accurate view. Even those who agree with you already will be more persuaded because the modest thinker is always preferable to the flaming bigot. Compare these statements and consider what effect each would have on you if you read them in a persuasive article:

* Anyone who says this water is safe to drink is either stupid or foolish. The stuff is poisoned with coliform bacteria. Don't those idiots know that?
* My opponents think this water is drinkable, but I'm not sure I would drink it. Perhaps they are not aware of the dangerous bacterial count . . . [and so on, explaining the basis for your opinion].

5. Litotes, a particular form of understatement, is generated by denying the opposite or contrary of the word which otherwise would be used. Depending on the tone and context of the usage, litotes either retains the effect of understatement, or becomes an intensifying expression. Compare the difference between these statements:

* Heat waves are common in the summer.
* Heat waves are not rare in the summer.

Johnson uses litotes to make a modest assertion, saying "not improperly" rather than "correctly" or "best":

* This kind of writing may be termed not improperly the comedy of romance. . . .

Occasionally a litotic construction conveys an ironic sentiment by its understatement:

* We saw him throw the buckets of paint at his canvas in disgust, and the result did not perfectly represent his subject, Mrs. Jittery.

Usually, though, litotes intensifies the sentiment intended by the writer, and creates the effect of strong feelings moderately conveyed.

* Hitting that telephone pole certainly didn't do your car any good.
* If you can tell the fair one's mind, it will be no small proof of your art, for I dare say it is more than she herself can do. --Alexander Pope
* A figure lean or corpulent, tall or short, though deviating from beauty, may still have a certain union of the various parts, which may contribute to make them on the whole not unpleasing. --Sir Joshua Reynolds
* He who examines his own self will not long remain ignorant of his failings.
* Overall the flavors of the mushrooms, herbs, and spices combine to make the dish not at all disagreeable to the palate.

But note that, as George Orwell points out in "Politics and the English Language," the "not un-" construction (for example, "not unwilling") should not be used indiscriminately. Rather, find an opposite quality which as a word is something other than the quality itself with an "un" attached. For instance, instead of, "We were not unvictorious," you could write, "We were not defeated," or "We did not fail to win," or something similar.
***************
6. Parallelism is recurrent syntactical similarity. Several parts of a sentence or several sentences are expressed similarly to show that the ideas in the parts or sentences are equal in importance. Parallelism also adds balance and rhythm and, most importantly, clarity to the sentence.

Any sentence elements can be paralleled, any number of times (though, of course, excess quickly becomes ridiculous). You might choose parallel subjects with parallel modifiers attached to them:

* Ferocious dragons breathing fire and wicked sorcerers casting their spells do their harm by night in the forest of Darkness.

Or parallel verbs and adverbs:

* I have always sought but seldom obtained a parking space near the door.
* Quickly and happily he walked around the corner to buy the book.

Or parallel verbs and direct objects:

* He liked to eat watermelon and to avoid grapefruit.

Or just the objects:

* This wealthy car collector owns three pastel Cadillacs, two gold Rolls Royces, and ten assorted Mercedes.

Or parallel prepositional phrases:

* He found it difficult to vote for an ideal truth but against his own self interest.
* The pilot walked down the aisle, through the door, and into the cockpit, singing "Up, Up, and Away."

Notice how paralleling rather long subordinate clauses helps you to hold the whole sentence clearly in your head:

* These critics--who point out the beauties of style and ideas, who discover the faults of false constructions, and who discuss the application of the rules--usually help a lot in engendering an understanding of the writer's essay.
* When, at the conclusion of a prolonged episode of agonizing thought, you decide to buy this car; when, after a hundred frantic sessions of begging stonefaced bankers for the money, you can obtain sufficient funds; and when, after two more years of impatience and frustration, you finally get a driver's license, then come see me and we will talk about a deal.
* After you corner the market in Brazilian coffee futures, but before you manipulate the price through the ceiling, sit down and have a cup of coffee with me (while I can still afford it).

It is also possible to parallel participial, infinitive, and gerund phrases:

* He left the engine on, idling erratically and heating rapidly.
* To think accurately and to write precisely are interrelated goals.
* She liked sneaking up to Ted and putting the ice cream down his back, because he was so cool about it.

In practice some combination of parts of speech or sentence elements is used to form a statement, depending as always on what you have to say. In addition, the parallelism, while it normally should be pretty close, does not have to be exact in its syntactical similarity. For example, you might write,

* He ran up to the bookshelves, grabbed a chair standing nearby, stepped painfully on his tiptoes, and pulled the fifty-pound volume on top of him, crushing his ribs and impressing him with the power of knowledge.

Here are some other examples of parallelism:

* I shall never envy the honors which wit and learning obtain in any other cause, if I can be numbered among the writers who have given ardor to virtue, and confidence to truth. --Samuel Johnson
* They had great skill in optics, and had instructed him to see faults in others, and beauties in himself, that could be discovered by nobody else. . . . --Alexander Pope
* For the end of a theoretical science is truth, but the end of a practical science is performance. --Aristotle

7. Chiasmus might be called "reverse parallelism," since the second part of a grammatical construction is balanced or paralleled by the first part, only in reverse order. Instead of an A,B structure (e.g., "learned unwillingly") paralleled by another A,B structure ("forgotten gladly"), the A,B will be followed by B,A ("gladly forgotten"). So instead of writing, "What is learned unwillingly is forgotten gladly," you could write, "What is learned unwillingly is gladly forgotten." Similarly, the parallel sentence, "What is now great was at first little," could be written chiastically as, "What is now great was little at first." Here are some examples:

* He labors without complaining and without bragging rests.
* Polished in courts and hardened in the field, Renowned for conquest, and in council skilled. --Joseph Addison
* For the Lord is a Great God . . . in whose hand are the depths of the earth; the peaks of the mountains are his also. --Psalm 95:4

Chiasmus is easiest to write and yet can be made very beautiful and effective simply by moving subordinate clauses around:

* If you come to them, they are not asleep; if you ask and inquire of them, they do not withdraw themselves; they do not chide if you make mistakes; they do not laugh at you if you are ignorant. --Richard de Bury

Prepositional phrases or other modifiers can also be moved around to form chiastic structures. Sometimes the effect is rather emphatic:

* Tell me not of your many perfections; of your great modesty tell me not either.
* Just as the term "menial" does not apply to any honest labor, so no dishonest work can be called "prestigious."

At other times the effect is more subdued but still desirable. Compare the versions of these sentences, written first in chiastic and then in strictly parallel form. Which do you like better in each case?

* On the way to school, my car ran out of gas; then it had a flat on the way home.
* On the way to school, my car ran out of gas; then on the way home it had a flat.
* Sitting together at lunch, the kids talked incessantly; but they said nothing at all sitting in the dentist's office.
* Sitting together at lunch, the kids talked incessantly; but sitting in the dentist's office, they said nothing at all.
* The computer mainframe is now on sale; available also at a discount is the peripheral equipment.
* The computer mainframe is now on sale; the peripheral equipment is also available at a discount.

Chiasmus may be useful for those sentences in which you want balance, but which cannot be paralleled effectively, either because they are too short, or because the emphasis is placed on the wrong words. And sometimes a chiastic structure will just seem to "work" when a parallel one will not.

8. Zeugma includes several similar rhetorical devices, all involving a grammatically correct linkage (or yoking together) of two or more parts of speech by another part of speech. Thus examples of zeugmatic usage would include one subject with two (or more) verbs, a verb with two (or more) direct objects, two (or more) subjects with one verb, and so forth. The main benefit of the linking is that it shows relationships between ideas and actions more clearly.

In one form (prozeugma), the yoking word precedes the words yoked. So, for example, you could have a verb stated in the first clause understood in the following clauses:

* Pride opresseth humility; hatred love; cruelty compassion. --Peacham
* Fred excelled at sports; Harvey at eating; Tom with girls.
* Alexander conquered the world; I, Minneapolis.

A more important version of this form (with its own name, diazeugma) is the single subject with multiple verbs:

* . . . It operated through the medium of unconscious self-deception and terminated in inveterate avarice. --Thomas Love Peacock
* Mr. Glowry held his memory in high honor, and made a punchbowl of his skull. --Ibid.
* This terrace . . . took in an oblique view of the open sea, and fronted a long track of level sea-coast . . . . --Ibid.
* Fluffy rolled on her back, raised her paws, and meowed to be petted.

Notice that two or three verb phrases are the usual proportion. But if you have a lot to say about the actions of the subject, or if you want to show a sort of multiplicity of behavior or doings, you can use several verbs:

* When at Nightmare Abbey, he would condole with Mr. Glowry, drink Madeira with Scythrop, crack jokes with Mr. Hilary, hand Mrs. Hilary to the piano, take charge of her fan and gloves, and turn over her music with surprising dexterity, quote Revelations with Mr. Toobad, and lament the good old times of feudal darkness with the Transcendental Mr. Flosky. --Thomas Love Peacock

Two or more subordinate relative pronoun clauses can be linked prozeugmatically, with the noun becoming the yoking word:

* His father, to comfort him, read him a Commentary on Ecclesiastes, which he had himself composed, and which demonstrated incontrovertibly that all is vanity. --Thomas Love Peacock
* O books who alone are liberal and free, who give to all who ask of you and enfranchise all who serve you faithfully! --Richard de Bury

You could have two or more direct objects:

* With one mighty swing he knocked the ball through the window and two spectators off their chairs.
* He grabbed his hat from the rack in the closet, his gloves from the table near the door, and his car keys from the punchbowl.

Or a preposition with two objects:

* Mr. Glowry was horror-struck by the sight of a round, ruddy face, and a pair of laughing eyes. --Thomas Love Peacock

Sometimes you might want to create a linkage in which the verb must be understood in a slightly different sense:

* He grabbed his hat from the rack by the stairs and a kiss from the lips of his wife.
* He smashed the clock into bits and his fist through the wall.

In hypozeugma the yoking word follows the words it yokes together. A common form is multiple subjects:

* Hours, days, weeks, months, and years do pass away. --Sherry
* The moat at its base, and the fens beyond comprised the whole of his prospect. --Peacock
* To generate that much electricity and to achieve that kind of durability would require a completely new generator design.

It is possible also to hold off a verb until the last clause:

* The little baby from his crib, the screaming lady off the roof, and the man from the flooded basement were all rescued.

Hypozeugma can be used with adjectives or adjective phrases, too. Here, Peacock uses two participial phrases, one past and one present:

* Disappointed both in love and in friendship, and looking upon human learning as vanity, he had come to a conclusion that there was but one good thing in the world, videlicet, a good dinner . . . .

The utility of the zeugmatic devices lies partly in their economy (for they save repetition of subjects or verbs or other words), and partly in the connections they create between thoughts. The more connections between ideas you can make in an essay, whether those connections are simple transitional devices or more elaborate rhetorical ones, the fewer your reader will have to guess at, and therefore the clearer your points will be.

9. Antithesis establishes a clear, contrasting relationship between two ideas by joining them together or juxtaposing them, often in parallel structure. Human beings are inveterate systematizers and categorizers, so the mind has a natural love for antithesis, which creates a definite and systematic relationship between ideas:

* To err is human; to forgive, divine. --Pope
* That short and easy trip made a lasting and profound change in Harold's outlook.
* That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. --Neil Armstrong

Antithesis can convey some sense of complexity in a person or idea by admitting opposite or nearly opposite truths:

* Though surprising, it is true; though frightening at first, it is really harmless.
* If we try, we might succeed; if we do not try, we cannot succeed.
* Success makes men proud; failure makes them wise.

Antithesis, because of its close juxtaposition and intentional

contrast of two terms or ideas, is also very useful for making relatively fine distinctions or for clarifying differences which might be otherwise overlooked by a careless thinker or casual reader:

* In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it. --Samuel Johnson
* The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice. --Matt. 23:2-3 (RSV)
* I agree that it is legal; but my question was, Is it moral?
* The advertisement indeed says that these shoes are the best, but it means that they are equal; for in advertising "best" is a parity claim and only "better" indicates superiority.

Note also that short phrases can be made antithetical:

* Every man who proposes to grow eminent by learning should carry in his mind, at once, the difficulty of excellence and the force of industry; and remember that fame is not conferred but as the recompense of labor, and that labor, vigorously continued, has not often failed of its reward. --Samuel Johnson

10. Anaphora is the repetition of the same word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences, commonly in conjunction with climax and with parallelism:

* To think on death it is a misery,/ To think on life it is a vanity;/ To think on the world verily it is,/ To think that here man hath no perfect bliss. --Peacham
* In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee things to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth the laws of peace. --Richard de Bury
* Finally, we must consider what pleasantness of teaching there is in books, how easy, how secret! How safely we lay bare the poverty of human ignorance to books without feeling any shame! --Ibid.
* The wish of the genuine painter must be more extensive: instead of endeavoring to amuse mankind with the minute neatness of his imitations, he must endeavor to improve them by the grandeur of his ideas; instead of seeking praise, by deceiving the superficial sense of the spectator, he must strive for fame by captivating the imagination. --Sir Joshua Reynolds
* Slowly and grimly they advanced, not knowing what lay ahead, not knowing what they would find at the top of the hill, not knowing that they were so near to Disneyland.
* They are the entertainment of minds unfurnished with ideas, and therefore easily susceptible of impressions; not fixed by principles, and therefore easily following the current of fancy; not informed by experience, and consequently open to every false suggestion and partial account. --Samuel Johnson

Anaphora can be used with questions, negations, hypotheses, conclusions, and subordinating conjunctions, although care must be taken not to become affected or to sound rhetorical and bombastic. Consider these selections:

* Will he read the book? Will he learn what it has to teach him? Will he live according to what he has learned?
* Not time, not money, not laws, but willing diligence will get this done.
* If we can get the lantern lit, if we can find the main cave, and if we can see the stalagmites, I'll show you the one with the bat skeleton in it. be used for

Adverbs and prepositions can anaphora, too:

* They are masters who instruct us without rod or ferule, without angry words, without clothes or money. --Richard de Bury
* She stroked her kitty cat very softly, very slowly, very smoothly.

