What a fascinating discussion, and thanks to John Leonard for posting
Douglas Kneale's input. I have been much relieved to see the term
"inexpressibility topos" here; that's the one (or its variant,
"indescribability topos") I ended up using to denote this rhetorical
strategy in descriptions (or rather, non-descriptions) of Elizabeth I's
face. It's exciting to see this technique get noticed; it is truly
ubiquitous. In Elizabeth's case, however, the strategy seems to be
motivated as much by the writer's caution as by desire to praise (or
blame her indescribability on one's lack of writing skills--or else on
the shortcomings of language itself).
Best wishes,
Anna
Dr. Anna Riehl
Assistant Professor of English
Co-Director, Auburn Summer in London Program
Auburn University
(334) 844-9006
>>> "James C. Nohrnberg" <[log in to unmask]> 7/14/2010 2:17 PM
>>>
I first met the term
("inexpressibility topos") in E.R.
Curtius, European Lit. and the Latin
Middle Ages, in May 1959-- when I
finally was able to buy the book at
the Kenyon College Book Shop sale for
the year-end markdown of half the
original price.
Inexpressibility vs. Inability: It is
roughly the distinction between "Words
fail me" and "I can't begin to tell
you how much...": see Adynaton--"the
impossibility device"--in the
Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and
Poetics, 3rd edn. But the same volume,
under Topos, says "Among examples
described by Curtius are the
'inexpressibility' t., in which the
poet describes his inability to do his
subject justice".
Obviously related, yet not quite the
same, is the indescribability topos,
as found at the end of Dante with the
impossibility device. A culminating
Spenserian example of the former is
our poet on the theophany of Nature in
Mutabilitie Cantos VII.5-7...9, where
the job is wished off on predecessors
Chaucer and Alanus (modesty topos, in
its way), after citation of the
Transfiguration in the Gospel (not so
modest).
Alanus himself, in his Complaint of
Nature, greets the arrival of Nature
on his own earthly scene with a
welcome, and then he gives her a kind
of psychological exposition of the
closely-related
oblivion-inducing-astonishment topos
(as I'd call it): "Following this I
took refuge in excuses and humble
prayers, begging her not to attribute
to rash error on my part, nor to
impute to contemptuous pride or
ascribe to poisonous ingratitude the
fact that I had performed no joyous or
festive rite to greet her arrival. I
explained that I had been struck by
her appearance as by the emergence of
a phantom of something ananomalous and
monstrous and had been deprived of my
senses by the counterfeit death of a
trance, I said that it was not
surprising that, in the presence of a
divinity so great, my mortal covering
turned pale, that in the noonday of a
majesty so great, my little ray of
judgement faded into the twilight of
misdirection, that, on the appearance
of such bliss, my ragged wretchedness
blushed with shame, since the dark fog
of ignorance, the dulness that is
incapable of controlling shock and
frequent impacts of stupor are allied
by a certain law of kinship with human
frailty, so that from association and
cohabitation with them, frail human
nature, conditioned by living with
them when it was being trained and
shaping its attitudes, is wont to be
beclouded by ignorance on the first
appearance of new things, to be
stricken with stupor by the marvels of
mighty things and to be injured by
shock." This appeal works well in
securing favor with the Nature to whom
it is addressed, and Alanus is
thereupon moved and empowered to utter
a poetical hymn to said goddess with
the initial kind eloquence and
rhetoric St. Bernard shows at the
opening of Paradiso XXXIII, where it
is directed to the Virgin, whom the
saint prays, with a prayer
structurally somewhat like that of
Courtesy at the end of the Romance of
the Rose, to grant the
lover-quester-devotee-narrator his
wish. -- Jim N.
On Wed, 14 Jul 2010 10:53:27 -0700
John Webster
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Lanham (A Handlist of Rhetorical
>Terms) gives adynata as "a stringing
>together of impossibilities.
> Sometimes, a confession that words
>fail us: 'Not if I had a hundred
>mouths, each with an eloquent tongue,
>could I do justice to my feelings for
>you.' "
>
>
> On 7/14/2010 10:37 AM, Harry Berger
>Jr wrote:
>> Good distinction!
>>
>>
>> On Jul 14, 2010, at 10:34 AM, David
>>Miller wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I think it's important to
>>>distinguish the inability topos from
>>>the inexpressibility topos, even if
>>>it's sometimes only a matter of
>>>emphasis: whether the failure of
>>>expression results from the
>>>transcendent qualities of the
>>>subject, from the inherent
>>>limitations of the medium, or from
>>>the professed incapacity of the
>>>artist.
>>>
>>> It's also important to distinguish
>>>the ineffability topos from the
>>>effability topos, but that's another
>>>story . . .
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Jul 14, 2010, at 1:30 PM, Harry
>>>Berger Jr wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> I know there are more technical
>>>>names for it but years and years ago
>>>>Paul Alpers referred to it as the
>>>>inability trope, and that seemed
>>>>pretty good to me at the time.
