Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric. Ward Farnsworth

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СКАЧАТЬ the paragraph in question, to make it appear to be a libel; and I hope that I may be allowed to try if I cannot twine and twist it till it appears not to be a libel.

      Flood, speech in the House of Commons (circa 1764)

      2. Parallel elaboration. Symploce can be used to make a second statement elaborate on the first. The speaker offers two claims, using the same vocabulary and structure for each; a minor variation in the middle makes them distinct, but rhetorically as well as conceptually parallel.

      Everything in the English government appears to me the reverse of what it ought to be, and of what it is said to be.

      Paine, The American Crisis (1783)

      For he who does not love art in all things does not love it at all, and he who does not need art in all things does not need it at all.

      Wilde, The English Renaissance of Art (1882)

      He spoke with consummate ability to the bench, and yet exactly as, according to every sound canon of taste and ethics, the bench ought to be addressed. He spoke with consummate ability to the jury, and yet exactly as, according to every sound canon, that totally different tribunal ought to be addressed.

      Choate, eulogy for Daniel Webster (1853)

      This form of the device is often used to express continuity despite a change in tense.

      “Let me leave it alone, then,” said Scrooge. “Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!”

      Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843)

      I here challenge any person in his five wits to tell me what that woman was sent to prison for. Either it was for being poor, or it was for being ill. Nobody could suggest, nobody will suggest, nobody, as a matter of fact, did suggest, that she had committed any other crime.

      Chesterton, The Mad Official (1912)

      3. Extended uses. Most of the examples so far have involved two claims with minor variations in the middle of them. More extended patterns also are possible, usually involving three or four parts. The typical idea then isn’t to ring in a correction or twist on the first statement; it is to present a series of claims in a way that throws their commonality or connection into relief.

      a. Changes of a noun; as when describing several things as similar or as meeting the same fate.

      In that room he found three gentlemen; number one doing nothing particular, number two doing nothing particular, number three doing nothing particular.

      Dickens, Little Dorrit (1857)

      Everything about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was new, their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures were new, they themselves were new, they were as newly married as was lawfully compatible with their having a bran-new baby. . . .

      Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (1865)

      Those examples involve changes in the subject of the sentence; here is the same idea with a change made in the object:

      They will have their courts still; they will have their ballot-boxes still; they will have their elections still; they will have their representatives upon this floor still; they will have taxation and representation still; they will have the writ of habeas corpus still; they will have every privilege they ever had and all we desire.

      Baker, speech in the Senate (1861)

      The general effect in all the cases just seen is similar. The differences between the examples are made subordinate to the points they have in common. That last passage could as easily – probably more easily – have been written by putting still closer to the middle of each clause (they will still have, etc.); pushing it to the end lends the word more weight and makes the statements seem more completely parallel. And think a bit about the sound of the word. Still is a single accented syllable ending with a liquid consonant – meaning, for our purposes, a consonant that is made without friction and that can be sustained when it is said, almost like a vowel (unlike, say, ck, which stops, or p, which explodes). If still goes into the middle of a sentence it can easily be truncated, with its ending lost in the movement to the next word. When it ends a sentence, still gets sounded out more completely and it invites a little pause afterwards. So the use of epistrophe gives the word a more forceful sound as well as a more forceful placement.

      b. Changes of a modifier; as when describing the same thing several ways.

      They were not respectable people – they were not worthy people – they were not learned and wise and brilliant people – but in their breasts, all their stupid lives long, resteth a peace that passeth understanding!

      Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)

      Each modifier gets its own clause, and the thing under discussion is carved up into categories as the speaker goes along. These constructions also tend to give the modifiers more power than they would have had if strung on a list. When most of the words in each clause are the same, the stress in reading or speaking them falls hard on the changed adjective.

      I’ll state the fact of it to you. It’s the pleasantest work there is, and it’s the lightest work there is, and it’s the best-paid work there is.

      Dickens, Hard Times (1854)

      I believe, in spite of recent events, there is as great a store of kindness in the German peasant as in any peasant in the world. But he has been drilled into a false idea of civilization, – efficiency, capability. It is a hard civilization; it is a selfish civilization; it is a material civilization.

      Lloyd George, International Honour (1914)

      The same theme is useful for comparing the same two things in different respects:

      I am a donkey, that’s what I am. I am as obstinate as one, I am more stupid than one, I get as much pleasure as one, and I should like to kick like one.

      Dickens, Hard Times (1854)

      c. Changes of the verb; as when describing the same person doing or not doing different things in the same way.

      When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

      1 Corinthians 13:11

      He confiscates, as your fathers did; he banishes as they did; he debases as they did; he violates the instincts of human nature, and from the parent tears the child, as they did; and he inflicts upon a Catholic people a church alien to their national habits, feelings, and belief as you do.

      Sheil, speech in the House of Commons (1836)

      [T]he legislature shall pass no act directly and manifestly impairing private property and private privileges. It shall not judge by act. It shall not decide by act. It shall not deprive by act. But it shall leave all these things to be tried and adjudged by the law of the land.

      Webster, argument in Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1818)

      You knew what was going to happen. You intended it to happen. You wanted it to happen. You are glad it has happened; СКАЧАТЬ