11. Epistrophe (also called antistrophe) forms the counterpart to anaphora, because the repetition of the same word or words comes at the end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences:

* Where affections bear rule, there reason is subdued, honesty is subdued, good will is subdued, and all things else that withstand evil, for ever are subdued. --Wilson
* And all the night he did nothing but weep Philoclea, sigh Philoclea, and cry out Philoclea. --Philip Sidney
* You will find washing beakers helpful in passing this course, using the gas chromatograph desirable for passing this course, and studying hours on end essential to passing this course.

Epistrophe is an extremely emphatic device because of the emphasis placed on the last word in a phrase or sentence. If you have a concept you wish to stress heavily, then epistrophe might be a good construction to use. The danger as usual lies in this device's tendency to become too rhetorical. Consider whether these are successful and effective or hollow and bombastic:

* The cars do not sell because the engineering is inferior, the quality of materials is inferior, and the workmanship is inferior.
* The energies of mankind are often exerted in pursuit, consolidation, and enjoyment; which is to say, many men spend their lives pursuing power, consolidating power, and enjoying power.

12. Anadiplosis repeats the last word of one phrase, clause, or sentence at or very near the beginning of the next. it can be generated in series for the sake of beauty or to give a sense of logical progression:

* Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,/ Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain . . . . --Philip Sidney

Most commonly, though, anadiplosis is used for emphasis of the repeated word or idea, since repetition has a reinforcing effect:

* They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. --Jer. 2:13
* The question next arises, How much confidence can we put in the people, when the people have elected Joe Doax?
* This treatment plant has a record of uncommon reliability, a reliability envied by every other water treatment facility on the coast.
* In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. --John 1:1

Notice how the main point of the sentence becomes immediately clear by repeating the same word twice in close succession. There can be no doubt about the focus of your thought when you use anadiplosis.
******************
13. Conduplicatio resembles anadiplosis in the repetition of a preceding word, but it repeats a key word (not just the last word) from a preceding phrase, clause, or sentence, at the beginning of the next.

* If this is the first time duty has moved him to act against his desires, he is a very weak man indeed. Duty should be cultivated and obeyed in spite of its frequent conflict with selfish wishes.
* The strength of the passions will never be accepted as an excuse for complying with them; the passions were designed for subjection, and if a man suffers them to get the upper hand, he then betrays the liberty of his own soul. --Alexander Pope
* She fed the goldfish every day with the new pellets brought from Japan. Gradually the goldfish began to turn a brighter orange than before.

Like anadiplosis, conduplicatio serves as an effective focusing device because with it you can pull out that important idea from the sentence before and put it clearly at the front of the new sentence, showing the reader just what he should be concentrating on. Since keeping the reader focused on your train of thought is critical to good writing, this device can be especially helpful as a transitional connector when the previous sentence has two or more possible main points, only one of which is to be continued in the discussion. Suppose, for example, you have this sentence:

* Submitting a constitutional amendment to a popular vote through a general referendum always runs the risk of a campaign and a vote based upon the selfishness rather than the sense of justice of the voter.

Now, the next sentence could begin with, "Previous campaigns . . ." or "The strength of the appeal to selfish interests . . . "or "Therefore constitutional amendments are best left . . ." all depending on which concept you wish to develop. If you began the next sentence with, "But there certainly can be no doubt that the general referendum will continue to be exploited by those whose issues are aided by the innate selfishness of human beings," the reader would have to go a considerable distance into the sentence before he would find out exactly which idea is being carried forward and developed.

14. Epanalepsis repeats the beginning word of a clause or sentence at the end. The beginning and the end are the two positions of strongest emphasis in a sentence, so by having the same word in both places, you call special attention to it:

* Water alone dug this giant canyon; yes, just plain water.
* To report that your committee is still investigating the matter is to tell me that you have nothing to report.

Many writers use epanalepsis in a kind of "yes, but" construction to cite common ground or admit a truth and then to show how that truth relates to a more important context:

* Our eyes saw it, but we could not believe our eyes.
* The theory sounds all wrong; but if the machine works, we cannot worry about theory.
* In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world. --John 16:33 (NASB)

15. Hypophora consists of raising one or more questions and then proceeding to answer them, usually at some length. A common usage is to ask the question at the beginning of a paragraph and then use that paragraph to answer it:

* There is a striking and basic difference between a man's ability to imagine something and an animal's failure. . . . Where is it that the animal falls short? We get a clue to the answer, I think, when Hunter tells us . . . . --Jacob Bronowski
* What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter?. . . What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God. --Rom. 4:1,3 (NIV)

This is an attractive rhetorical device, because asking an appropriate question appears quite natural and helps to maintain curiosity and interest. You can use hypophora to raise questions which you think the reader obviously has on his mind and would like to see formulated and answered:

* What behavior, then, is uniquely human? My theory is this . . . . --H. J. Campbell
* But what was the result of this move on the steel industry? The annual reports for that year clearly indicate. . . .

Hypophora can also be used to raise questions or to introduce material of importance, but which the reader might not have the knowledge or thought to ask for himself:

* How then, in the middle of the twentieth century, are we to define the obligation of the historian to his facts?..... The duty of the historian to respect his facts is not exhausted by . . . . --Edward Hallett Carr
* But it is certainly possible to ask, How hot is the oven at its hottest point, when the average temperature is 425 degrees? We learned that the peak temperatures approached . . . .

And hypophora can be used as a transitional or guiding device to change directions or enter a new area of discussion:

* But what are the implications of this theory? And how can it be applied to the present problem?
* How and why did caveat emptor develop? The question presents us with mysteries never fully answered. --Ivan L. Preston

Notice how a series of reasonable questions can keep a discussion lively and interesting:

* How do we know the FTC strategy is the best, particularly in view of the complaints consumerists have made against it? Isn't there some chance that greater penalties would amount to greater deterrents? Why not get the most consumer protection simultaneously with the most punishment to offenders by easing the requirements for guilt without easing the punishment? . . . It happens that that's been tried, and it didn't work very well. --Ivan L. Preston

In the above example, the writer went on for several paragraphs to discuss the case which "didn't work very well." It would also be possible for a writer to ask several questions and then answer them in an orderly way, though that has the danger of appearing too mechanical if not carefully done.

16. Rhetorical question (erotesis) differs from hypophora in that it is not answered by the writer, because its answer is obvious or obviously desired, and usually just a yes or no. It is used for effect, emphasis, or provocation, or for drawing a conclusionary statement from the facts at hand.

* But how can we expect to enjoy the scenery when the scenery consists entirely of garish billboards?
* . . . For if we lose the ability to perceive our faults, what is the good of living on? --Marcus Aurelius
* Is justice then to be considered merely a word? Or is it whatever results from the bartering between attorneys?

Often the rhetorical question and its implied answer will lead to further discussion:

* Is this the end to which we are reduced? Is the disaster film the highest form of art we can expect from our era? Perhaps we should examine the alternatives presented by independent film maker Joe Blow . . . .
* I agree the funding and support are still minimal, but shouldn't worthy projects be tried, even though they are not certain to succeed? So the plans in effect now should be expanded to include . . . . [Note: Here is an example where the answer "yes" is clearly desired rhetorically by the writer, though conceivably someone might say "no" to the question if asked straightforwardly.]

Several rhetorical questions together can form a nicely developed and directed paragraph by changing a series of logical statements into queries:

* We shrink from change; yet is there anything that can come into being without it? What does Nature hold dearer, or more proper to herself? Could you have a hot bath unless the firewood underwent some change? Could you be nourished if the food suffered no change? Do you not see, then, that change in yourself is of the same order, and no less necessary to Nature? --Marcus Aurelius

Sometimes the desired answer to the rhetorical question is made obvious by the discussion preceding it:

* The gods, though they live forever, feel no resentment at having to put up eternally with the generations of men and their misdeeds; nay more, they even show every possible care and concern for them. Are you, then, whose abiding is but for a moment, to lose patience--you who are yourself one of the culprits? --Marcus Aurelius

When you are thinking about a rhetorical question, be careful to avoid sinking to absurdity. You would not want to ask, for example, "But is it right to burn down the campus and sack the bookstore?" The use of this device allows your reader to think, query, and conclude along with you; but if your questions become ridiculous, your essay may become wastepaper.

17. Procatalepsis, by anticipating an objection and answering it, permits an argument to continue moving forward while taking into account points or reasons opposing either the train of thought or its final conclusions. Often the objections are standard ones:

* It is usually argued at this point that if the government gets out of the mail delivery business, small towns like Podunk will not have any mail service. The answer to this can be found in the history of the Pony Express . . . .
* To discuss trivialities in an exalted style is, as the saying is, like beautifying a pestle. Yet some people say we should discourse in the grand manner on trivialities and they think that this is a proof of outstanding oratorical talent. Now I admit that Polycrates [did this]. But he was doing this in jest, . - . and the dignified tone of the whole work was itself a game. Let us be playful..... [but] also observe what is fitting in each case . . . . --Demetrius

Sometimes the writer will invent probable or possible difficulties in order to strengthen his position by showing how they could be handled if they should arise, as well as to present an answer in case the reader or someone else might raise them in the course of subsequent consideration:

* But someone might say that this battle really had no effect on history. Such a statement could arise only from ignoring the effect the battle had on the career of General Bombast, who was later a principal figure at the Battle of the Bulge.
* I can think of no one objection that will possibly be raised against this proposal, unless it should be urged that the number of people will be thereby much lessened in the kingdom. This I freely own, and it was indeed the principal design in offering it to the world. --Jonathan Swift

Objections can be treated with varying degrees of seriousness and with differing relationships to the reader. The reader himself might be the objector:

* Yet this is the prime service a man would think, wherein this order should give proof of itself. If it were executed, you'll say. But certain, if execution be remiss or blindfold now, and in this particular, what will it be hereafter and in other books? --John Milton

Or the objector may be someone whose outlook, attitude, or belief differs substantially from both writer and reader-though you should be careful not to set up an artificial, straw-man objector:

* Men of cold fancies and philosophical dispositions object to this kind of poetry, [saying] that it has not probability enough to affect the imagination. But to this it may be answered that we are sure, in general, there are many intellectual beings in the world besides ourselves . . . who are subject to different laws and economies from those of mankind . . . . --Joseph Addison
* Occasionally a person of rash judgment will argue here that the high-speed motor is better than the low-speed one, because for the same output, high speed motors are lighter, smaller, and cheaper. But they are also noisier and less efficient, and have much greater wear and shorter life; so that overall they are not better.

By mentioning the obvious, and even the imaginatively discovered objections to your argument, you show that (1) you are aware of them and have considered them and (2) there is some kind of reasonable response to them, whether given in a sentence or in several paragraphs. An objection answered in advance is weakened should your opponent bring it up, while an objection ignored, if brought up, may show you to be either ignorant or dishonest. Indeed, it might be better to admit an objection you cannot answer than to suppress it and put yourself on the side of darkness and sophistry:

* Those favoring the other edition argue that the same words in this text cost more money. This I admit, and it does seem unfortunate to pay twice the price for essentially the same thing. Nevertheless, this text has larger type, is made better, and above all has more informative notes, so I think it is worth the difference.

Finally, note that procatalepsis can be combined with hypophora, so that the objection is presented in the form of a question:

* I now come to the precepts of Longinus, and pretend to show from them that the greatest sublimity is to be derived from religious ideas. But why then, says the reader, has not Longinus plainly told us so? He was not ignorant that he ought to make his subject as plain as he could. For he has told us. . . . --John Dennis
* But you might object that, if what I say is actually true, why would people buy products advertised illogically? The answer to that lies in human psychology . . . .

18. Metabasis consists of a brief statement of what has been said and what will follow. It might be called a linking, running, or transitional summary, whose function is to keep the discussion ordered and clear in its progress:

* Such, then, would be my diagnosis of the present condition of art. I must now, by special request, say what I think will happen to art in the future. --Kenneth Clark
* We have to this point been examining the proposal advanced by Smervits only in regard to its legal practicability; but next we need to consider the effect it would have in retarding research and development work in private laboratories.
* I have hitherto made mention of his noble enterprises in France, and now I will rehearse his worthy acts done near to Rome. --Peacham

The brief little summary of what has been said helps the reader immensely to understand, organize, and remember that portion of your essay.

Metabasis serves well as a transitional device, refocusing the discussion on a new but clearly derivative area:

* Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. --George Orwell

It can also be used to clarify the movement of a discussion by quickly summing up large sections of preceding material:

* By the foregoing quotation I have shown that the language of prose may yet be well adapted to poetry; and I have previously asserted that a large portion of the language of every good poem can in no respect differ from that of good prose. I will go further. I do not doubt that it may be safely affirmed, that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition. --William Wordsworth
* Having thus explained a few of the reasons why I have written in verse, and why I have chosen subjects from common life, and endeavored to bring my language near to the real language of men, . . . I request the reader's permission to add a few words with reference solely to these particular poems and to some defects which will probably be found in them. --Ibid.
* Now that we have discussed the different kinds of cactus plants available to the landscape architect, their physical requirements for sun, soil, irrigation, and drainage, and the typical design groupings selected for residential areas, we ought to examine the architectural contexts which can best use-enhance and be enhanced by--cactus planters and gardens.
* Thus we have surveyed the state of authors as they are influenced from without, either by the frowns or favor of the great, or by the applause or censure of the critics. It remains only to consider how the people, or world in general, stand affected towards our modern penmen, and what occasion these adventurers may have of complaint or boast from their encounter with the public. --Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury

One caution should be mentioned. Metabasis is very difficult to use effectively in short papers: since it is a summarizing device, it must have some discussion to sum up. In practice, this means something on the order of five pages or more. Thus, metabasis could be very handy in the middle of a ten or twenty page paper; in a three page paper, though, both its necessity and its utility would be questionable. But use your own judgment.

Words used to signal further discussion after the summary include these: now, next, additionally, further, besides, equally important, also interesting, also important, also necessary to mention, it remains. You can also use words of comparison and contrast, such as these: similarly, on the other hand, by contrast.

19. Distinctio is an explicit reference to a particular meaning or to the various meanings of a word, in order to remove or prevent ambiguity.

