Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Dear me

I'm puzzled by a critical response to my own academic prose: that I'm slightly inclined to use rhetorical figures like homoiotéleuton. I had to look that up to discover that what I do is that I tend to give words similar endings, sometimes they simply rhyme. (Looking for an example in the posts below: "I handed in my dissertation, and so far it doesn't feel much like a conversation"). Too much figuration like that is inappropriate in academic prose, and why is that?
The form of a prose composition should be neither metrical nor destitute of rhythm. The metrical form destroys the hearer's trust by its artificial appearance, and at the same time it diverts his attention, making him watch for metrical recurrences, just as children catch up the herald's question, 'Whom does the freedman choose as his advocate?', with the answer 'Cleon!'
That's Aristotle's functional answer (Rhetoric iii,8), and it's a good one, displaying even a certain sense of humour (no?). The last point about hearers collaborating with the rhetor through form, even against their will, is discussed by Kenneth Burke too:
Many purely formal patterns can readily awaken an attitude of collaborative expectancy in us. ... Once you grasp the trend of the form, it invites participation regardless of the subject matter. Formally, you will find yourself swinging along with the succession of anthiteses [for instance], even though you may not agree with the proposition that is being presented in this form. (A Rhetoric of Motives, 58).
So rhyming or homoitel. and other rhetorical figures can sometimes be distracting in themselves, and deceptively so. But what is more, of course: they tend to draw undue attention to the responsible rhymester too. And a prose rhymester might well appear smug and self-absorbed (without even introducing her first person singular).

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