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I agree -- this has been a fun and useful discussion. Harry, I always thought the opposite of "hyperbole" was understatement, but darned if I know its fancy title. One of my favorite examples has always been Wordsworth's "But she is in her grave, and oh/ The difference to me." By the way, Milton does something new and interesting with transferred epithets in Lycidas (and elsewhere) -- e.g., "gust of rugged wings...beaked promontory" -- almost a t.e. chiasmus! Happy new year to all, Susanne On Tue, 10 Jan 2006 10:30:00 -0800 "Harry Berger, Jr." <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Thanks esp. to Dorothy and Andrew for a great exchange. It was short >but I learned a lot. Made me think again about Sp's uses of the >subclasses of hyperbole called auxesis and meiosis. Incidentally, >what's the opposite of hyperbole? I wish it were hypobole, but >that's too silly-sounding to be true. -h > > >> My thanks to everyone who replied both on and off the list. Andrew, >>your observations are gorgeous and are surely spot on; I may have to >>quote you. Spenser's transferred epithets fascinate me partly >>because their effects in English are more striking than they would be >>in more highly inflected languages, where freely-floating epithets >>are a dime a dozen. Spenser seems to have been pleased to find that >>with this particular figure of speech, the lesser flexibility of his >>native English was actually a boon. As with allegory itself, the >>very stubbornness of the material--its reluctance to name what it is >>naming--becomes a virtue. >> >>Dorothy