Using Rhetorical/Poetical FIGURES for Powerful, Impactful, and Memorable Writing Style: Part One—TROPES & SCHEMES
When it comes to the DEVICES of Rhetoric and Poetics, the Ancient Greek RHETORS discovered and named them over two-and-a-half millennia ago. Some of these “Ways With Words” are really “figurative,” in that they put into words things that are not literally true. Figurative language is intended to be indirect and evocative and thought and feeling provoking or inspiring—putting ideas into words that, perhaps, are better conveyed by more suggestive, symbolic, or relational approaches. On the other hand, some “figures” of language—just as there are recognizable “figures” of geometry: triangle, pentagon, polyhedron, etc.—are simply distinctive shapes of language as well, distinctive patterns of words.
The first, truly “figurative” type and group of figures are called TROPES. The second, literal figures of language are called SCHEMES [Schemata].
The TROPES include things that you’ve been taught (or which were at least presented to you—whether or not you took them to heart [or mind or memory])—figures such as: SIMILE, METAPHOR, PERSONIFICATION, OXYMORON, etc.
The SCHEMES are things that you’ve likely NOT bumped into unless you’ve done a more formal examination of RHETORIC than “Freshman Comp.” Some of them, such as ALLITERATION, PARALLELISM, RHYME, etc. you’ve almost certainly encountered. But it’s less likely you’ve been introduced to METONYMY, CHIASMUS, TRICOLON, ASYNDETON, etc.
If these things fall into the uses of language that are still “all Greek to me,” then that’s because they are. The language of Rhetoric and the language of Poetics have not changed over the millennia and are, for consistancy’s sake across various modern tongues, Ancient Greek constructions.
But don’t get the idea that a bunch of old Greek guys (Rhetors, Poets, Speechmakers) INVENTED these figures. Just as the Greeks saw the bloated, sort of horse-like thing in the rivers of Africa and called it a “hippo-potamus” (“the horse of the river”), so they observed fellow humans using language in interesting and nifty ways and gave those already-existant uses names. The figures are DESCRIPTIVE of language use and not INVENTIONS. Or, even if invented somewhere back in the dimmest pre-history of human languages, the inventors have been dust for many thousands, likely tens of thousands of years.
I’ll turn first to the TROPES in my next posting. Specifically to the TROPES OF COMPARISON.