* To make methanol for twenty-five cents a gallon is impossible; by "impossible" I mean currently beyond our technological capabilities.
* The precipitate should be moved from the filter paper to the crucible quickly--that is, within three minutes.
* Mr. Haskins describes the process as a simple one. If by simple he means easy to explain on paper, he is correct. But if he means there are no complexities involved in getting it to work, he is quite mistaken.
* The modern automobile (and here I refer to the post-1975, desmogged American car) is more a product of bolt-on solutions than of revolutionary engineering.

Many of our words, like those of evaluation (better, failure high quality, efficient, unacceptable) and those referring to abstract concepts which are often debated (democracy, justice, equality, oppression) have different meanings to different people, and sometimes to the same person at different times. For example, the governments of both Communist China and the United States are described as "democracies," while it could be argued rather convincingly that neither really is, depending on the definition of democracy used. Semanticist S. I. Hayakawa even goes so far as to claim that "no word ever has exactly the same meaning twice," and while that for practical purposes seems to be a substantial exaggeration, we should keep in mind the great flexibility of meaning in a lot of our words. Whenever there might be some doubt about your meaning, it would be wise to clarify your statement or terms. And distinctio is one good way to do that.

Some helpful phrases for distinctio include these: blank here must be taken to mean, in this context [or case] blank means, by blank I mean, that is, which is to say. You can sometimes use a parenthetical explanation or a colon, too: Is this dangerous (will I be physically harmed by it)?

20. Amplification involves repeating a word or expression while adding more detail to it, in order to emphasize what might otherwise be passed over. In other words, amplification allows you to call attention to, emphasize, and expand a word or idea to make sure the reader realizes its importance or centrality in the discussion.

* In my hunger after ten days of rigorous dieting I saw visions of ice cream--mountains of creamy, luscious ice cream, dripping with gooey syrup and calories.
* This orchard, this lovely, shady orchard, is the main reason I bought this property.
* . . . Even in Leonardo's time, there were certain obscure needs and patterns of the spirit, which could discover themselves only through less precise analogies--the analogies provided by stains on walls or the embers of a fire. --Kenneth Clark
* Pride--boundless pride--is the bane of civilization.
* He showed a rather simple taste, a taste for good art, good food, and good friends.

But amplification can overlap with or include a repetitive device like anaphora when the repeated word gains further definition or detail:

* The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed,/ A refuge in times of trouble. --Psalm 9:9 (KJV)

Notice the much greater effectiveness this repetition-plus detail form can have over a "straight" syntax. Compare each of these pairs:

* The utmost that we can threaten to one another is death, a death which, indeed, we may precipitate, but cannot retard, and from which, therefore, it cannot become a wise man to buy a reprieve at the expense of virtue, since he knows not how small a portion of time he can purchase, but knows that, whether short or long, it will be made less valuable by the remembrance of the price at which it has been obtained. --adapted from S. Johnson
* The utmost that we can threaten to one another is that death which, indeed, we may precipitate . . . .
* In everything remember the passing of time, a time which cannot be called again.
* In everything remember the passing of a time which cannot be called again.

21. Scesis Onomaton emphasizes an idea by expressing it in a string of generally synonymous phrases or statements. While it should be used carefully, this deliberate and obvious restatement can be quite effective:

* We succeeded, we were victorious, we accomplished the feat!
* Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that deal corruptly. --Isaiah 1:4
* But there is one thing these glassy-eyed idealists forget: such a scheme would be extremely costly, horrendously expensive, and require a ton of money.
* Wendy lay there, motionless in a peaceful slumber, very still in the arms of sleep.
* May God arise, may his enemies be scattered, may his foes flee before him. --Psalm 68:1 (NIV)

Scesis onomaton does have a tendency to call attention to itself and to be repetitive, so it is not used in formal writing as frequently as some other devices. But if well done, it is both beautiful and emphatic.
*************
22. Apophasis (also called praeteritio or occupatio) asserts or emphasizes something by pointedly seeming to pass over, ignore, or deny it. This device has both legitimate and illegitimate uses. Legitimately, a writer uses it to call attention to sensitive or inflammatory facts or statements while he remains apparently detached from them:

* We will not bring up the matter of the budget deficit here, or how programs like the one under consideration have nearly pushed us into bankruptcy, because other reasons clearly enough show . . . .
* Therefore, let no man talk to me of other expedients: of taxing our absentees . . . of curing the expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and gaming of learning to love our country . . . .--Jonathan Swift
* If you were not my father, I would say you were perverse. --Antigone
* I will not even mention Houdini's many writings, both on magic and other subjects, nor the tricks he invented, nor his numerous impressive escapes, since I want to concentrate on . . . .
* She's bright, well-read, and personable--to say nothing of her modesty and generosity.

Does the first example above make you feel a little uneasy? That can be a clue to the legitimacy (or lack of it) of usage. If apophasis is employed to bring in irrelevant statements while it supplies a screen to hide behind, then it is not being used rightly:

* I pass over the fact that Jenkins beats his wife, is an alcoholic, and sells dope to kids, because we will not allow personal matters to enter into our political discussion.
* I do not mean to suggest that Mr. Gates is mainly responsible for the inefficiency and work blockage in this office, just because the paperwork goes through him. . . .

The "I do not mean to suggest [or imply]" construction has special problems of its own, because many writers use it quite straightforwardly to maintain clarity and to preclude jumping to conclusions by the reader. Others, however, "do not mean to imply" things that the reader would himself never dream are being implied. The suggestion is given, though, and takes hold in the brain--so that the implication is there, while being safely denied by the writer.

Apophasis is handy for reminding people of something in a polite way:

* Of course, I do not need to mention that you should bring a No. 2 pencil to the exam.
* Nothing need be said here about the non-energy uses of coal, such as the manufacture of plastics, drugs, and industrial chemicals . . . .

Some useful phrases for apophasis: nothing need be said about, I pass over, it need not be said (or mentioned), I will not mention (or dwell on or bring up), we will overlook ' I do not mean to suggest (or imply), you need not be reminded, it is unnecessary to bring up, we can forget about, no one would suggest.

23. Metanoia (correctio) qualifies a statement by recalling it (or part of it) and expressing it in a better, milder, or stronger way. A negative is often used to do the recalling:

* Fido was the friendliest of all St. Bernards, nay of all dogs.
* The chief thing to look for in impact sockets is hardness; no, not so much hardness as resistance to shock and shattering.
* And if I am still far from the goal, the fault is my own for not paying heed to the reminders--nay, the virtual directions--which I have had from above. --Marcus Aurelius
* Even a blind man can see, as the saying is, that poetic language gives a certain grandeur to prose, except that some writers imitate the poets quite openly, or rather they do not so much imitate them as transpose their words into their own work, as Herodotus does. --Demetrius

Metanoia can be used to coax the reader into expanding his belief or comprehension by moving from modest to bold:

* These new textbooks will genuinely improve the lives of our children, or rather the children of the whole district.

Or it can be used to tone down and qualify an excessive outburst (while, of course, retaining the outburst for good effect):

* While the crack widens and the cliff every minute comes closer to crashing down around our ears, the bureaucrats are just standing by twiddling their thumbs--or at least they have been singularly unresponsive to our appeals for action.

The most common word in the past for invoking metanoia was "nay," but this word is quickly falling out of the language and even now would probably sound a bit strange if you used it. So you should probably substitute "no" for it. Other words and phrases useful for this device include these: rather, at least, let us say, I should say, I mean, to be more exact, or better, or rather, or maybe. When you use one of the "or" phrases (or rather, or to be more exact), a comma is fine preceding the device; when you use just "no," I think a dash is most effective.

24. Aporia expresses doubt about an idea or conclusion. Among its several uses are the suggesting of alternatives without making a commitment to either or any:

* I am not sure whether to side with those who say that higher taxes reduce inflation or with those who say that higher taxes increase inflation.
* I have never been able to decide whether I really approve of dress codes, because extremism seems to reign both with them and without them.

Such a statement of uncertainty can tie off a piece of discussion you do not have time to pursue, or it could begin an examination of the issue, and lead you into a conclusion resolving your doubt.

Aporia can also dismiss assertions irrelevant to your discussion without either conceding or denying them:

* I do not know whether this legislation will work all the miracles promised by its backers, but it does seem clear that . . . .
* I am not sure about the other reasons offered in favor of the new freeway, but I do believe . . . .
* Yes, I know the assay report shows twenty pounds of gold per ton of ore, and I do not know what to say about that. What I do know is that the richest South African mines yield only about three ounces of gold per ton.

You can use aporia to cast doubt in a modest way, as a kind of understatement:

* I am not so sure I can accept Tom's reasons for wanting another new jet.
* I have not yet been fully convinced that dorm living surpasses living at home. For one thing, there is no refrigerator nearby . . . .

Ironic doubt--doubt about which of several closely judgable things exceeds the others, for example--can be another possibility:

* . . . Whether he took them from his fellows more impudently, gave them to a harlot more lasciviously, removed them from the Roman people more wickedly, or altered them more presumptuously, I cannot well declare. --Cicero
* And who was genuinely most content--whether old Mr. Jennings dozing in the sun, or Bill and Molly holding hands and toying under the palm tree, or old Mrs. Jennings watching them agape through the binoculars-I cannot really say.

And you can display ignorance about something while still showing your attitude toward it or toward something else:

* It is hard to know which ice cream is better, banana or coffee.
* I have often wondered whether they realize that those same clothes are available for half the price under a different label.

25. Simile is a comparison between two different things that resemble each other in at least one way. In formal prose the simile is a device both of art and explanation, comparing an unfamiliar thing to some familiar thing (an object, event, process, etc.) known to the reader.

When you compare a noun to a noun, the simile is usually introduced by like:

* I see men, but they look like trees, walking. --Mark 8:24
* After such long exposure to the direct sun, the leaves of the houseplant looked like pieces of overcooked bacon.
* The soul in the body is like a bird in a cage.

When a verb or phrase is compared to a verb or phrase, as is used:

* They remained constantly attentive to their goal, as a sunflower always turns and stays focused on the sun.
* Here is your pencil and paper. I want you to compete as the greatest hero would in the race of his life.

Often the simile--the object or circumstances of imaginative identity (called the vehicle, since it carries or conveys a meaning about the word or thing which is likened to it)-precedes the thing likened to it (the tenor). In such cases, so usually shows the comparison:

* The grass bends with every wind; so does Harvey.
* The seas are quiet when the winds give o're; / So calm are we when passions are no more. --Edmund Waller

But sometimes the so is understood rather than expressed:

* As wax melts before the fire,/ may the wicked perish before God. --Psalm 68:2b

Whenever it is not immediately clear to the reader, the point of similarity between the unlike objects must be specified to avoid confusion and vagueness. Rather than say, then, that "Money is like muck," and "Fortune is like glass," a writer will show clearly how these very different things are like each other:

* And money is like muck, not good except it be spread. --Francis Bacon
* Fortune is like glass--the brighter the glitter, the more easily broken. --Publilius Syrus
* Like a skunk, he suffered from bad publicity for one noticeable flaw, but bore no one any ill will.
* James now felt like an old adding machine: he had been punched and poked so much that he had finally worn out.
* This paper is just like an accountant's report: precise and accurate but absolutely useless.

Many times the point of similarity can be expressed in just a word or two:

* Yes, he is a cute puppy, but when he grows up he will be as big as a house.
* The pitching mound is humped too much like a camel's back.

And occasionally, the simile word can be used as an adjective:

* The argument of this book utilizes pretzel-like logic.
* This gear has a flower-like symmetry to it.

Similes can be negative, too, asserting that two things are unlike in one or more respects:

* My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun. . . . --Shakespeare
* John certainly does not attack the way a Sherman tank does; but if you encourage him, he is bold enough.

Other ways to create similes include the use of comparison:

* Norman was more anxious to leave the area than Herman Milquetoast after seeing ten abominable snowmen charging his way with hunger in their eyes.
* But this truth is more obvious than the sun--here it is; look at it; its brightness blinds you.

Or the use of another comparative word is possible:

* Microcomputer EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) resembles a chalk board in that it is used for consultation instead of figuring, and shows at each glance the same information unless erased and rewritten.
* His temper reminds me of a volcano; his heart, of a rock; his personality, of sandpaper.
* His speech was smoother than butter. . . .--Psalm 55:21

So a variety of ways exists for invoking the simile. Here are a few of the possibilities:

x is like y x is not like y x is the same as y
x is more than y x is less than y x does y; so does z
x is similar to y x resembles y x is as y as z
x is y like z x is more y than z x is less y than z

But a simile can sometimes be implied, or as it is often called, submerged. In such cases no comparative word is needed:

* The author of this poem is almost in the position of a man with boxes and boxes of tree ornaments, but with no tree to decorate. The poet has enough imagery handy to decorate anything he can think of, if only he can fix upon a "trim invention." The "sense" he does locate is obscured; the ivy hides the building completely.
* When I think of the English final exam, I think of dungeons and chains and racks and primal screams.
* Leslie has silky hair and the skin of an angel.

26. Analogy compares two things, which are alike in several respects, for the purpose of explaining or clarifying some unfamiliar or difficult idea or object by showing how the idea or object is similar to some familiar one. While simile and analogy often overlap, the simile is generally a more artistic likening, done briefly for effect and emphasis, while analogy serves the more practical end of explaining a thought process or a line of reasoning or the abstract in terms of the concrete, and may therefore be more extended.

* You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables. --Samuel Johnson
* He that voluntarily continues ignorance is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces, as to him that should extinguish the tapers of a lighthouse might justly be imputed the calamities of shipwrecks. --Samuel Johnson
* . . . For answers successfully arrived at are solutions to difficulties previously discussed, and one cannot untie a knot if he is ignorant of it. --Aristotle

Notice in these examples that the analogy is used to establish the pattern of reasoning by using a familiar or less abstract argument which the reader can understand easily and probably agree with.

