Almost all of the topoi and devices 
discussed might fall under an umbrella 
of "rhetorical/narrational/reportorial 
impossibility topoi."  Or say the 
disfunctionality device.  -- jcn

On Wed, 14 Jul 2010 21:58:18 -0400
  Scott Lucas <[log in to unmask]> 
wrote:
> Thanks to everyone for these very 
>helpful comments!  I believe the
> "inability topos" is what I'm 
>looking for, a strategy made all the 
>more
> effective in Hall due to the 
>manifest power of eloquent (i.e. 
>copious)
> description he displays all 
>throughout his chronicle.  His 
>expressions of
> inability I think are included to 
>make readers exclaim "well, if 
>*Edward
> Hall* can't describe it, it must 
>really be spectacular beyond words!" 
> This
> is inability suggesting 
>ineffability.
> 
> Hall does include at least one 
>instance of the "innumerability 
>topos" James
> Nohrnberg mentions.  In describing a 
>feast put on by Katherine of Aragon 
>for
>Francis I at the Field of Cloth of 
>Gold, Hall writes "In presence lacked
> neither clothes of estat nor other 
>riches, for to shew the multitude of
> silver and golde there that day, it 
>were impossible: for all the noble 
>men
> were served in gilte vessel, and all 
>other in silver vessell."  That must
> have been a lot of dishes!  Janette 
>Dillon notes that an Italian present 
>at
> the Field of Cloth of Gold observed 
>that there was so much food and wine
> served at the English feasts that 
>attendees started choking.  We can 
>only
> hope that the royal chemist brought 
>an "impossible" amount of bicarbonate 
>of
> soda.
> 
> Thanks again,
> 
> Scott
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 3:22 PM, 
>Michael Saenger
> <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> 
>> There's a distinction based on the 
>>reason for a falling off of words
>> (excessive value, unable speaker) 
>>but there's another set of 
>>distinctions
>> for the affective frame; wonder is 
>>one option, but so is fear.  A more
>> genuine fear is aporia, and a less 
>>genuine fear is aposiopesis.  The 
>>former
>> is what happens to Lear several 
>>times, and the latter is what Antony 
>>uses to
>> make insinuations.
>>
>>
>> Quoting David Miller 
>><[log in to unmask]>:
>>
>>
>>>
>>> On Jul 14, 2010, at 2:25 PM, Colin 
>>>Burrow wrote:
>>>
>>>  It might be an idea to have another 
>>>look at the chapter on the
>>>> inexpressibility topos in E.R. 
>>>>Curtius’s European Literature and the 
>>>>Latin
>>>> Middle Ages. It will certainly give 
>>>>plenty of examples of moments where 
>>>>the
>>>> describer amplifies the wonder of 
>>>>the thing described by emphasising 
>>>>his own
>>>> inadequacy or that of words 
>>>>themselves. I can’t remember if 
>>>>Curtius firmly
>>>> beds the convention down in the 
>>>>rhetorical tradition; I suspect not. 
>>>>There’s
>>>> a long line of panegyric practice 
>>>>behind Hall’s descriptive technique,
>>>> though.
>>>>
>>>> A couple of the passages you quote 
>>>>from Hall are quite suggestive in
>>>> their use of ‘tell’. Hall as I 
>>>>remember was partly using household
>>>> account-books for the Henry VIII 
>>>>section of the chronicle, which is 
>>>>why the
>>>> chronicle of that reign draws such 
>>>>attention to the physical opulence of 
>>>>the
>>>> occasions he describes. So when he 
>>>>says he cannot ‘tell’ he means 
>>>>partly, I
>>>> suspect, that he can’t quite manage 
>>>>to calculate how much it all cost
>>>> (adding up all those gold ewers etc 
>>>>must get tough if you’re trying to
>>>> finish off a chronicle), punning on 
>>>>OED   II. To mention numerically, to
>>>> count, reckon. Which I suppose takes 
>>>>us back to Sidney’s ‘What tongue can
>>>> her perfections tell’—all those fine 
>>>>threads of finest gold get pretty 
>>>>hard
>>>> to count after a while. I think that 
>>>>the inexpressibility topos is 
>>>>sometimes
>>>> also as it were a innumerability 
>>>>topos—I can’t ‘tell’ as in ‘relate’ 
>>>>but
>>>> also count all that sumptuous stuff. 
>>>>(OED ‘tell’ 4c has several examples 
>>>>of
>>>> the inexpressibility topos, 
>>>>incidentally)
>>>>
>>>
>>> Very suggestive, and I think this 
>>>finds some confirmation in Spenser's
>>> description of how the Castle 
>>>Joyeous affects Britomart and 
>>>Redcrosse when
>>> they enter to behold the 'exceeding 
>>>cost / Of every pillour and of every
>>> post'.   The inexpressibility topos 
>>>occurs in st. 32 of III.i and again 
>>>in
>>> st. 33, which ends with the visitors 
>>>wondering 'whence so sumptuous guize 
>>>/
>>> Might be maintayned'.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Colin Burrow
>>>> Senior Research Fellow
>>>> All Souls College
>>>> Oxford OX1 4AL
>>>> From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List 
>>>>[mailto:
>>>> [log in to unmask]] On 
>>>>Behalf Of Scott Lucas
>>>> Sent: 14 July 2010 17:45
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>> Subject: SIDNEY-SPENSER: Renaissance 
>>>>rhetoric question
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 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