Course XXXIII - Teaching 3: Figures of Words and Thought

Strictly speaking, “figure” is to change the use or meaning of words, which facilitates the speech. These forms of thought or language should be of two essential features, which are rightly called by this name: they may be easily replaced by a simpler form or by certain non-figured form, and they may express an idea or thought more vividly, graciously or energetically.
“Figures” are a natural expression of certain moods or changes in the soul, which demand an essential language, so to speak, according the spiritual state and that you cannot find exclusively through logical and grammatical constructions, but through this “figured” language. They are not art inventions; a violent, though and uneducated man uses and applies a figured language. The rhetorical art simply teaches how to use rightly such figures or, rather, it has discovered and classified them. And thence it has brought rules for their better use.
Being considered as licenses, in order to give variety, beauty and energy to words, they are called “construction figures” by the Spanish grammar. These “construction figures” –here referred simply for information and complementing those figures that will be seen separately and closely– are just four, respectively: hyperbaton, ellipsis, pleonasm and syllepsis.
Verbal figures:
Repetition: that of the same word in the beginning of every clause, member or sentence. Cicero says: “Scipio rendered Numantia, Scipio destroyed Carthage, Scipio saved Rome from its collapse through fire”. “You try nothing, you plot nothing, you think of nothing”.
Conversion: when you repeat certain word at the end of every clause, member or sentence, not in the beginning. Again Cicero says: “Do you cry for three armies that has been lost? Anthony has lost them. Are you sorry for your more illustrious citizens? Anthony has stolen it from you…”.
Complexion: union of two previous words, by beginning and ending sentences with the same term: “Who has broken treaties? Carthage. Who has devastated Italy? Carthage…”.
Co-duplication: consecutive repetition of the same word in the same sentence: “You live, you live in order to increase your boldness, not to renounce to lay it aside”.
Gradation: ascent or descent of your thought through the speech. It can be upward or downward. Upward gradation: “A horse-shoe may be lost by one nail, a horse by one horse-shoe, and a knight by one horse”. Downward gradation: “He is not interested in humanity, or in nations, and much less in individuals”.
Thought figures:
Figures to give or know objects.
Description and enumeration: if the object is unique, you should describe it; if objects are several, then you should enumerate them.
Figures to communicated reasoning and reflection.
Comparison: like metaphor, but it is hidden behind a metaphor, and open in a comparison.
Antithesis: if comparison is based on similarity, antithesis should be based on opposition. You should emphasize the contrast by describing quite properly the two opposite sides.
Figures to tone down certain idea.
Preterition: you pretend to silence or give a little hint to something, but in fact this is an artifice because you state it quite clearly and you fix it by means of some few –but very marked¬– traits. Reticence: through this figure an orator apparently repress his fire or momentum by virtue of certain discretion or moderation at that moment, so he feels obliged to stop in order to keep the idea or sentence that he was about to express.
Figures to express and move the spirits.
Interrogation: it is the most eager, strong and pressing figure.
Subjection: through this figure an orator asks his adversary or audience, and it is he who gives the answer.
Dubitation: through this figure an orator apparently hesitates about what to say or how to act, even though he knows it quite well and has previously solved it.
Exclamation: the expression of certain wish (“If only Mila would put out this lamp!” “If only gods wish his mouth pours out…!”).
Deprecation: expressing certain wish along with an entreaty to a person who accepts his pleading. Imprecation: threats and curses.
Commination: its purpose is intimidation by displaying certain evil that the audience may undergo. Apostrophe: the orator lays aside the audience by addressing to absent objects, God, Earth, the dead and even inanimate or metaphysical beings.
Personification (impersonation) and prosopopoeia: this thought figure brings into motion insensible things, feelings and passions as if they were endowed with action and word.
Also there are many other figures, as much of words as of thoughts. They are not referred here because we consider those capital figures for the speech and because most of them are a repetition of the above-mentioned by refining on certain aspects generally included in this list. (So, to figures tending to communicate reasoning and reflection, we might add concession, correction or amplification, but always it would be comparison and antithesis.)