Some analogies simply offer an explanation for clarification rather than a substitute argument:

* Knowledge always desires increase: it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself. --Samuel Johnson
* The beginning of all evil temptations is inconstancy of mind, and too little trust in God. For as a ship without a guide is driven hither and thither with every storm, so an unstable man, that anon leaveth his good purpose in God, is diversely tempted. The fire proveth gold, and temptation proveth the righteous man. --Thomas a Kempis

When the matter is complex and the analogy particularly useful for explaining it, the analogy can be extended into a rather long, multiple-point comparison:

* The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. (And so forth, to the end of the chapter.] --l Cor. 12:12 (NIV)

The importance of simile and analogy for teaching and writing cannot be overemphasized. To impress this upon you better, I would like to step aside a moment and offer two persuasive quotations:

* The country parson is full of all knowledge. They say, it is an ill mason that refuseth any stone: and there is no knowledge, but, in a skilful hand, serves either positively as it is, or else to illustrate some other knowledge. He condescends even to the knowledge of tillage, and pastorage, and makes great use of them in teaching, because people by what they understand are best led to what they understand not. --George Herbert
* To illustrate one thing by its resemblance to another has been always the most popular and efficacious art of instruction. There is indeed no other method of teaching that of which anyone is ignorant but by means of something already known; and a mind so enlarged by contemplation and enquiry that it has always many objects within its view will seldom be long without some near and familiar image through which an easy transition may be made to truths more distant and obscure. --Samuel Johnson
*************
27. Metaphor compares two different things by speaking of one in terms of the other. Unlike a simile or analogy, metaphor asserts that one thing is another thing, not just that one is like another. Very frequently a metaphor is invoked by the to be verb:

Affliction then is ours; / We are the trees whom shaking fastens more. --George Herbert

* Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life." --John 6:35 [And compare the use of metaphor in 6:32-63]
* Thus a mind that is free from passion is a very citadel; man has no stronger fortress in which to seek shelter and defy every assault. Failure to perceive this is ignorance; but to perceive it, and still not to seek its refuge, is misfortune indeed. --Marcus Aurelius
* The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter. --Joshua Reynolds

Just as frequently, though, the comparison is clear enough that the a-is-b form is not necessary:

* The fountain of knowledge will dry up unless it is continuously replenished by streams of new learning.
* This first beam of hope that had ever darted into his mind rekindled youth in his cheeks and doubled the lustre of his eyes. --Samuel Johnson
* I wonder when motor mouth is going to run out of gas.
* When it comes to midterms, it's kill or be killed. Let's go in and slay this test.
* What sort of a monster then is man? What a novelty, what a portent, what a chaos, what a mass of contradictions, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, a ridiculous earthworm who is the repository of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error; the glory and the scum of the world. --Blaise Pascal
* The most learned philosopher knew little more. He had partially unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery. . . . I had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments that seemed to keep human beings from entering the citadel of nature, and rashly and ignorantly I had repined. --Mary Shelley
* The furnace of affliction had softened his heart and purified his soul.

Compare the different degrees of direct identification between tenor and vehicle. There is fully expressed:

* Your eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is sound, your whole body is full of light; but when it is not sound, your body is full of darkness. --Luke 11:34 (RSV)

Here, the comparison, "the eye is a lamp," is declared directly, and the point of similarity is spelled out.

There is semi-implied:

* And he said to them, "Go and tell that fox, 'Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course."' --Luke 13:32 (RSV)

Here, the comparison, "Herod is a fox," is not directly stated, but is understood as if it had been.

There is implied:

* . . . For thou hast been my help, and in the shadow of thy wings I sing for joy. --Psalm 63:7 (RSV)

Here, the comparison, "God is a bird [or hen]" is only implied. Stating the metaphorical equation directly would have been rhetorically ineffective or worse because of the awkward thought it creates. The classical rhetorician Demetrius tells us that when there is a great difference between the subject and the comparison, the subject should always be compared to something greater than itself, or diminishment and rhetorical failure result. You might write, "The candle was a little sun in the dark room," but you wouldn't write, "The sun was a big candle that day in the desert." In Psalm 63, however, there is nothing greater than God to compare him to, and the psalmist wants to create a sense of tenderness and protection, drawing upon a familiar image. So, the comparison is saved by using an implied metaphor.

And there is very implied:

* For if men do these things when the tree is green what will happen when it is dry? --Luke 23:31 (NIV)

Here the comparison is something like "a prosperous time [or freedom from persecution] is a green [flourishing, healthy] tree." And the other half of the metaphor is that "a time of persecution or lack of prosperity is a dry [unhealthy, dead(?)] tree." So the rhetorical question is, "If men do these [bad] things during times of prosperity, what will they do when persecution or their own suffering arrives?"

Like simile and analogy, metaphor is a profoundly important and useful device. Aristotle says in his Rhetoric, "It is metaphor above all else that gives clearness, charm, and distinction to the style." And Joseph Addison says of it:

* By these allusions a truth in the understanding is as it were reflected by the imagination; we are able to see something like color and shape in a notion, and to discover a scheme of thoughts traced out upon matter. And here the mind receives a great deal of satisfaction, and has two of its faculties gratified at the same time, while the fancy is busy in copying after the understanding, and transcribing ideas out of the intellectual world into the material.

So a metaphor not only explains by making the abstract or unknown concrete and familiar, but it also enlivens by touching the reader's imagination. Further, it affirms one more interconnection in the unity of all things by showing a relationship between things seemingly alien to each other.

And the fact that two very unlike things can be equated or referred to in terms of one another comments upon them both. No metaphor is "just a metaphor." All have significant implications, and they must be chosen carefully, especially in regard to the connotations the vehicle (image) will transfer to the tenor. Consider, for example, the differences in meaning conveyed by these statements:

* That club is spreading like wildfire.
* That club is spreading like cancer.
* That club is really blossoming now.
* That club, in its amoebic motions, is engulfing the campus.

And do you see any reason that one of these metaphors was chosen over the others?

* The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. --Luke 10:2
* The pile of dirt is high, but we do not have many shovels.
* The diamonds cover the ground, but we need more people to pick them up.

So bold and striking is metaphor that it is sometimes taken literally rather than as a comparison. (Jesus' disciples sometimes failed here--see John 4:32ff and John 6:46-60; a few religious groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses interpret such passages as Psalm 75:8 and 118:15 literally and thus see God as anthropomorphic; and even today a lot of controversy surrounds the interpretation of Matthew 26:26.) Always be careful in your own writing, therefore, to avoid possible confusion between metaphor and reality. In practice this is usually not very difficult.

28. Catachresis is an extravagant, implied metaphor using words in an alien or unusual way. While difficult to invent, it can be wonderfully effective:

* I will speak daggers to her. --Hamlet [In a more futuristic metaphor, we might say, "I will laser-tongue her." Or as a more romantic student suggested, "I will speak flowers to her."]

One way to write catachresis is to substitute an associated idea for the intended one (as Hamlet did, using "daggers" instead of "angry words"):

* "It's a dentured lake," he said, pointing at the dam. "Break a tooth out of that grin and she will spit all the way to Duganville."

Sometimes you can substitute a noun for a verb or a verb for a noun, a noun for an adjective, and so on. The key is to be effective rather than abysmal. I am not sure which classification these examples fit into:

* The little old lady turtled along at ten miles per hour.
* She typed the paper machine-gunnedly, without pausing at all.
* They had expected that this news would paint an original grief, but the only result was silk-screamed platitudes.
* Give him a quart or two of self esteem and he will stop knocking himself. [This was intended to suggest motor oil; if it makes you think of cheap gin, the metaphor did not work.]

29. Synecdoche is a type of metaphor in which the part stands for the whole, the whole for a part, the genus for the species, the species for the genus, the material for the thing made, or in short, any portion, section, or main quality for the whole or the thing itself (or vice versa).

* Farmer Jones has two hundred head of cattle and three hired hands.

Here we recognize that Jones also owns the bodies of the cattle, and that the hired hands have bodies attached. This is a simple part-for-whole synecdoche. Here are a few more:

* If I had some wheels, I'd put on my best threads and ask for Jane's hand in marriage.
* The army included two hundred horse and three hundred foot.
* It is sure hard to earn a dollar these days.
* Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. --Genesis 2:7

And notice the other kinds of substitutions that can be made:

* Get in here this instant or I'll spank your body. [Whole for part--i.e. "body" for "rear end"]
* Put Beethoven on the turntable and turn up the volume. [Composer substituted for record]
* A few hundred pounds of twenty dollar bills ought to solve that problem nicely. [Weight for amount]
* He drew his steel from his scabbard and welcomed all comers. [Material for thing made]
* Patty's hobby is exposing film; Harold's is burning up gasoline in his dune buggy. [Part for whole]
* Okay team. Get those blades back on the ice. [Part for whole]

Take care to make your synecdoche clear by choosing an important and obvious part to represent the whole. Compare:

* His pet purr was home alone and asleep.
* His pet paws [whiskers?] was home alone and asleep.

One of the easiest kinds of synecdoche to write is the substitution of genus for species. Here you choose the class to which the idea or thing to be expressed belongs, and use that rather than the idea or thing itself:

* There sits my animal [instead of "dog"] guarding the door to the henhouse.
* He hurled the barbed weapon [instead of "harpoon"] at the whale.

A possible problem can arise with the genus-for-species substitution because the movement is from more specific to more general; this can result in vagueness and loss of information. Note that in the example above some additional contextual information will be needed to clarify that "weapon" means "harpoon" in this case, rather than, say, "dagger" or something else. The same is true for the animal-for-dog substitution.

Perhaps a better substitution is the species for the genus--a single, specific, representative item symbolic of the whole. This form of synecdoche will usually be clearer and more effective than the other:

* A major lesson Americans need to learn is that life consists of more than cars and television sets. [Two specific items substituted for the concept of material wealth]
* Give us this day our daily bread. --Matt. 6:11
* If you still do not feel well, you'd better call up a sawbones and have him examine you.
* This program is for the little old lady in Cleveland who cannot afford to pay her heating bill.

30. Metonymy is another form of metaphor, very similar to synecdoche (and, in fact, some rhetoricians do not distinguish between the two), in which the thing chosen for the metaphorical image is closely associated with (but not an actual part of) the subject with which it is to be compared.

* The orders came directly from the White House.

In this example we know that the writer means the President issued the orders, because "White House" is quite closely associated with "President," even though it is not physically a part of him. Consider these substitutions, and notice that some are more obvious than others, but that in context all are clear:

* You can't fight city hall.
* This land belongs to the crown.
* In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread . . . . --Genesis 3:19
* Boy, I'm dying from the heat. Just look how the mercury is rising.
* His blood be on us and on our children. --Matt. 27:25
* The checkered flag waved and victory crossed the finish line.
* Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.

Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing. --Psalm 100:1-2 (KJV)

The use of a particular metonymy makes a comment about the idea for which it has been substituted, and thereby helps to define that idea. Note how much more vivid "in the sweat of thy face" is in the third example above than "by labor" would have been. And in the fourth example, "mercury rising" has a more graphic, physical, and pictorial effect than would "temperature increasing." Attune yourself to such subtleties of language, and study the effects of connotation, suggestion, substitution, and metaphor.

31. Personification metaphorically represents an animal or inanimate object as having human attributes--attributes of form, character, feelings, behavior, and so on. Ideas and abstractions can also be personified.

* The ship began to creak and protest as it struggled against the rising sea.
* We bought this house instead of the one on Maple because this one is more friendly.
* This coffee is strong enough to get up and walk away.
* I can't get the fuel pump back on because this bolt is being uncooperative.
* Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. --Genesis 4:10b (NIV)
* That ignorance and perverseness should always obtain what they like was never considered as the end of government; of which it is the great and standing benefit that the wise see for the simple, and the regular act for the capricious. --Samuel Johnson
* Wisdom cries aloud in the streets; in the markets she raises her voice . . . .--Psalm 1:20 (RSV; and cf. 1:21-33)

While personification functions primarily as a device of art, it can often serve to make an abstraction clearer and more real to the reader by defining or explaining the concept in terms of everyday human action (as for example man's rejection of readily available wisdom is presented as a woman crying out to be heard but being ignored). Ideas can be brought to life through personification and objects can be given greater interest. But try always to be fresh: "winking stars" is worn out; "winking dewdrops" may be all right.

Personification of just the natural world has its own name, fictio. And when this natural-world personification is limited to emotion, John Ruskin called it the pathetic fallacy. Ruskin considered this latter to be a vice because it was so often overdone (and let this be a caution to you). We do not receive much pleasure from an overwrought vision like this:

* The angry clouds in the hateful sky cruelly spat down on the poor man who had forgotten his umbrella.

Nevertheless, humanizing a cold abstraction or even some natural phenomenon gives us a way to understand it, one more way to arrange the world in our own terms, so that we can further comprehend it. And even the so-called pathetic fallacy can sometimes be turned to advantage, when the writer sees his own feelings in the inanimate world around him:

* After two hours of political platitudes, everyone grew bored. The delegates were bored; the guests were bored; the speaker himself was bored. Even the chairs were bored.

32. Hyperbole, the counterpart of understatement, deliberately exaggerates conditions for emphasis or effect. In formal writing the hyperbole must be clearly intended as an exaggeration, and should be carefully restricted. That is, do not exaggerate everything, but treat hyperbole like an exclamation point, to be used only once a year. Then it will be quite effective as a table-thumping attention getter, introductory to your essay or some section thereof:

* There are a thousand reasons why more research is needed on solar energy.

Or it can make a single point very enthusiastically:

* I said "rare," not "raw." I've seen cows hurt worse than this get up and get well.

Or you can exaggerate one thing to show how really different it is from something supposedly similar to which it is being compared:

* This stuff is used motor oil compared to the coffee you make, my love.
* If anyone comes to me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. --Luke 14:26 (NASB)

Hyperbole is the most overused and overdone rhetorical figure in the whole world (and that is no hyperbole); we are a society of excess and exaggeration. Nevertheless, hyperbole still has a rightful and useful place in art and letters; just handle it like dynamite, and do not blow up everything you can find.

