Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric

Ward Farnsworth

• Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781567924671
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Rhétorique

"I must refrain from shouting what a brilliant work this is (præteritio). Farnsworth has written the book as he ought to have written it – and as only he could have written it (symploce). Buy it and read it – buy it and read it (epimone)."—Bryan A. Garner, Garner's Modern English Usage Everyone speaks and writes in patterns. Farnsworth is your guide to patterns known as rhetorical figures that can make your words more emphatic, memorable, and effective. This book details the timeless principles of rhetoric from Ancient Greece to the present day, drawing on examples in the English language of consummate masters of prose, such as Lincoln, Churchill, Dickens, Melville, and Burke.
Most rhetorical figures amount to departures from simple and literal statement, such as repeating words, putting words into an unexpected order, leaving out words that might have been expected, asking questions and then answering them. All apply to the composition of a simple sentence or paragraph—repetition and variety, suspense and relief, concealment and surprise, the creation of expectations and then the satisfaction or frustration of them. Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric is for anyone who wants to be a better speaker or writer.

Parallel Structure:

Isocolon

Isocolon (ai-so-co-lon), one of the most common and important rhetorical figures, is the use of successive sentences, clauses, or phrases similar in length and parallel in structure. An example familiar to the modern American ear was uttered by John Kennedy in his inaugural address of 1961:

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

In some cases of isocolon the structural match may be so complete that the number of syllables in each phrase is the same; in the more common case the parallel clauses just use the same parts of speech in the same order. The device can produce pleasing rhythms, and the parallel structures it creates may helpfully reinforce a parallel substance in the speaker’s claims. We have encountered isocolon a few times already, and here we also will see further examples of anaphora and other such repetitive devices familiar from earlier chapters. Repetition of structure and of words often go well together.

Isocolon, like anaphora, tends to mark an utterance as stylish and oratorical, so like all rhetorical devices – only more so – it has to be used with sensitivity to the occasion. An excessive or clumsy use of the device can create too glaring a finish and too strong a sense of calculation. Brutus’s funeral oration in Julius Caesar is the classic example. The speech is eloquent, and makes constant use of isocolon (some examples appear below) – so constant that the result seems a little overpolished and off-putting, and sets up the audience to be carried away soon afterwards by Antony’s speech, which has a less studied feel. (Antony’s speech is full of guile, and for that matter full of rhetorical figures, but they are a bit subtler.)

1. To make two claims about the same subject. A common occasion for isocolon arises when the speaker wishes to make multiple claims about the same thing. For that purpose the doublet is useful: two statements with parallel structure.

[A]t the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.

Proverbs 23:32

They who bow to the enemy abroad, will not be of power to subdue the conspirator at home.

Burke, Letter on the Proposals for Peace with the Regicide Directory of France (1797)

In both of these examples it is obvious enough how the parts of speech line up in the first and second halves of each passage. (In Burke’s case: bow/subdue, enemy/conspirator, abroad/at home.) But observe also the identical rhythms. This is plainer in the line from Proverbs; here are the matching phrases in Burke’s example with their accents highlighted: who bow to the enemy abroad, and subdue the conspirator at home. In each phrase the same number of unstressed syllables lies between the stressed ones, making the result a very thorough instance of isocolon.

The more common use of the device lines up the parts of speech but not the accents, as here:

He was a morose, savage-hearted, bad man: idle and dissolute in his habits; cruel and ferocious in his disposition.

Dickens, The Pickwick Papers (1837)

There is alignment in the last two phrases between the parts of speech, and also in the count of the syllables in the adjectives (idle/cruel; dissolute/ferocious). But there is some variation elsewhere, as in the length of the nouns at the end (habits/disposition) and in the arrangement of the stresses. This partial repetition doesn’t make the result a less successful case of isocolon. As we have seen elsewhere, it often is rhetorically attractive to let variety in some elements serve as a counterpoint to repetition in others.

In each of the examples just shown, the speaker’s parallel claims were consistent and pointed in the same direction. But one also can use isocolon to make comparisons and emphasize the contrast between two claims.

Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.

Congreve, The Old Bachelor, 5, 1 (1693)

Women of the class to which I allude are always talking of their rights, but seem to have a most indifferent idea of their duties.

Trollope, North America (1862)

Judges, jurors, and spectators seemed equally indifferent to justice, and equally eager for revenge.

Macaulay, Sir James Mackintosh (1835)

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

Emerson, Worship (1860)

All-strong without, he is all-weak within.

Churchill, radio broadcast to the United States (1938)

The line from Emerson is another fairly complete case of isocolon, as it employs similar rhythms in each half. Both clauses use a pair of dactyls – that is, two rounds of syllables where a stressed one is followed by two that are not stressed: first,“the louder he talked of his”; then,“the faster we counted our”). The rhythmic similarity of the two halves creates a felt sense of symmetry between the talking and its consequences. Notice, though, that the clauses end differently, the first with an unstressed syllable (honor) and the second with a stressed one (spoons). The stressed ending draws the sentence to a firm close and, along with the concrete image (counting the spoons), it brings the sound of the sentence down to earth in a way that again matches its substance.

We will consider more extended uses of antithesis below.

2. Triplets. So far all of our examples have involved doublets. The repeated structure can be extended, naturally, to three elements or more. The arrangement of three parallel claims about the same subject creates a little sense of symmetry; the progress of the claims may be felt to have a beginning, middle, and end. Strictly speaking these are cases of tricolon, but the more precise term is fussy out of proportion to its utility.

The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.

Johnson, letter to the Earl of Chesterfield (1755)

That this inhuman policy was a disgrace to the Colony, a dishonor to the Legislature, and a scandal to human nature, we need not at this enlightened period labor to prove.

Pinkney, speech in the Maryland State Assembly (1788)

That “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” is a saying which has now got currency as a ...