>>>>
>>>> On Jul 14, 2010, at 9:45 AM, Scott
>>>>Lucas wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Dear all,
>>>>>
>>>>> I would be grateful if someone out
>>>>>there can help me with a question
>>>>>about naming a familiar practice in
>>>>>Renaissance writing. Is there a
>>>>>specific term for the rhetorical
>>>>>strategy of praising someone or
>>>>>something by asserting that he/she/it
>>>>>is so awesomely splendid that words
>>>>>alone cannot express his/her/its
>>>>>splendor? I am working on the
>>>>>chronicler Edward Hall’s presentation
>>>>>of King Henry VIII in his famous
>>>>>Union of the Two Noble and Illustrate
>>>>>Famelies of Lancastre& Yorke (1548),
>>>>>and several times in his text Hall
>>>>>uses this technique to create a sense
>>>>>of wonder in readers for the
>>>>>sumptuous splendor of Henry and his
>>>>>court. For instance:
>>>>>
>>>>> In describing the young King Henry:
>>>>> “The features of his body, his
>>>>>goo[d]ly personage, his amiable
>>>>>vysage, his princely
>>>>>countenaunce…nedeth no rehersall,
>>>>>consideryng, that for lacke of
>>>>>cunning, I cannot expresse the giftes
>>>>>of grace and of nature, that God hath
>>>>>endowed hym with all.”
>>>>>
>>>>> In describing a feast attended by
>>>>>Francis I and Henry VIII during their
>>>>>meeting at the Field of Cloth of
>>>>>Gold: “To tel you the apparel of the
>>>>>ladies, their rych attyres, their
>>>>>sumptuous Juelles, their diversities
>>>>>of beauties, and the goodly behavyor
>>>>>from day to day syth the first
>>>>>meting, I assure you ten mennes
>>>>>wyttes can scace declare it.”
>>>>>
>>>>> In describing Henry’s visit to
>>>>>Calais in 1532 to meet Francis I (and
>>>>>to show off the new Lady Marquess of
>>>>>Pembroke, Anne Boleyn): “To tell the
>>>>>ryches of the clothes of estates, the
>>>>>basens and other vessels whiche was
>>>>>there occupied, I assure you my wit
>>>>>is insufficient…”
>>>>>
>>>>> [The last few lines of Donne’s “The
>>>>>Relic,” it seems to me, also employ a
>>>>>variation on this strategy.]
>>>>>
>>>>> In a conference paper I gave a while
>>>>>back, I referred to this strategy as
>>>>>“occupatio,” but in a 1977 article
>>>>>discussing that term, Henry A. Kelly
>>>>>argues that “occupatio” should only
>>>>>be used to describe a speaker’s
>>>>>addressing of an opponent’s argument
>>>>>before the opponent has a chance to
>>>>>bring it up him-/herself.
>>>>>
>>>>> Closer to the mark seems to be the
>>>>>term preterition/praeteritio, though
>>>>>the OED’s definition of this word as
>>>>>“a figure in which attention is drawn
>>>>>to something by professing to omit
>>>>>it” doesn’t quite capture the full
>>>>>effect of Hall’s rhetoric, which does
>>>>>not merely draw attention to a
>>>>>subject but specifically creates an
>>>>>aura of awe around it by claiming
>>>>>that the author simply cannot put its
>>>>>greatness into words. Nor does the
>>>>>label “occulatio” seem precisely to
>>>>>fit. Kelly suggests this term as a
>>>>>replacement for the use of
>>>>>“occupatio” when referring to a type
>>>>>of preterition in which a speaker
>>>>>seeks to suggest that “we are passing
>>>>>by, or do not know, or refuse to say
>>>>>that which precisely now we are
>>>>>saying” (the quote is from the
>>>>>definition of occupatio [translated
>>>>>as paralipsis in the Loeb Library
>>>>>translation] in Rhetorica ad
>>>>>Herrenium 4.27.37, which Kelly says
>>>>>classical scholars agree should
>>>>>correctly be the definition of
>>>>>“occulatio”).
>>>>>
>>>>> If anyone has an opinion about which
>>>>>term might best describe Hall’s
>>>>>strategy of “conveying praise by
>>>>>claiming that the subject is so
>>>>>praiseworthy it is beyond his ability
>>>>>properly to praise it,” I’d
>>>>>appreciate it!
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>
>>>>> Scott
>>>>>
>>>>> P.S. The H. A. Kelly article to
>>>>>which I referred above is “Occupatio
>>>>>as Negative Narration: A Mistake for
>>>>>‘Occultatio/Praeteritio’," Modern
>>>>>Philology 74.3 (1977): 311-315.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Scott Lucas
>>>>> Professor of English
>>>>> The Citadel, the Military College of
>>>>>South Carolina
>>>>> Charleston, SC 29409
>>>>>
>>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>>>
[log in to unmask]
James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
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