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Glossary Of Rhetoric
Owing to its origin in ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, Rome, English rhetorical theory frequently employs ancient Greek, Greek and Latin words as terms of art. This page explains commonly used rhetorical terms in alphabetical order. The brief definitions here are intended to serve as a quick reference rather than an in-depth discussion. For more information, click the terms. A *''Accumulatio'' – the emphasis or summary of previously made points or inferences by excessive praise or accusation. *''Actio'' – canon #5 in Cicero's list of rhetorical canons; traditionally linked to oral rhetoric, referring to how a speech is given (including tone of voice and nonverbal gestures, among others). *''Ad hominem'' – rebutting an argument by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making it rather than the substance of the argument itself. *''Adianoeta'' – a phrase carrying two meanings: an obvious meaning and a second, more subtle and ingenious one (more co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and communities. Prior to the Roman period, most of these regions were officially unified only once under the Kingdom of Macedon from 338 to 323 BC. In Western history, the era of classical antiquity was immediately followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine period. Three centuries after the decline of Mycenaean Greece during the Bronze Age collapse, Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic period and the colonization of the Mediterranean Basin. This was followed by the age of Classical Greece, from the Greco-Persian Wars to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, and which included the Golden Age of Athens and the Peloponnesian War. The u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anecdote
An anecdote is "a story with a point", such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait. Anecdotes may be real or fictional; the anecdotal digression is a common feature of literary works and even oral anecdotes typically involve subtle exaggeration and dramatic shape designed to entertain the listener. An anecdote is always presented as the recounting of a real incident involving actual people and usually in an identifiable place. In the words of Jürgen Hein, they exhibit "a special realism" and "a claimed historical dimension". Etymology and usage The word ''anecdote'' (in Greek: ἀνέκδοτον "unpublished", literally "not given out") comes from Procopius of Caesarea, the biographer of Emperor Justinian I (). Procopius produced a work entitled (''Anekdota'', variously translated as ''Unpublished Memoirs'' or as ''Secret History'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paralipsis
Apophasis (; , ) is a rhetorical device wherein the speaker or writer brings up a subject by either denying it, or denying that it should be brought up. Accordingly, it can be seen as a rhetorical relative of irony. A classic example of apophasis is "I'm not going to say that I told you so". The device is also called paralipsis (παράλειψις) – also spelled paraleipsis or paralepsis – or occupatio or occultatio, and known also as praeteritio, preterition, or parasiopesis (παρασιώπησις). Usage As a rhetorical device, apophasis can serve several purposes. For example, It can be employed to raise an ''ad hominem'' or otherwise controversial attack while disclaiming responsibility for it, as in, "I refuse to discuss the rumor that my opponent is a drunk." This can make it a favored tactic in politics. Apophasis can be used passive-aggressively, as in, "I forgive you for your jealousy, so I won't even mention what a betrayal it was." In Cicero's "Pro Caelio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonomasia
In rhetoric, antonomasia is a kind of metonymy in which an epithet or phrase takes the place of a proper name, such as "the little corporal" for Napoleon I, or conversely the use of a proper name as an archetypal name, to express a generic idea. A frequent instance of antonomasia in the Late Middle Ages and early Renaissance was the use of the term "the Philosopher" to refer to Aristotle. Stylistically, such epithets may be used for elegant variation to reduce repetition of names in phrases. The word comes from the Greek , ''antonomasia'', itself from the verb , ''antonomazein'' 'to name differently'. Antonomasia can also refer to the transformation of a proper name into a common name, carrying certain defining traits. For example, designing someone as an apollo instead of saying he's an handsome young man. Archetypal names The opposite of antonomasia is an archetypal name. One common example in French is the word for fox: the Latin-derived was replaced by , from Renart, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antithesis
Antithesis (: antitheses; Greek for "setting opposite", from "against" and "placing") is used in writing or speech either as a proposition that contrasts with or reverses some previously mentioned proposition, or when two opposites are introduced together for contrasting effect. Antithesis can be defined as "a figure of speech involving a seeming contradiction of ideas, words, clauses, or sentences within a balanced grammatical structure. Parallelism of expression serves to emphasize opposition of ideas". An antithesis must always contain two ideas within one statement. The ideas may not be structurally opposite, but they serve to be functionally opposite when comparing two ideas for emphasis. According to Aristotle, the use of an antithesis makes the audience better understand the point the speaker is trying to make. Further explained, the comparison of two situations or ideas makes choosing the correct one simpler. Aristotle states that antithesis in rhetoric is similar to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epistrophe
