Enargia
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a general term for language that paints vivid descriptions before the eyes of an audience; from the Greek enarges, meaning 'visible, palpable, manifest'
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Examples
President Nixon describes his parents
Nixon's farewell to the White House Staff, Richard Nixon Foundation, 1974 |
Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins
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The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.
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Purpose
Vividness Captures & Moves
We can use vivid descriptions to move the emotions with figures of similarity and difference and figures of expansion and contraction. Experiments show that the more vividly we describe things, the better audiences remember them.
Usage
Figures of description that produce enargia generally make or combine pathos appeals with other appeals. Usage notes are given here and on other pages.
Describing a Person's Physical Attributes, Habits & Conduct
We can use Classical figures to describe people and characters:
- characterismus: describe physical attributes
- effictio: describe a person's body
- ethopoeia: describe a person's character, manners, dispositions
J.K. Rowling
Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning.
Inventing or Recounting a Dialogue
We can bring things to life with dialogismus. We recount or invent a dialogue to emphasize action, importance, a person's character, speech, arguments, etc. Winston Churchill used this often.
Churchill urges parliament to prepare for war, in 1939
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Prime Minister Churchill announces Britain's war policy in 1940
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They will say to me, 'A Minister of Supply is not necessary, for all is going well.' I deny it. 'The position is satisfactory.' It is not true. 'All is proceeding according to plan.' We know what that means.
(Also contains irony, short and simple words, tricolon)
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(Also contains, alliteration, anaphora, hyperbole, metaphor, repetition, short and simple words, tricolon.)
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Imitating an Other
We 'perform' our identities. A lawyer is not just a law degree graduate, for example. She dresses like a lawyer, speaks to a client like a lawyer, advocates and consults like a lawyer, lives like a lawyer - she performs the role of lawyer. We must build, inhabit and perform our identities and characters so we become our parts in our worlds. Only then will we merit the respect, or ethos, our roles attract.
P.G. Wodehouse
The room assigned by the firm to their Mr. Boole for his personal use was a small and dingy compartment redolent of that atmosphere of desolation which lawyers alone know how to achieve. It gave the impression of not having been swept since the foundation of the firm in the year 1786.
Speech is one of the most important identity performances. Whether we're advocating for our client, delivering a wedding speech, a sincere apology or a presidential address to the nation, we perform our multiple identities. We learn these performances by copying others. The Classical term is mimesis. Other types of mimesis include modern 'method acting' and parodying the powerful and the famous for comic effect.
Henry Peacham
The perfect Orator by this figure both causeth great attention, and also bringeth much delight to the hearers, for whether he imitateth a wise man, or a foole, a man learned or unlearned, isolent or modest, merrie or sorrowful, bold or fearfull, eloquent or rude, he reteineth the hearer in a diligent attention, and that for a threefold utilitie, in the imitated gesture a pleasure to the eie, in the voice a delight to the eare, and in the sense, a proft to the wit and understanding.
Five months after first becoming prime minister, Tony Blair paid tribute to Princess Diana the morning after her death was announced. These kinds of performances intimidate performers. The world is watching, but the performer has no performance to imitate. Opinion divided over whether Blair's performance was sincere or affected.
Tony Blair's tribute to Princess Diana, BBC News, 1997
Using Present Tense for the Past
We can bring the past to life by describing it with the present tense. The technical terms are 'historical present' or 'vision.' We often do this when recounting our experiences.
Samuel Kirkham
Vision is produced, when, in relating something that is past, we use the present tense and describe it as actually passing before our eyes.
Vision is produced, when, in relating something that is past, we use the present tense and describe it as actually passing before our eyes.
Charles Dickens
(David Copperfield describing when he went to his mother's funeral)
(David Copperfield describing when he went to his mother's funeral)
I remark this, because I remark everything that happens, not because I care about myself, or have done since I came home. And now the bell begins to sound, and Mr. Omer and another come to make us ready. As Peggotty was wont to tell me, long ago, the followers of my father to the same grave were made ready in the same room. There are Mr. Murdstone, our neighbour Mr. Grayper, Mr Chillip and I. When we go out to the door, the Bearers and their load are in the garden; and they move before us down the path, and past the elms, and through the gate, and into the churchyard, where I have so often heard the birds sing on a summer morning.
Vividness in Literature
Vivid literature is good literature. Writers use many techniques of vividness to bring texts to life and to relay the qualia of experience. In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, below, James Joyce vividly describes a corporal punishment inflicted by striking the open palm with a wide leather strap. The reader experiences this pain through simile, metaphor and synesthetic vocabulary.
James Joyce
A hot burning stinging tingling blow like the loud crack of a broken stick made his trembling hand crumple together like a leaf in the fire: and at the sound and the pain scalding tears were driven into his eyes. His whole body was shaking with fright, his arm was shaking and his crumpled burning livid hand shook like a loose leaf in the air. A cry sprang to his lips, a prayer to be let off. But though the tears scalded his eyes and his limbs quivered with pain and fright he held back the hot tears and the cry that scalded his throat.
P.G. Wodehouse
In Something Fresh by P.G Wodehouse, the character Ashe Marson needs to divert the dinner guests to avoid an embarrassing situation for Joan, the girl he loves. So he describes a cat-fight.