33. Allusion is a short, informal reference to a famous person or event:

* You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first. 'Tis a word too great for any mouth of this age's size. --Shakespeare
* If you take his parking place, you can expect World War II all over again.
* Plan ahead: it wasn't raining when Noah built the ark. --Richard Cushing
* Our examination of the relation of the historian to the facts of history finds us, therefore, in an apparently precarious situation, navigating delicately between the Scylla of an untenable theory of history as an objective compilation of facts . . . and the Charybdis of an equally untenable theory of history as the subjective product of the mind of the historian . . . . --Edward Hallett Carr

Notice in these examples that the allusions are to very well known characters or events, not to obscure ones. (The best sources for allusions are literature, history, Greek myth, and the Bible.) Note also that the reference serves to explain or clarify or enhance whatever subject is under discussion, without sidetracking the reader.

Allusion can be wonderfully attractive in your writing because it can introduce variety and energy into an otherwise limited discussion (an exciting historical adventure rises suddenly in the middle of a discussion of chemicals or some abstract argument), and it can please the reader by reminding him of a pertinent story or figure with which he is familiar, thus helping (like analogy) to explain something difficult. The instantaneous pause and reflection on the analogy refreshes and strengthens the reader's mind.

34. Eponym substitutes for a particular attribute the name of a famous person recognized for that attribute. By their nature eponyms often border on the cliche, but many times they can be useful without seeming too obviously trite. Finding new or infrequently used ones is best, though hard, because the name-and-attribute relationship needs to be well established. Consider the effectiveness of these:

* Is he smart? Why, the man is an Einstein. Has he suffered? This poor Job can tell you himself.
* That little Caesar is fooling nobody. He knows he is no Patrick Henry.
* When it comes to watching girls, Fred is a regular Argus.
* You think your boyfriend is tight. I had a date with Scrooge himself last night.
* We all must realize that Uncle Sam is not supposed to be Santa Claus.
* An earthworm is the Hercules of the soil.

Some people or characters are famous for more than one attribute, so that when using them, you must somehow specify the meaning you intend:

* With a bow and arrow, Kathy is a real Diana. [Diana was goddess of the moon, of the hunt, and of chastity.]
* Those of us who cannot become a Ulysses and see the world must trust our knowledge to picture books and descriptions. [Ulysses was a hero in the Trojan War as well as a wanderer afterwards.]

In cases where the eponym might be less than clear or famous, you should add the quality to it:

* The wisdom of a Solomon was needed to figure out the actions of the appliance marketplace this quarter.

Eponym is one of those once-in-awhile devices which can give a nice touch in the right place.

35. Oxymoron is a paradox reduced to two words, usually in an adjective-noun ("eloquent silence") or adverb-adjective ("inertly strong") relationship, and is used for effect, complexity, emphasis, or wit:

* I do here make humbly bold to present them with a short account of themselves and their art.....--Jonathan Swift
* The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, / With loads of learned lumber in his head . . . .--Alexander Pope
* He was now sufficiently composed to order a funeral of modest magnificence, suitable at once to the rank of a Nouradin's profession, and the reputation of his wealth. --Samuel Johnson

Oxymoron can be useful when things have gone contrary to expectation, belief, desire, or assertion, or when your position is opposite to another's which you are discussing. The figure then produces an ironic contrast which shows, in your view, how something has been misunderstood or mislabeled:

* Senator Rosebud calls this a useless plan; if so, it is the most helpful useless plan we have ever enacted.
* The cost-saving program became an expensive economy.

Other oxymorons, as more or less true paradoxes, show the complexity of a situation where two apparently opposite things are true simultaneously, either literally ("desirable calamity") or imaginatively ("love precipitates delay"). Some examples other writers have used are these: scandalously nice, sublimely bad, darkness visible, cheerful pessimist, sad joy, wise fool, tender cruelty, despairing hope, freezing fire. An oxymoron should preferably be yours uniquely; do not use another's, unless it is a relatively obvious formulation (like "expensive economy") which anyone might think of. Also, the device is most effective when the terms are not common opposites. So, instead of "a low high point," you might try "depressed apex" or something.
******************
36. Epithet is an adjective or adjective phrase appropriately qualifying a subject (noun) by naming a key or important characteristic of the subject, as in "laughing happiness," "sneering contempt," "untroubled sleep," "peaceful dawn," and "lifegiving water." Sometimes a metaphorical epithet will be good to use, as in "lazy road," "tired landscape," "smirking billboards," "anxious apple." Aptness and brilliant effectiveness are the key considerations in choosing epithets. Be fresh, seek striking images, pay attention to connotative value.

A transferred epithet is an adjective modifying a noun which it does not normally modify, but which makes figurative sense:

* At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth of thieves and murderers . . . . --George Herbert
* Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold / A sheep hook . . . . --John Milton
* In an age of pressurized happiness, we sometimes grow insensitive to subtle joys.

The striking and unusual quality of the transferred epithet calls attention to it, and it can therefore be used to introduce emphatically an idea you plan to develop. The phrase will stay with the reader, so there is no need to repeat it, for that would make it too obviously rhetorical and even a little annoying. Thus, if you introduce the phrase, "diluted electricity," your subsequent development ought to return to more mundane synonyms, such as "low voltage," "brownouts," and so forth. It may be best to save your transferred epithet for a space near the conclusion of the discussion where it will be not only clearer (as a synonym for previously stated and clearly understandable terms) but more effective, as a kind of final, quintessential, and yet novel conceptualization of the issue. The reader will love it.

37. Hyperbaton includes several rhetorical devices involving departure from normal word order. One device, a form of inversion, might be called delayed epithet, since the adjective follows the noun. If you want to amplify the adjective, the inversion is very useful:

* From his seat on the bench he saw the girl content-content with the promise that she could ride on the train again next week.

But the delayed epithet can also be used by itself, though in only a relatively few cases:

* She had a personality indescribable.
* His was a countenance sad.

Some rhetoricians condemn delayed epithet altogether in formal writing because of its potential for abuse. Each case must be tested carefully, to make sure it does not sound too poetic:

* His was a countenance friendly.
* These are rumors strange.

And especially make sure the phrase is not affected, offensive, or even disgusting:

* Welcome to our home comfortable.
* That is a story amazing.

I cannot give you a rule (why does "countenance sad" seem okay when "countenance friendly" does not?) other than to consult your own taste or sense of what sounds all right and what does not.

A similar form of inversion we might call divided epithets. Here two adjectives are separated by the noun they modify, as in Milton's "with wandering steps and slow." Once again, be careful, but go ahead and try it. Some examples:

* It was a long operation but successful.
* Let's go on a cooler day and less busy.
* So many pages will require a longer staple, heavy-duty style.

Another form of hyperbaton involves the separation of words normally belonging together, done for effect or convenience:

* In this room there sit twenty (though I will not name them) distinguished people.

You can emphasize a verb by putting it at the end of the sentence:

* We will not, from this house, under any circumstances, be evicted.
* Sandy, after a long struggle, all the way across the lake, finally swam to shore.

You might want to have a friend check your excursions into hyperbatonic syntax, and if he looks at you askance and says, "My, talk funny you do," you might want to do a little rewriting. But, again, do not mark this off your list just because you might not be always successful at it.

38. Parenthesis, a final form of hyperbaton, consists of a word, phrase, or whole sentence inserted as an aside in the middle of another sentence:

* But the new calculations--and here we see the value of relying upon up-to-date information--showed that man-powered flight was possible with this design.
* Every time I try to think of a good rhetorical example, I rack my brains but--you guessed--nothing happens.
* As the earthy portion has its origin from earth, the watery from a different element, my breath from one source and my hot and fiery parts from another of their own elsewhere (for nothing comes from nothing, or can return to nothing), so too there must be an origin for the mind. --Marcus Aurelius
* But in whatever respect anyone else is bold (I speak in foolishness), I am just as bold myself. --2 Cor. 11:21b (NASB)

The violence involved in jumping into (or out of) the middle of your sentence to address the reader momentarily about something has a pronounced effect. Parenthesis can be circumscribed either by dashes--they are more dramatic and forceful--or by parentheses (to make your aside less stringent). This device creates the effect of extemporaneity and immediacy: you are relating some fact when suddenly something very important arises, or else you cannot resist an instant comment, so you just stop the sentence and the thought you are on right where they are and insert the fact or comment. The parenthetical form also serves to give some statements a context (stuffed right into the middle of another sentence at the most pertinent point) which they would not have if they had to be written as complete sentences following another sentence. Note that in the first example above the bit of moralizing placed into the sentence appears to be more natural and acceptable than if it were stated separately as a kind of moral conclusion, which was not the purpose or drift of the article.

39. Alliteration is the recurrence of initial consonant sounds. The repetition can be juxtaposed (and then it is usually limited to two words):

* Ah, what a delicious day!
* Yes, I have read that little bundle of pernicious prose, but I have no comment to make upon it.
* Done well, alliteration is a satisfying sensation.

This two-word alliteration calls attention to the phrase and fixes it in the reader's mind, and so is useful for emphasis as well as art. Often, though, several words not next to each other are alliterated in a sentence. Here the use is more artistic. And note in the second example how wonderfully alliteration combines with antithesis:

* I shall delight to hear the ocean roar, or see the stars twinkle, in the company of men to whom Nature does not spread her volumes or utter her voice in vain. --Samuel Johnson
* Do not let such evils overwhelm you as thousands have suffered, and thousands have surmounted; but turn your thoughts with vigor to some other plan of life, and keep always in your mind, that, with due submission to Providence, a man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself. --Samuel Johnson
* I conceive therefore, as to the business of being profound, that it is with writers, as with wells; a person with good eyes may see to the bottom of the deepest, provided any water be there; and that often, when there is nothing in the world at the bottom, besides dryness and dirt, though it be but a yard and a half under ground, it shall pass, however, for wondrous deep, upon no wiser a reason than because it is wondrous dark. --Jonathan Swift

40. Onomatopoeia is the use of words whose pronunciation imitates the sound the word describes. "Buzz," for example, when spoken is intended to resemble the sound of a flying insect. Other examples include these: slam, pow, screech, whirr, crush, sizzle, crunch, wring, wrench, gouge, grind, mangle, bang, blam, pow, zap, fizz, urp, roar, growl, blip, click, whimper, and, of course, snap, crackle, and pop. Note that the connection between sound and pronunciation is sometimes rather a product of imagination ("slam" and "wring" are not very good imitations). And note also that written language retains an aural quality, so that even unspoken your writing has a sound to it. Compare these sentences, for instance:

* Someone yelled, "Look out!" and I heard the skidding of tires and the horrible noise of bending metal and breaking glass.
* Someone yelled "Look out!" and I heard a loud screech followed by a grinding, wrenching crash.

Onomatopoeia can produce a lively sentence, adding a kind of flavoring by its sound effects:

The flies buzzing and whizzing around their ears kept them from finishing the experiment at the swamp.

* No one talks in these factories. Everyone is too busy. The only sounds are the snip, snip of scissors and the hum of sewing machines.
* But I loved that old car. I never heard the incessant rattle on a rough road, or the squeakitysqueak whenever I hit a bump; and as for the squeal of the tires around every corner--well, that was macho.
* If you like the plop, plop, plop of a faucet at three in the morning, you will like this record.

41. Apostrophe interrupts the discussion or discourse and addresses directly a person or personified thing, either present or absent. Its most common purpose in prose is to give vent to or display intense emotion, which can no longer be held back:

* O value of wisdom that fadeth not away with time, virtue ever flourishing, that cleanseth its possessor from all venom! O heavenly gift of the divine bounty, descending from the Father of lights, that thou mayest exalt the rational soul to the very heavens! Thou art the celestial nourishment of the intellect . . . . --Richard de Bury
* O books who alone are liberal and free, who give to all who ask of you and enfranchise all who serve you faithfully! -- Richard de Bury
* O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it! --Luke 13:34 (NASB)

Apostrophe does not appear very often in argumentative writing because formal argument is by its nature fairly restrained and intellectual rather than emotional; but under the right circumstances an apostrophe could be useful:

* But all such reasons notwithstanding, dear reader, does not the cost in lives persuade you by itself that we must do something immediately about the situation?

42. Enthymeme is an informally-stated syllogism which omits either one of the premises or the conclusion. The omitted part must be clearly understood by the reader. The usual form of this logical shorthand omits the major premise:

* Since your application was submitted before April 10th, it will be considered. [Omitted premise: All applications submitted before April 10 will be considered.]
* He is an American citizen, so he is entitled to due process. [All American citizens are entitled to due process.]

An enthymeme can also be written by omitting the minor premise:

* Ed is allergic to foods containing monosodium glutamate, so he cannot eat Chinese food seasoned with it.
* A political system can be just only when those who make its laws keep well informed about the subject and effect of those laws. This is why our system is in danger of growing unjust.

It is also possible to omit the conclusion to form an enthymeme, when the two premises clearly point to it:

* If, as Anatole France said, "It is human nature to think wisely and act foolishly," then I must propose that the Board of Supervisors in this case is demonstrating human nature perfectly well.
* The Fenton Lumber Company never undertakes a clearcut until at least eighty percent of the trees are mature, and the 4800-acre stand of pine above Mill Creek will not be that mature for another fifteen years.

Whenever a premise is omitted in an enthymeme (and understood by the reader), it is assumed to be either a truism or an acceptable and non-controversial generalization. But sometimes the omitted premise is one with which the reader would not agree, and the enthymeme then becomes a logical fallacy-an unacceptable enthymeme. What are the omitted premises here, and why are they unacceptable?

* You can tell this tape recorder is a bunch of junk: it's made in Japan.
* He says he believes that Jesus was a great moral teacher, so he must be a Christian.
* Those kids are from Southern California? Then they must be either crazy or perverted.

It goes without saying that you should be careful in your own writing not to use enthymemes dishonestly--that is, not to use clearly controversial assertions for the omitted premises.

Aside from its everyday use as a logical shorthand, enthymeme finds its greatest use in writing as an instrument for slightly understating yet clearly pointing out some assertion, often in the form of omitted conclusion. By making the reader work out the syllogism for himself, you impress the conclusion upon him, yet in a way gentler than if you spelled it out in so many words:

* It is essential to anchor the dam in genuine solid rock, rather than in sandstone, and the Trapper's Bluff area provides the only solid rock for seven miles on either side of the designated optimum site.
* Yes, it is a beautiful car, but it does not have an automatic hood-ornament washer, and I just will not have a car without one.