Epistrophe (, "return") is the repetition of the same word or words at the end of successive phrases, clauses or sentences. It is also known as epiphora and occasionally as antistrophe. It is a figure of speech and the counterpart of anaphora. It is an extremely emphatic device because of the emphasis placed on the last word in a phrase or sentence. Platonic epistrophe Greek epistrophe: "a word coined by Plato as a goal of philosophical education and the term adopted by early Christians for conversion". Examples * "Where affections bear rule, their reason is subdued, honesty is subdued, good will is subdued, and all things else that withstand evil, for ever are subdued." ''— Thomas Wilson'' * "... this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." ''— Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address'' * "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antistrophe
Antistrophe (, "a turning back") is the portion of an ode sung by the chorus in its returning movement from west to east in response to the strophe, which was sung from east to west. Characteristics Usage as a literary device It has the nature of a reply and balances the effect of the strophe. Thus, in Gray's ode called "The Progress of Poesy" (excerpt below), the strophe, which dwelt in triumphant accents on the beauty, power and ecstasy verse, is answered by the antistrophe, in a depressed and melancholy key: When the sections of the chorus have ended their responses, they unite and close in the epode, thus exemplifying the triple form, in which the ancient sacred hymns of Greece were coined, from the days of Stesichorus onwards. As Milton says: " strophe, antistrophe and epode were a kind of stanza framed for the music then used with the chorus that sang". Other semantic usage ''Antistrophe'' was also a kind of ancient dance Dance is an The arts, art fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grammatical Case
A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals) that corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a Nominal group (functional grammar), nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nominal groups consisting of a noun and its modifiers belong to one of a few such categories. For instance, in English language, English, one says ''I see them'' and ''they see me'': the nominative case, nominative pronouns ''I/they'' represent the perceiver, and the accusative case, accusative pronouns ''me/them'' represent the phenomenon perceived. Here, nominative and accusative are cases, that is, categories of pronouns corresponding to the functions they have in representation. English has largely lost its inflected case system but personal pronouns still have three cases, which are simplified forms of the nominative, accusative (including functions formerly handled by the Dative case, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enallage
Enallage (; , ''enallagḗ'', "interchange") is one type of scheme of rhetorical figures of speech which is used to refer to the use of tense, form, or person for a grammatically incorrect counterpart.Silva Rhetoricae (2006)Enallage Form One use of enallage is to give a sentence improper form quite deliberately. Shakespeare wrote, "‘Is there not wars? Is there not employment?’" ( 2nd Henry IV, I, ii) In these cases, he uses enallage to achieve parallel structure. Byron stated, "The idols are broke in the temple of Baal." Here he used the past tense form of ''break'' instead of the past participle, ''broken,'' which should have been used. In the opening lines of the ''Aeneid'', Virgil speaks of the “walls of lofty Rome.” Daniel Mendelsohn, in ''The New Yorker'', cites this as an example of enallage: "The poet knew what he was doing—'lofty walls' is about architecture, but 'lofty Rome' is about empire," though arguably this figure could be considered '' hypallage,'' the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antiptosis
Antiptosis () is a rhetorical device. Specifically, it is a type of enallage (the substitution of grammatically different but semantically equivalent constructions) in which one grammatical case is substituted for another. In English, this technique is used only with pronouns, and is more effective with languages that use inflected nouns, such as Greek and Latin. Forms of Antiptosis One form of the device is to replace the conjunction ''and'' with the preposition ''of'', thus changing the case of the second noun from a case agreeing with the first noun to the genitive case. This form of antiptosis is related to the technique hendiadys; it is more or less the opposite of it. It is also related to the technique hypallage, except that the governing noun becomes the adjective instead of the noun in regimen. Usage The classic example of the use of antiptosis is: : ''the kingdom of glory'' instead of : ''the kingdom and the glory'' where the relation of kingdom and glory are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antinomy
In philosophy, an antinomy (Ancient Greek: 'against' + 'law') is a real or apparent contradiction between two conclusions, both of which seem justified. It is a term used in logic and epistemology, particularly in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Antinomy is a common form of argument in the dialogues of Plato. Kant credited Zeno of Elea (see Zeno's paradoxes) as the inventor of the antinomic mode of argumentation, which he described as a "skeptical method" of "watching, or rather provoking, a conflict of assertions, not for the purpose of deciding in favor of one or the other side, but of investigating whether the object of the controversy is not perhaps a deceptive appearance which each vainly tries to grasp, and in regard to which, even if there were no opposition to overcome, neither can arrive at any result". The antinomic procedure was further developed by Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. Hegel said that Kant was in error when he limited the antinomies to cosmological ideas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
