It's been a long time, but I think the point of Rosemond Tuve's
_Elizabethan and Metaphysical Imagery_ was that the 2 schools assumed in
the 30s and 40s were in fact one, differing merely in the decorum
determined by the genre. "Elizabethan" imagery was merely that which
tended toward amplification (incl. hyperbole), while the root figures
with "metaphysical" poetry were meiosis or understatement and litotes,
and maybe others that I've forgotten.
Dick Hardin
-----Original Message-----
From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Marshall Grossman
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 1:44 PM
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Subject: Re: Opposite of hyperbole
I think Michael Saenger's response is edifying. When I try to come up
with examples of 'the opposite of hyperbole,' I get hyperbolic
diminutions (My palatial NY apartment was as vast as a phonebooth," "He
was in excellent health, apart from the terminal cancer.") Could it be
that negative hyperbole is still hyperbole because the underlying
procedure is exaggeration, which can function in either direction?
hypobole: var. hype-o-bowl: the state of the union address.
Michael Saenger wrote:
> I've never been comfortable with the notion that any poetic effect
> "emphasizes" anything. My initial reaction was due to students who
> are often taught in high school that alliteration "emphasizes" a
> phrase. In my experience, any careful reading of poetry entails an
> almost perfectly dispersed analysis of "emphasis". Any any apparent
> moment of apparent emphasizing simply turns out to be another form of
> reverberating meaning. To put it bluntly, both hyperbole and
> "understatement", if that'll do, call into question why the speaker
> seeks to add / subtract from the object, and both call attention to
> the text before and after which might explain such a move. For what
> it's worth, my favorite "understatement" is Macbeth's "Twas a rough
> night"; one of the reasons that I like it so much is that, techically,
> it is not an understatement at all, nor really a figure of speech, but
> an accurate indicative.
>
> Michael
>
> Charles Butler wrote:
>
>> I think there are two independent aspects to this question: the
>> effect aimed for, and the formal means used to achieve that effect.
>>
>> If we assume that 'the opposite of hyperbole' is something that
>> achieves the same effect as hyperbole (i.e. a kind of emphasis) but
>> by opposite means (ie by *seeming* to downplay the object described),
>> then litotes might do, although even then it's probably too specific
>> as to form (it would exclude such understatements as 'Here's my
>> "chihuahua"' - with reference to a Great Dane). I'd have thought that
>> meiosis was the better, because more general, term.
>>
>> On the other hand, 'the opposite of hyperbole' might refer to a
>> figure that aims to achieve an effect opposite to that of hyperbole,
>> ie. actually to de-emphasize an object. I'm sure there are figures
>> that do this, but no names spring to mind.
>>
>> Charlie
>
>
>
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