43. Climax (gradatio) consists of arranging words, clauses, or sentences in the order of increasing importance, weight, or emphasis. Parallelism usually forms a part of the arrangement, because it offers a sense of continuity, order, and movement-up the ladder of importance. But if you wish to vary the amount of discussion on each point, parallelism is not essential.

* The concerto was applauded at the house of Baron von Schnooty, it was praised highly at court, it was voted best concerto of the year by the Academy, it was considered by Mozart the highlight of his career, and it has become known today as the best concerto in the world.
* At 6:20 a.m. the ground began to heave. Windows rattled; then they broke. Objects started falling from shelves. Water heaters fell from their pedestals, tearing out plumbing. Outside, the road began to break up. Water mains and gas lines were wrenched apart, causing flooding and the danger of explosion. Office buildings began cracking; soon twenty, thirty, forty stories of concrete were diving at the helpless pedestrians panicking below.
* To have faults is not good, but faults are human. Worse is to have them and not see them. Yet beyond that is to have faults, to see them, and to do nothing about them. But even that seems mild compared to him who knows his faults, and who parades them about and encourages them as though they were virtues.

In addition to arranging sentences or groups of short ideas in climactic order, you generally should also arrange the large sections of ideas in your papers, the points in your arugments, and the examples for your generalizations climactically; although in these cases, the first item should not be the very least important (because its weakness might alienate the reader). Always begin with a point or proof substantial enough to generate interest, and then continue with ideas of increasing importance. That way your argument gets stronger as it moves along, and every point hits harder than the previous one.

44. Diacope: repetition of a word or phrase after an intervening word or phrase as a method of emphasis:

* We will do it, I tell you; we will do it.
* We give thanks to Thee, 0 God, we give thanks . . . . --Psalm 75:1 (NASB)

45. Antimetabole: reversing the order of repeated words or phrases (a loosely chiastic structure, AB-BA) to intensify the final formulation, to present alternatives, or to show contrast:

* All work and no play is as harmful to mental health as all play and no work.
* Ask not what you can do for rhetoric, but what rhetoric can do for you.

46. Antiphrasis: one word irony, established by context:

* "Come here, Tiny," he said to the fat man.
* It was a cool 115 degrees in the shade.

47. Epizeuxis: repetition of one word (for emphasis):

* The best way to describe this portion of South America is lush, lush, lush.
* What do you see? Wires, wires, everywhere wires.
* Polonius: "What are you reading?" Hamlet: "Words, words, words."

48. Aposiopesis: stopping abruptly and leaving a statement unfinished:

* If they use that section of the desert for bombing practice, the rock hunters will--.
* I've got to make the team or I'll--.

49. Anacoluthon: finishing a sentence with a different grammatical structure from that with which it began:

* And then the deep rumble from the explosion began to shake the very bones of--no one had ever felt anything like it.
* Be careful with these two devices because improperly used they can--well, I have cautioned you enough.

50. Enumeratio: detailing parts, causes, effects, or consequences to make a point more forcibly:

* I love her eyes, her hair, her nose, her cheeks, her lips [etc.].
* When the new highway opened, more than just the motels and restaurants prospered. The stores noted a substantial increase in sales, more people began moving to town, a new dairy farm was started, the old Main Street Theater doubled its showings and put up a new building . . . .

51. Antanagoge: placing a good point or benefit next to a fault criticism, or problem in order to reduce the impact or significance of the negative point:

* True, he always forgets my birthday, but he buys me presents all year round.
* The new anti-pollution equipment will increase the price of the product slightly, I am aware; but the effluent water from the plant will be actually cleaner than the water coming in.

52. Parataxis: writing successive independent clauses, with coordinating conjunctions, or no conjunctions:

* We walked to the top of the hill, and we sat down.
* In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. --Genesis 1:1-2 (KJV)
* The Starfish went into dry-dock, it got a barnacle treatment, it went back to work.

In this last example above, note that a string of very short sentences can be connected by commas when the elements are parallel. Longer sentences and unparallel sentence structures need at least semicolons to connect them.

53. Hypotaxis: using subordination to show the relationship between clauses or phrases (and hence the opposite of parataxis):

* They asked the question because they were curious.
* If a person observing an unusual or unfamiliar object concludes that it is probably a spaceship from another world, he can readily adduce that the object is reacting to his presence or actions when in reality there is absolutely no cause-effect relationship. --Philip Klass
* While I am in the world, I am the light of the world. --John 9:5

54. Sententia: quoting a maxim or wise saying to apply a general truth to the situation; concluding or summing foregoing material by offering a single, pithy statement of general wisdom:

* But, of course, to understand all is to forgive all.
* As the saying is, art is long and life is short.
* For as Pascal reminds us, "It is not good to have all your wants satisfied."

55. Exemplum: citing an example; using an illustrative story, either true or fictitious:

* Let me give you an example. In the early 1920's in Germany, the government let the printing presses turn out endless quantities of paper money, and soon, instead of 50-pfennige postage stamps, denominations up to 50 billion marks were being issued.

Examples can be introduced by the obvious choice of "For example," but there are other possibilities. For quick introductions, such as those attached to a sentence, you migiht use "such as," or "for instance." Examples placed into separate sentences can be introduced by "A case in point," "An instance," "A typical situation," "A common example," "To illustrate, let's consider the situation," and so forth.

56. Pleonasm: using more words than required to express an idea; being redundant. Normally a vice, it is done on purpose on rare occasions for emphasis:

* We heard it with our own ears.
* And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one, except Jesus Himself alone. --Matthew 17:8

57. Assonance: similar vowel sounds repeated in successive or proximate words containing different consonants:

* A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. --Matthew 5:14b (KJV)
* Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. --Matthew 5:16 (KJV)

58. Dirimens Copulatio: mentioning a balancing or opposing fact to prevent the argument from being one-sided or unqualified:

* This car is extremely sturdy and durable. It's low maintenance; things never go wrong with it. Of course, if you abuse it, it will break.
* . . . But we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. --l Cor. 1:23-24 (NASB; cf. Rom. 13:4-5)

59. Symploce: combining anaphora and epistrophe, so that one word or phrase is repeated at the beginning and another word or phrase is repeated at the end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences:

* To think clearly and rationally should be a major goal for man; but to think clearly and rationally is always the greatest difficulty faced by man.

60. Appositive: a noun or noun substitute placed next to (in apposition to) another noun to be described or defined by the appositive. Don't think that appositives are for subjects only and that they always follow the subject. The appositive can be placed before or after any noun:

* Henry Jameson, the boss of the operation, always wore a red baseball cap. [This shows the subject (Henry Jameson) with the appositive (the boss of the operation) following the subject. This is the most commonly used variety.]
* A notorious annual feast, the picnic was well attended. [Here, the appositive (notorious annual feast) is in front of the subject (the picnic).]
* That evening we were all at the concert, a really elaborate and exciting affair. [Here the appositive (elaborate and exciting etc.) follows the noun, which is the object of a preposition (concert).]

With very short appositives, the commas setting off the second noun from the first are often omitted:

* That afternoon Kathy Todd the pianist met the poet Thompson.
* Is your friend George going to run for office?
******************
Adventure novel. A novel where exciting events are more important than character development and sometimes theme. Examples:

* H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines
* Baroness Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel
* Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers
* Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

Allegory. A figurative work in which a surface narrative carries a secondary, symbolic or metaphorical meaning. In The Faerie Queene, for example, Red Cross Knight is a heroic knight in the literal narrative, but also a figure representing Everyman in the Christian journey. Many works contain allegories or are allegorical in part, but not many are entirely allegorical. Some examples of allegorical works include

* Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
* John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress
* Dante, The Divine Comedy
* William Golding, Lord of the Flies (allegorical novel)
* Herman Melville, Moby Dick (allegorical novel)
* George Orwell, Animal Farm (allegorical novel)

Apologue. A moral fable, usually featuring personified animals or inanimate objects which act like people to allow the author to comment on the human condition. Often, the apologue highlights the irrationality of mankind. The beast fable, and the fables of Aesop are examples. Some critics have called Samuel Johnson's Rasselas an apologue rather than a novel because it is more concerned with moral philosophy than with character or plot. Examples:

* George Orwell, Animal Farm
* Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

Autobiographical novel. A novel based on the author's life experience. More common that a thoroughly autobiographical novel is the incluision of autobiographical elements among other elements. Many novelists include in their books people and events from their own lives, often slightly or even dramatically altered. Nothing beats writing from experience, because remembrance is easier than creation from scratch and all the details fit together. Examples of autobiographical novels are:

* James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
* Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel

Blank Verse. Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare's plays are largely blank verse, as are other Renaissance plays. Blank verse was the most popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England.

Here are some examples you likely won't see elsewhere:

At last,
The clouds consign their treasures to the fields,
And softly shaking on the dimpled pool
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow
In large effusion o'er the freshened world.
--James Thomson, The Seasons, Spring, 172-176

Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix
The generouis purpose in the glowing breast.
--James Thomson, The Seasons, Spring, 1152-1156

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful is man!
How passing wonder He, who made him such!
Who centred in our make such strange extremes?
. . . . . . . .
Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
--Edward Young, Night Thoughts, Night the First, 67-70, 73-74

* John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667)
* John Dryden, All for Love
* James Thompson, The Seasons


Burlesque. A work designed to ridicule a style, literary form, or subject matter either by treating the exalted in a trivial way or by discussing the trivial in exalted terms (that is, with mock dignity). Burlesque concentrates on derisive imitation, usually in exaggerated terms. Literary genres (like the tragic drama) can be burlesqued, as can styles of sculpture, philosophical movements, schools of art, and so forth. See Parody, Travesty.

* John Gay, The Beggar's Opera (1728), burlesques Italian opera by trivializing it
* Henry Fielding, Tom Thumb the Great (1730), burlesques heroic drama by trivializing it
* Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (1711-14), burlesques the eighteenth century upper crust social mores by treating them with the machinery of epic poetry

Caesura. A pause, metrical or rhetorical, occurring somewhere in a line of poetry. The pause may or may not be typographically indicated (usually with a comma). An example from George Herbert's "Redemption":

At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth
Of theeves and murderers: there I him espied,
Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and died.

Canon. In relation to literature, this term is half-seriously applied to those works generally accepted as the great ones. A battle is now being fought to change or throw out the canon for three reasons. First, the list of great books is thoroughly dominated by DWEM's (dead, white, European males), and the accusation is that women and minorities and non-Western cultural writers have been ignored. Second, there is pressure in the literary community to throw out all standards as the nihilism of the late 20th and early 21st century makes itself felt in the literature departments of the universities. Scholars and professors want to choose the books they like or which reflect their own ideas, without worrying about canonicity. Third, the canon has always been determined at least in part by political considerations and personal philosophical biases. Books are much more likely to be called "great" if they reflect the philosophical ideas of the critic.

On the other hand, a great case can be made for reading through the traditional canon because over many years (hundreds or thousands in some cases) some works have emerged as the best--reaching the deep truths of human nature or discussing the greatest of ideas (who we are, why we live, what our purpose here is, why we go wrong) in the most intelligent, fruitful, and thoughtful ways. The canon works raise the most interesting questions, sometimes offer answers, and often present both Q and A in a beautiful way. You could do worse than read Aristotle, or Samuel Johnson, or Charles Dickens, or Epictetus, or George Herbert.

For some sample traditional lists, see the great books lists and programs at The Center for the Study of Great Ideas, The Great Books Index, and Robert Teeter's Great Books Lists.

Children's novel. A novel written for children and discerned by one or more of these: (1) a child character or a character a child can identify with, (2) a theme or themes (often didactic) aimed at children, (3) vocabulary and sentence structure available to a young reader. Many "adult" novels, such as Gulliver's Travels, are read by children. The test is that the book be interesting to and--at some level--accessible by children. Examples:

* Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer
* L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
* Booth Tarkington, Penrod and Sam

Christian novel. A novel either explicitly or implicitly informed by Christian faith and often containing a plot revolving around the Christian life, evangelism, or conversion stories. Sometimes the plots are directly religious, and sometimes they are allegorical or symbolic. Traditionally, most Christian novels have been viewed as having less literary quality than the "great" novels of Western literature. Examples:

* Charles Sheldon, In His Steps
* Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe
* Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis
* Par Lagerkvist, Barabbas
* Catherine Marshall, Christy
* C. S. Lewis, Perelandra
* G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who was Thursday
* Bodie Thoene, In My Father's House

Coming-of-age story. A type of novel where the protagonist is initiated into adulthood through knowledge, experience, or both, often by a process of disillusionment. Understanding comes after the dropping of preconceptions, a destruction of a false sense of security, or in some way the loss of innocence. Some of the shifts that take place are these:

* ignorance to knowledge
* innocence to experience
* false view of world to correct view
* idealism to realism
* immature responses to mature responses

Examples:

* Jane Austen Northanger Abbey
* Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
* Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

Conceit. An elaborate, usually intellectually ingenious poetic comparison or image, such as an analogy or metaphor in which, say a beloved is compared to a ship, planet, etc. The comparison may be brief or extended. See Petrarchan Conceit. (Conceit is an old word for concept.) See John Donne's "Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," for example, lines 21-32, where he compares his and his love's souls first to gold (which can be hammered to such a thinness that a small lump can cover the dome of a building) and then to a drawing compass whose foot in the center allows the other to draw a perfect circle. Romantic, isn't it:


Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat,

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Detective novel. A novel focusing on the solving of a crime, often by a brilliant detective, and usually employing the elements of mystery and suspense. Examples:

* Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
* Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express
* Dorothy Sayers, Strong Poison

Dystopian novel. An anti-utopian novel where, instead of a paradise, everything has gone wrong in the attempt to create a perfect society. See utopian novel. Examples:

* George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
* Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

End-stopped. A line that has a natural pause at the end (period, comma, etc.). For example, these lines are end stopped:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun.
Coral is far more red than her lips red. --Shakespeare

Enjambed. The running over of a sentence or thought into the next couplet or line without a pause at the end of the line; a run-on line. For example, all the lines here are enjambed:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove. . . . --Shakespeare


