Hyperbole - denten-courses/metaphor-media GitHub Wiki
Synthesis
Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device, often used to emphasize and create feelings of strong emotions or impressions. Hyperbole though is not only used for the purpose of rhetoric, but rather it is used in every day language to deepen an impression.
Quintilian, portrayed this idea best: “an elegant straining of the truth.” When hyperbole is used, the author is not lying to the reader and trying steer him or her off course, but rather the author is making a big deal about one even. It is important though to note that when a hyperbole is employed the author cannot exaggerate their point too much; this action could cause the audience to reject the preaching from the text. Hyperbole should be used as a microphone to explain and amplify the idea at hand.
In accordance with Quintilian, Erasmus, noted that we can know the truth by hearing falsities first, and also through hearing hyperboles. This is an interesting idea because within the two – falsehoods and hyperboles – there must be some exemplification of truth. It seems here that not only can hyperbole be used for exaggeration of an idea for rhetorical purposes, but also as a more practical way to find the truth. Hyperbole seems to have transformed poetry and other rhetorical methods into something practical.
Poetry did not initially begin this way as Condillac explains; poetry was once intended to create figurative and metaphorical pieces of work. This initial form of poetry was just meant to be beautiful and exemplify the beauty of metaphor rather than to include harsh exaggerations. But as people became more passionate about their works it was only natural for poetry to develop into some sort of exaggeration or strain of the truth, which follows a similar sentiment to Diderot. Diderot said we have a desire to exaggerate our qualities. Our qualities often stem from our passions, so due to this we place a great emphasis on both.
Hyperbole began as merely a rhetorical device but evolved to be something we find ourselves using in everyday life. We do this because we like people to know our passions and our best qualities, as Diderot explained. The use of hyperbole will only further evolve from here as people find new ideas or topics to emphasize.
Quotes
“It means an elegant straining of the truth, and may be employed indifferently for exaggeration or attenuation. It can be used in various ways. We may say more than the actual facts, as when Cicero says, “He vomited and filled his lap and the whole tribunal with fragments of food or when Virgil speaks of ‘Twin rocks that threaten heaven.’” “Hyperbole may be heightened by the addition of another, as when Cicero in denouncing Antony says: ‘What Charybdis ever existed, she was but a single monster. By heaven, even Oceans self, methinks, could scarce have engulfed so many things, so widely scattered in such distant places, in such a twinkling of the eye’.” “For although every hyperbole involves the incredible, it must not go too far in this direction, which provides the easiest road to extravagant affectation…It is enough to say that hyperbole lies, though without any intention to deceive. (We must therefore be all the more careful to consider how far we may go in exaggerating faces which our audience may refuse to believe. Again hyperbole will often cause a laugh. If that was what the orator desired, we may give him credit for it; otherwise we can only call him a fool. Hyperbole is employed even by peasants and uneducated persons, for the good reason that everybody has an innate passion for exaggeration or attenuation of actual facts and no one is ever contented with the simple truth…Hyperbole is, moreover, a virtue, when the subject on which we have to speak is abnormal . For we are allowed to amplify, when the magnitude of the facts passes all words, and in such circumstances our language will be more effective if it goes beyond the truth than if it falls short."
Quintilian - Institutes of Oratory - Vol. III Book VIII
"Next comes hyperbole, for which someone invented the Latin term super-latio 'exaggeration.' In this, as Seneca says, we reach the truth by saying something which is obviously false. Hyperbole says more than the situation warrants, yet the truth can be inferred from the falsehood: for example, he could split rocks with his never-ending chatter; to touch heaven with one's finger; swifter than the east wind; swifter than the wings of the thunder; I shall strike the stars with my exalted head."
Erasmus - De Copia - Volume 24, Ch. 28, pg 344
"Finally, poetry was extremely figurative and metaphorical, for we are informed that the Oriental languages allow figures even in their prose that are rarely used in Latin poetry. It is therefore among the Oriental poets that enthusiasm created the greatest deviations from order; it is in their poetry that the passions displayed themselves with colors that would seem exaggerated to us. But I am not sure we have the right to blame them. They did not feel things as we do, so it follows that their expressions would not be the same as ours.”
Étienne Bonnot de Condillac - Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge - pg. 154
“We have such a strong desire to exaggerate our qualities, and make little of our defects, that it would seem man’s part to write a treatise on force, and animals’ on reason.”
Dennis Diderot - "Letter on the Blind" - pg. 76
Examples
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Being told something a million times
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Being so hungry one could eat a horse
“Sometimes an expression is metaphorical as ‘Now all gods and men were sleeping through the night’…’All’ is here used metaphorically for ‘many’ all being a species of many. So in the verse ‘alone she hath no part…,’alone’ is metaphorical; for the best known may be called the only one.”
Aristotle, Poetics - Book XXV Verse 10
“For departure from the ordinary makes it appear more dignified.”
Aristotle - Rhetoric - Book III, Ch. 2
“Men admire what is remote, and that which excited admiration is pleasant.”
Aristotle - Rhetoric - Book III, Ch. 2
“He rushed on like a lion” —> “a lion, he rushed on”
Aristotle - Rhetoric - Book III, Ch. 4
“He is so sensitive to the least atmospheric change, that he can distinguish between a street and a closed alley.”
Dennis Diderot - "Letter on the Blind" - pg. 77
"Automatization eats things, clothes, furniture, your wife, and the fear of war."
Viktor Shklovsky - "Art, As Device" pg. 162
"If we call some one a pig or a duck, for example, it is little use looking for some actual resemblance to a pig or a duck as the ground. We do not call someone a duck to imply that she has a bill and paddles or is good to eat. The ground of the shift is much more recondite. The Oxford Dictionary hints at it by defining a 'duck' in this use as 'a charming or delightful object.'"
The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1936) by I.A. Richards, Lectures V, VI
"Head parts enumerated: My head (boils); my nose, my occiput, my tongue, my larynx, my speaking organ, my mouth."
Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah's - "The Magical Power of Words" pg. 192
Works Cited
Aristotle, and John Henry. Freese. The art of rhetoric. With an English translation by John Henry Freese. London: Heinemann, 1982.
BUTCHER, S.H. The Poetics of Aristotle. London: MacMillan, 1907.
Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de, and Hans Aarsleff. Essay on the origin of human knowledge. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Diderot, Denis, and Margaret Jourdain. Early philosophical works. Chicago and London: Open Court, 1916.
Erasmus, Desiderius, Desiderius Erasmus, and Craig R. Thompson. Collected works of Erasmus. Literary and educational writings; 2. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Pr., 1978.
"Hyperbole." Literary Devices. Accessed February 21, 2018. https://literarydevices.net/hyperbole/.
Quintilian, Harold Edgeworth. Butler, and James Loeb. The institutio oratoria of Quintilian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press., 1953.
Richards, I.A., The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1936)
Shklovsky, Viktor. "Art, As Device." Poetics Today 1. September 2015.
Tambiah, S. J. "The Magical Power of Words." Man, New Series, 3, no. 2 (1968): 175-208.