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Synesthesia
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to describe things through sensory domains, and especially sensory incongruity; not a Classical rhetorical term but a common literary device
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Examples
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Byron
The music breathing from her face P.G. Wodehouse The girl had a quiet but speaking eye. Keats And like a rose in vermeil tint and shape, In fragrance soft, and coolness to the eye |
Everyday
a bitter look [sight as taste] loud colours [sight as sound] sweet silence [sound as taste] You're so cool! [person as touch] She gave me a sour look. [sight as taste] a rough day at work [experience as touch] The garden is a riot of colour. [sight as sound] the stench of corruption [abstraction as smell] |
Purpose
Experiential Vividness
We experience the world through the senses so synesthetic representations help us see, taste, touch, hear and smell those world representations. Stronger sense representations create more immediate experiences. Synesthetic representations can be sub-classes of the five senses or additional senses.
a sharp sorrow [sadness as the pain sense of touch]
heavy reluctance [willingness as the sense of weight]
dizzy contortions [movement as the sense of balance]
burning passion [love as the temperature sense of touch]
pulsating gunfire [sound as the vibration sense of touch and movement]
heavy reluctance [willingness as the sense of weight]
dizzy contortions [movement as the sense of balance]
burning passion [love as the temperature sense of touch]
pulsating gunfire [sound as the vibration sense of touch and movement]
Usage
Sweet Victory but Sour Defeat?
To use synesthesia we have to know which senses to combine. Only a few senses combine well with other things. Touch applies well to sound and sight. Taste and smell can give positive and negative evaluations.
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Touch as sound and sight
a gravelly voice the cold colours of winter |
Taste as positive and negative
bitter defeat sweet victory |
Smell as positive and negative
the odour of betrayal the sweet perfume of success |
The Complementarity Rule
To use synesthesia well we must find complementarity between the senses and the things described. Metaphor also follows this rule. But sensory incongruity can also work well.
Sensory Incongruity
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P.G. Wodehouse
Below the surface of a frost-bound garden there lurk hidden bulbs which are only biding their time to burst forth in a riot of laughing colour.
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