A hint to those who read poetry aloud: Don't pause a long time at the end of a line with no punctuation. Pause for a comma, pause longer for a semicolon, longer still for a period, but at the end of an enjambed line, if you pause at all, only the hemidemisemiquaver of a pause. On the other hand, don't go out of your way to join the lines together by a forceful lack of spacing.
****************
Epic. An extended narrative poem recounting actions, travels, adventures, and heroic episodes and written in a high style (with ennobled diction, for example). It may be written in hexameter verse, especially dactylic hexameter, and it may have twelve books or twenty four books. Characteristics of the classical epic include these:

* The main character or protagonist is heroically larger than life, often the source and subject of legend or a national hero
* The deeds of the hero are presented without favoritism, revealing his failings as well as his virtues
* The action, often in battle, reveals the more-than-human strength of the heroes as they engage in acts of heroism and courage
* The setting covers several nations, the whole world, or even the universe
* The episodes, even though they may be fictional, provide an explanation for some of the circumstances or events in the history of a nation or people
* The gods and lesser divinities play an active role in the outcome of actions
* All of the various adventures form an organic whole, where each event relates in some way to the central theme

Typical in epics is a set of conventions (or epic machinery). Among them are these:

* Poem begins with a statement of the theme ("Arms and the man I sing")
* Invocation to the muse or other deity ("Sing, goddess, of the wrath of Achilles")
* Story begins in medias res (in the middle of things)
* Catalogs (of participants on each side, ships, sacrifices)
* Histories and descriptions of significant items (who made a sword or shield, how it was decorated, who owned it from generation to generation)
* Epic simile (a long simile where the image becomes an object of art in its own right as well as serving to clarify the subject).
* Frequent use of epithets ("Aeneas the true"; "rosy-fingered Dawn"; "tall-masted ship")
* Use of patronymics (calling son by father's name): "Anchises' son"
* Long, formal speeches by important characters
* Journey to the underworld
* Use of the number three (attempts are made three times, etc.)
* Previous episodes in the story are later recounted

Examples:

* Homer, Iliad
* Homer, Odyssey
* Virgil, Aeneid
* Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered
* Milton, Paradise Lost

Epistolary novel. A novel consisting of letters written by a character or several characters. The form allows for the use of multiple points of view toward the story and the ability to dispense with an omniscient narrator. Examples:

* Samuel Richardson, Pamela
* Samuel Richardson, Clarissa
* Fanny Burney, Evelina
* C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
* Hannah W. Foster, The Coquette

Euphemism. The substitution of a mild or less negative word or phrase for a harsh or blunt one, as in the use of "pass away" instead of "die." The basic psychology of euphemistic language is the desire to put something bad or embarrassing in a positive (or at least neutral light). Thus many terms referring to death, sex, crime, and excremental functions are euphemisms. Since the euphemism is often chosen to disguise something horrifying, it can be exploited by the satirist through the use of irony and exaggeration.

* "The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage." --Emperor Hirohito, upon surrendering after the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan.

Euphuism. A highly ornate style of writing popularized by John Lyly's Euphues, characterized by balanced sentence construction, rhetorical tropes, and multiplied similes and allusions.

Existentialist novel. A novel written from an existentialist viewpoint, often pointing out the absurdity and meaninglessness of existence. Example:

* Albert Camus, The Stranger


Fantasy novel. Any novel that is disengaged from reality. Often such novels are set in nonexistent worlds, such as under the earth, in a fairyland, on the moon, etc. The characters are often something other than human or include nonhuman characters. Example:

* J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Flashback. A device that allows the writer to present events that happened before the time of the current narration or the current events in the fiction. Flashback techniques include memories, dreams, stories of the past told by characters, or even authorial sovereignty. (That is, the author might simply say, "But back in Tom's youth. . . .") Flashback is useful for exposition, to fill in the reader about a character or place, or about the background to a conflict.

Foot. The basic unit of meter consisting of a group of two or three syllables. Scanning or scansion is the process of determining the prevailing foot in a line of poetry, of determining the types and sequence of different feet.

Types of feet: U (unstressed); / (stressed syllable)

Iamb: U /
Trochee: / U
Anapest: U U /
Dactyl: / U U
Spondee: / /
Pyrrhic: U U

Iambic words: about, event, infuse, persuade
Trochaic words: woman, daisy, golden, patchwork
Anapestic words: underneath, introduce
Dactyllic words: fantasy, alchemy, penetrate

Note that poetic feet are composed of words fitted together to form the meter. That is, anapestic hexameter is not composed of lines of six anapestic words each, but lines of six anapestic feet, made up of various words. Here is an off-the-cuff anapestic hexameter couplet:

On the wall, under light, stood a man in a coat, with a dog by his side.
Looking up, looking down, our eyes met with a frown--and a smile from the dog.

See also versification, below.

Frame. A narrative structure that provides a setting and exposition for the main narrative in a novel. Often, a narrator will describe where he found the manuscript of the novel or where he heard someone tell the story he is about to relate. The frame helps control the reader's perception of the work, and has been used in the past to help give credibility to the main section of the novel, through the implication or claim that the novel represents a true account of events, written by someone other than the author. In the 16th through the 18th centuries, frames were sometimes used to help protect the author and publisher from persecution for the ideas presented. Examples of novels with frames:

* Mary Shelley Frankenstein
* Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter

Free verse. Verse that has neither regular rhyme nor regular meter. Free verse often uses cadences rather than uniform metrical feet.

I cannot strive to drink
dry the ocean's fill
since you replenish my gulps
with your tears

Gothic novel. A novel in which supernatural horrors and an atmosphere of unknown terror pervades the action. The setting is often a dark, mysterious castle, where ghosts and sinister humans roam menacingly. Horace Walpole invented the genre with his Castle of Otranto. Gothic elements include these:

* Ancient prophecy, especially mysterious, obscure, or hard to understand.
* Mystery and suspense
* High emotion, sentimentalism, but also pronounced anger, surprise, and especially terror
* Supernatural events (e.g. a giant, a sighing portrait, ghosts or their apparent presence, a skeleton)
* Omens, portents, dream visions
* Fainting, frightened, screaming women
* Women threatened by powerful, impetuous male
* Setting in a castle, especially with secret passages
* The metonymy of gloom and horror (wind, rain, doors grating on rusty hinges, howls in the distance, distant sighs, footsteps approaching, lights in abandoned rooms, gusts of wind blowing out lights or blowing suddenly, characters trapped in rooms or imprisoned)
* The vocabulary of the gothic (use of words indicating fear, mystery, etc.: apparition, devil, ghost, haunted, terror, fright)

Examples:

* Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto
* William Beckford, Vathek
* Anne Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho
* Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
* Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

For more information, see Elements of the Gothic Novel.

Graphic Novel. A novel illustrated panel by panel, either in color or black and white. Graphic novels are sometimes referred to as extended comics, because the presentation format (panel by panel illustration, mostly dialog with usually little exposition) suggests a comic. So too does the emphasis on action in many graphic novels. Characters who are not human, talking monsters, and imaginary beings sometimes populate graphic novels, bringing them closer to science fiction or fantasy than realism.

* Jeff Smith, Bone
* Matt Wagner, Mage: The Hero Discovered

Heroic Couplet. Two lines of rhyming iambic pentameter. Most of Alexander Pope's verse is written in heroic couplets. In fact, it is the most favored verse form of the eighteenth century. Example:

u / u / u / u / u /

'Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill



u / u / u / u / u /

Appear in writing or in judging ill. . . .

--Alexander Pope

[Note in the second line that "or" should be a stressed syllable if the meter were perfectly iambic. Iambic= a two syllable foot of one unstressed and one stressed syllable, as in the word "begin." Pentameter= five feet. Thus, iambic pentameter has ten syllables, five feet of two syllable iambs.]

Historical novel. A novel where fictional characters take part in actual historical events and interact with real people from the past. Examples:

* Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
* Sir Walter Scott, Waverly
* James Fenimore Cooper, Last of the Mohicans
* Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe

Horatian Satire. In general, a gentler, more good humored and sympathetic kind of satire, somewhat tolerant of human folly even while laughing at it. Named after the poet Horace, whose satire epitomized it. Horatian satire tends to ridicule human folly in general or by type rather than attack specific persons. Compare Juvenalian satire.

Humanism. The new emphasis in the Renaissance on human culture, education and reason, sparked by a revival of interest in classical Greek and Roman literature, culture, and language. Human nature and the dignity of man were exalted and emphasis was placed on the present life as a worthy event in itself (as opposed to the medieval emphasis on the present life merely as preparation for a future life).

Humours. In medieval physiology, four liquids in the human body affecting behavior. Each humour was associated with one of the four elements of nature. In a balanced personality, no humour predominated. When a humour did predominate, it caused a particular personality. Here is a chart of the humours, the corresponding elements and personality characteristics:

* blood...air...hot and moist: sanguine, kind, happy, romantic
* phlegm...water...cold and moist: phlegmatic, sedentary, sickly, fearful
* yellow bile...fire...hot and dry: choleric, ill-tempered, impatient, stubborn
* black bile...earth...cold and dry: melancholy, gluttonous, lazy, contemplative

The Renaissance took the doctrine of humours quite seriously--it was their model of psychology--so knowing that can help us understand the characters in the literature. Falstaff, for example, has a dominance of blood, while Hamlet seems to have an excess of black bile.

Hypertext novel. A novel that can be read in a nonsequential way. That is, whereas most novels flow from beginning to end in a continuous, linear fashion, a hypertext novel can branch--the reader can move from one place in the text to another nonsequential place whenever he wishes to trace an idea or follow a character. Also called hyperfiction. Most are published on CD-ROM. See also interactive novel. Examples:

* Michael Joyce, Afternoon
* Stuart Moulthrop, Victory Garden
******************
Interactive novel. A novel with more than one possible series of events or outcomes. The reader is given the opportunity at various places to choose what will happen next. It is therefore possible for several readers to experience different novels by reading the same book or for one reader to experience different novels by reading the same one twice and making different choices.

Invective. Speech or writing that abuses, denounces, or attacks. It can be directed against a person, cause, idea, or system. It employs a heavy use of negative emotive language. Example:

* I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth. --Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

Irony. A mode of expression, through words (verbal irony) or events (irony of situation), conveying a reality different from and usually opposite to appearance or expectation. A writer may say the opposite of what he means, create a reversal between expectation and its fulfillment, or give the audience knowledge that a character lacks, making the character's words have meaning to the audience not perceived by the character. In verbal irony, the writer's meaning or even his attitude may be different from what he says: "Why, no one would dare argue that there could be anything more important in choosing a college than its proximity to the beach." An example of situational irony would occur if a professional pickpocket had his own pocket picked just as he was in the act of picking someone else's pocket. The irony is generated by the surprise recognition by the audience of a reality in contrast with expectation or appearance, while another audience, victim, or character puts confidence in the appearance as reality (in this case, the pickpocket doesn't expect his own pocket to be picked). The surprise recognition by the audience often produces a comic effect, making irony often funny.

An example of dramatic irony (where the audience has knowledge that gives additional meaning to a character's words) would be when King Oedipus, who has unknowingly killed his father, says that he will banish his father's killer when he finds him.

Irony is the most common and most efficient technique of the satirist, because it is an instrument of truth, provides wit and humor, and is usually at least obliquely critical, in that it deflates, scorns, or attacks.

The ability to detect irony is sometimes heralded as a test of intelligence and sophistication. When a text intended to be ironic is not seen as such, the effect can be disastrous. Some students have taken Swift's "Modest Proposal" literally. And Defoe's contemporaries took his "Shortest Way with the Dissenters" literally and jailed him for it. To be an effective piece of sustained irony, there must be some sort of audience tip-off, through style, tone, use of clear exaggeration, or other device.

Juvenalian Satire. Harsher, more pointed, perhaps intolerant satire typified by the writings of Juvenal. Juvenalian satire often attacks particular people, sometimes thinly disguised as fictional characters. While laughter and ridicule are still weapons as with Horatian satire, the Juvenalian satirist also uses withering invective and a slashing attack. Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope are Juvenalian satirists.

Lampoon. A crude, coarse, often bitter satire ridiculing the personal appearance or character of a person.

Literary quality. A judgment about the value of a novel as literature. At the heart of this issue is the question of what distinguishes a great or important novel from one that is less important. Certainly the feature is not that of interest or excitement, for pulp novels can be even more exciting and interesting than "great" novels. Usually, books that make us think--that offer insight into the human condition--are the ones we rank more highly than books that simply titillate us. In non-literary fiction, plot is emphasized. If the value of the novel lies in how clever the plot twists are or how thrilling the story is, then it is more likely to be classified as fiction than literature. If you don't ever want to read the book again because now you know how it comes out, you have just read fiction, not literature. If you want to read the book again even though you know the plot and the ending, you might just be reading literature. If the book causes you to think, maybe even grow wiser, you are very likely reading literature. Yeah, I know how Hamlet comes out--spoiler alert--pretty much everybody of importance is dead at the end, but I still want to read it or watch it again.

Metaphysical Poetry. The term metaphysical was applied to a style of 17th Century poetry first by John Dryden and later by Dr. Samuel Johnson because of the highly intellectual and often abstruse imagery involved.

Chief among the metaphysical poets are John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell, and Henry Vaughan. While their poetry is widely varied (the metaphysicals are not a thematic or even a structural school), there are some common characteristics:

* 1. Argumentative structure. The poem often engages in a debate or persuasive presentation; the poem is an intellectual exercise as well as or instead of an emotional effusion.
* 2. Dramatic and colloquial mode of utterance. The poem often describes a dramatic event rather than being a reverie, a thought, or contemplation. Diction is simple and usually direct; inversion is limited. The verse is occasionally rough, like speech, rather than written in perfect meter, resulting in a dominance of thought over form.
* 3. Acute realism. The poem often reveals a psychological analysis; images advance the argument rather than being ornamental. There is a learned style of thinking and writing; the poetry is often highly intellectual.
* 4. Metaphysical wit. The poem contains unexpected, even striking or shocking analogies, offering elaborate parallels between apparently dissimilar things. The analogies are drawn from widely varied fields of knowledge, not limited to traditional sources in nature or art. Analogies from science, mechanics, housekeeping, business, philosophy, astronomy, etc. are common. These "conceits" reveal a play of intellect, often resulting in puns, paradoxes, and humorous comparisons. Unlike other poetry where the metaphors usually remain in the background, here the metaphors sometimes take over the poem and control it.

Metaphysical poetry represents a revolt against the conventions of Elizabethan love poetry and especially the typical Petrarchan conceits (like rosy cheeks, eyes like stars, etc.).

Meter. The rhythmic pattern produced when words are arranged so that their stressed and unstressed syllables fall into a more or less regular sequence, resulting in repeated patterns of accent (called feet). See feet and versification.

Mock Epic. Treating a frivolous or minor subject seriously, especially by using the machinery and devices of the epic (invocations, descriptions of armor, battles, extended similes, etc.). The opposite of travesty. Examples:

* Alexander Pope, The Dunciad
* Alexander Pope, Rape of the Lock


Multicultural novel. A novel written by a member of or about a cultural minority group, giving insight into non-Western or non-dominant cultural experiences and values, either in the United States or abroad. Examples:

* Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
* Amy Tan, The Kitchen God's Wife
* Forrest Carter, The Education of Little Tree
* Margaret Craven, I Heard the Owl Call My Name
* James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain
* Chaim Potok, The Chosen
* Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Penitent
* Alice Walker, The Color Purple

Mystery novel. A novel whose driving characteristic is the element of suspense or mystery. Strange, unexplained events, vague threats or terrors, unknown forces or antagonists, all may appear in a mystery novel. Gothic novels and detective novels are often also mystery novels.

Novel. Dare we touch this one with a ten foot pole? Of course we dare, provided that you accept the caveat that novels are so varied that any definition is likely to be inadequate to cover all of them. So here is a place to start: a novel is an extended prose fiction narrative of 50,000 words or more, broadly realistic--concerning the everyday events of ordinary people--and concerned with character. "People in significant action" is one way of describing it.

Another definition might be "an extended, fictional prose narrative about realistic characters and events." It is a representation of life, experience, and learning. Action, discovery, and description are important elements, but the most important tends to be one or more characters--how they grow, learn, find--or don't grow, learn, or find.

Compare the definition of a romance, below, and you will see why this definition seems somewhat restrictive.

Novella. A prose fiction longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. There is no standard definition of length, but since rules of thumb are sometimes handy, we might say that the short story ends at about 20,000 words, while the novel begins at about 50,000. Thus, the novella is a fictional work of about 20,000 to 50,000 words. Examples:

* Henry James, Daisy Miller
* Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
* Henry James, Turn of the Screw
* Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Novel of manners. A novel focusing on and describing in detail the social customs and habits of a particular social group. Usually these conventions function as shaping or even stifling controls over the behavior of the characters. Examples:

* Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
* William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

Parody. A satiric imitation of a work or of an author with the idea of ridiculing the author, his ideas, or work. The parodist exploits the peculiarities of an author's expression--his propensity to use too many parentheses, certain favorite words, or whatever. The parody may also be focused on, say, an improbable plot with too many convenient events. Fielding's Shamela is, in large part, a parody of Richardson's Pamela.

Persona. The person created by the author to tell a story. Whether the story is told by an omniscient narrator or by a character in it, the actual author of the work often distances himself from what is said or told by adopting a persona--a personality different from his real one. Thus, the attitudes, beliefs, and degree of understanding expressed by the narrator may not be the same as those of the actual author. Some authors, for example, use narrators who are not very bright in order to create irony.

Petrarchan Conceit. The kind of conceit (see above) used by Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch and popular in Renaissance English sonnets. Eyes like stars or the sun, hair like golden wires, lips like cherries, etc. are common examples. Oxymorons are also common, such as freezing fire, burning ice, etc. If you wonder where Shakespeare got the images he criticizes in Sonnet 130 ("My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun), take a look at Petrarch's Sonnet 69, which includes the following lines (these translated by Charles Tomlinson in 1874): "Her golden hair was streaming in the wind," "Her walk was not the step of mortal thing, / But of angelic form," "her accents clear had in their music more than human sound."
Picaresque novel. An episodic, often autobiographical novel about a rogue or picaro (a person of low social status) wandering around and living off his wits. The wandering hero provides the author with the opportunity to connect widely different pieces of plot, since the hero can wander into any situation. Picaresque novels tend to be satiric and filled with petty detail. Examples:

* Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders
* Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
* Henry Fielding, Jonathan Wild

Pseudonym. A "false name" or alias used by a writer desiring not to use his or her real name. Sometimes called a nom de plume or "pen name," pseudonyms have been popular for several reasons.

First, political realities might make it dangerous for the real author to admit to a work. Beatings, imprisonment, and even execution are not unheard of for authors of unpopular works.

Second, an author might have a certain type of work associated with a certain name, so that different names are used for different kinds of work. One pen name might be used for westerns, while another name would be used for science fiction.

Lastly, an author might choose a literary name that sounds more impressive or that will garner more respect than the author's real name. Examples:

* Samuel Clemens used the name Mark Twain
* Mary Ann Evans used the name George Eliot
* Jonathan Swift used the name Lemuel Gulliver (once)

Pulp fiction. Novels written for the mass market, intended to be "a good read,"--often exciting, titillating, thrilling. Historically they have been very popular but critically sneered at as being of sub-literary quality. The earliest ones were the dime novels of the nineteenth century, printed on newsprint (hence "pulp" fiction) and sold for ten cents. Westerns, stories of adventure, even the Horatio Alger novels, all were forms of pulp fiction.

Regional novel. A novel faithful to a particular geographic region and its people, including behavior, customs, speech, and history. Examples:

* Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
* Thomas Hardy, Return of the Native

Rhyme. The similarity between syllable sounds at the end of two or more lines. Some kinds of rhyme (also spelled rime) include:

* Couplet: a pair of lines rhyming consecutively: "These lines make up a couplet with a rhyme. / Just don't expect the lines to be sublime."
* Eye rhyme: words whose spellings would lead one to think that they rhymed (slough, tough, cough, bough, though, hiccough. Or: love, move, prove. Or: daughter, laughter.)
* Feminine rhyme: two syllable rhyme consisting of stressed syllable followed by unstressed.
* Masculine rhyme: similarity between terminally stressed syllables.

Ridicule. Words intended to belittle a person or idea and arouse contemptuous laughter. The goal is to condemn or criticize by making the thing, idea, or person seem laughable and ridiculous. It is one of the most powerful methods of criticism, partly because it cannot be satisfactorily answered ("Who can refute a sneer?") and partly because many people who fear nothing else--not the law, not society, not even God--fear being laughed at. (The fear of being laughed at is one of the most inhibiting forces in western civilization. It provides much of the power behind the adolescent flock urge and accounts for many of the barriers to change and adventure in the adult world.) Ridicule is, not surprisingly, a common weapon of the satirist.

Roman a clef. [French for "novel with a key," pronounced roh MAHN ah CLAY] A novel in which historical events and actual people are written about under the pretense of being fiction. Examples:

* Aphra Behn, Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister
* Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
*****************
Romance. An extended fictional prose narrative about improbable events involving characters that are quite different from ordinary people. Knights on a quest for a magic sword and aided by characters like fairies and trolls would be examples of things found in romance fiction. Examples:

* Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
* Sir Philip Sidney, The Arcadia

In popular use, the modern romance novel is a formulaic love story (boy meets girl, obstacles interfere, they overcome obstacles, they live happily ever after). Computer software is available for constructing these stock plots and providing stereotyped characters. Consequently, the books usually lack literary merit. Examples:

* Harlequin Romance series

Sarcasm. A form of sneering criticism in which disapproval is often expressed as ironic praise. (Oddly enough, sarcastic remarks are often used between friends, perhaps as a somewhat perverse demonstration of the strength of the bond--only a good friend could say this without hurting the other's feelings, or at least without excessively damaging the relationship, since feelings are often hurt in spite of a close relationship. If you drop your lunch tray and a stranger says, "Well, that was really intelligent," that's sarcasm. If your girlfriend or boyfriend says it, that's love--I think.)

Satire. A literary mode based on criticism of people and society through ridicule. The satirist aims to reduce the practices attacked by laughing scornfully at them--and being witty enough to allow the reader to laugh, also. Ridicule, irony, exaggeration, and several other techniques are almost always present. The satirist may insert serious statements of value or desired behavior, but most often he relies on an implicit moral code, understood by his audience and paid lip service by them. The satirist's goal is to point out the hypocrisy of his target in the hope that either the target or the audience will return to a real following of the code. Thus, satire is inescapably moral even when no explicit values are promoted in the work, for the satirist works within the framework of a widely spread value system. Many of the techniques of satire are devices of comparison, to show the similarity or contrast between two things. A list of incongruous items, an oxymoron, metaphors, and so forth are examples. See "The Purpose and Method of Satire" for more information.

Science fiction novel. A novel in which futuristic technology or otherwise altered scientific principles contribute in a significant way to the adventures. Often the novel assumes a set of rules or principles or facts and then traces their logical consequences in some form. For example, given that a man discovers how to make himself invisible, what might happen? Examples:

* H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man
* Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
* Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey
* Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles


Sentimental novel. A type of novel, popular in the eighteenth century, that overemphasizes emotion and seeks to create emotional responses in the reader. The type also usually features an overly optimistic view of the goodness of human nature. Examples:

* Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield
* Henry Mackenzie, The Man of Feeling
* Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey
* Thomas Day, The History of Sandford and Merton

Sequel. A novel incorporating the same characters and often the same setting as a previous novel. Sometimes the events and situations involve a continuation of the previous novel and sometimes only the characters are the same and the events are entirely unrelated to the previous novel. When sequels result from the popularity of an original, they are often hastily written and not of the same quality as the original. Occasionally a sequel is written by an author different from that of the original novel. See series. Examples:

* Mark Twain, Adventures of Tom Sawyer
* Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad
* Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Detective
* Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind
* Alexandra Ripley, Scarlett

Series. Several novels related to each other, by plot, setting, character, or all three. Book marketers like to refer to multi-volume novels as sagas. Examples:

* Anthony Trollope, Barsetshire novels
* C. S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia novels
* L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea novels
* James Fenimore Cooper, The Leatherstocking Tales

Setting.The total environment for the action of a fictional work. Setting includes time period (such as the 1890's), the place (such as downtown Warsaw), the historical milieu (such as during the Crimean War), as well as the social, political, and perhaps even spiritual realities. The setting is usually established primarily through description, though narration is used also. Some novels include frames that supply an extended description of the setting (where a character is looking back to an earlier era, an "editor" is describing the characters or the context of the tale).

Sonnet. A fourteen line poem, usually in iambic pentameter, with a varied rhyme scheme. (See Foot and Versification for explanations of iambic pentameter.) The two main types of sonnet are the Petrarchan (or Italian) and the Shakespearean. The Petrarchan Sonnet is divided into two main sections, the octave (first eight lines) and the sestet (last six lines). The octave presents a problem or situation which is then resolved or commented on in the sestet. The most common rhyme scheme is A-B-B-A A-B-B-A C-D-E C-D-E, though there is flexibility in the sestet, such as C-D-C D-C-D.

The Shakespearean Sonnet, (perfected though not invented by Shakespeare), contains three quatrains and a couplet, with more rhymes (because of the greater difficulty finding rhymes in English). The most common rhyme scheme is A-B-A-B C-D-C-D E-F-E-F G-G. In Shakespeare, the couplet often undercuts the thought created in the rest of the poem.

Spenserian Stanza. A nine-line stanza, with the first eight lines in iambic pentameter and the last line in iambic hexameter (called an Alexandrine). The rhyme scheme is A-B-A-B B-C-B-C C. Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene is written in Spenserian stanzas.

Style. The manner of expression of a particular writer, produced by choice of words, grammatical structures, use of literary devices, and all the possible parts of language use. Some general styles might include scientific, ornate, plain, emotive. Most writers have their own particular styles.

Subplot. A subordinate or minor collection of events in a novel or drama. Most subplots have some connection with the main plot, acting as foils to, commentary on, complications of, or support to the theme of, the main plot. Sometimes two opening subplots merge into a main plot.

Symbol. Something that on the surface is its literal self but which also has another meaning or even several meanings. For example, a sword may be a sword and also symbolize justice. A symbol may be said to embody an idea. There are two general types of symbols: universal symbols that embody universally recognizable meanings wherever used, such as light to symbolize knowledge, a skull to symbolize death, etc., and constructed symbols that are given symbolic meaning by the way an author uses them in a literary work, as the white whale becomes a symbol of evil in Moby Dick.

Tone. The writer's attitude toward his readers and his subject; his mood or moral view. A writer can be formal, informal, playful, ironic, and especially, optimistic or pessimistic. While both Swift and Pope are satirizing much the same subjects, there is a profound difference in their tone.

Travesty. A work that treats a serious subject frivolously-- ridiculing the dignified. Often the tone is mock serious and heavy handed.

Utopian novel. A novel that presents an ideal society where the problems of poverty, greed, crime, and so forth have been eliminated. Examples:

* Thomas More, Utopia
* Samuel Butler, Erewhon
* Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward

Verisimilitude. How fully the characters and actions in a work of fiction conform to our sense of reality. To say that a work has a high degree of verisimilitude means that the work is very realistic and believable--it is "true to life."

Versification. Generally, the structural form of a verse, as revealed by scansion. Identification of verse structure includes the name of the metrical type and the name designating number of feet:

* Monometer: 1 foot
* Dimeter: 2 feet
* Trimeter: 3 feet
* Tetrameter: 4 feet
* Pentameter: 5 feet
* Hexameter: 6 feet
* Heptameter: 7 feet
* Octameter: 8 feet
* Nonameter: 9 feet

The most common verse in English poetry is iambic pentameter. See foot for more information.

Western. A novel set in the western United States featuring the experiences of cowboys and frontiersmen. Many are little more than adventure novels or even pulp fiction, but some have literary value. Examples:

* Walter Van Tilburg Clark, The Ox-Bow Incident
* Owen Wister, The Virginian