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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Epiphrase | 3/3 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphrase | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T15:41:05.688061+00:00 | kb-cron |
"For this glorious day, the academicians put on their beautiful green embroidered garments; they shine, they dazzle. They are going to crown in pomp, a painter, a sculptor, an architect, an engraver and a musician. Great is the joy in the gynaecium of the muses. What have I just written there?... it looks like a verse." In the short story L'Amour impossible, Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly questions his own writing practice through numerous epiphrases:
"The impression that I kept from it, it is that there is in all this book enough the instinct of the nuances and some big features which announce the width of the touch for later; – of the remainder, the style without natural [... A style made of oyster shells, so overloaded with different layers of ideas that it would take punctuation made on purpose to unravel it [...] the truth is that there are too many incidences to my sentence, too many intersecting insights, harming the march of thought and the clarity of expression." The epiphrase, by "its massive use, tends here to provoke a certain "18th effect" which is one of the characteristics of L'Amour impossible". Norbert Dodille speaks of a "poetics of the epiphrase", specific to the genre of the essay, and functioning as "interweaving of insights".
== Rhetorical use == The epiphrase can also have a rhetorical use, in the framework of an argument. Thus, explains José Domingues de Almeida, Michel Houellebecq's novel The Elementary Particles resorts to "this mechanism by which the author makes the characters say his points of view without "getting wet" too much, but being sure of the effect caused on his readership, of the damage caused behind him by his text." In this perspective, Houellebecq's "epiphrastic commentary" is a "tool chosen to describe and denounce this rotten society stuck in its contradictions," used in combination with the cliché. Jean-Jacques Robrieux has shown that the epiphrase, often inserted by apposition, participates in Voltaire's hidden arguments in his Treatise on Tolerance.
== See also == Digression Hyperbaton Palinody or palinode Parabasis Parenthesis or brackets Figure of speech
== References ==
== Bibliography == Bacry, Patrick (1992). Les Figures de style et autres procédés stylistiques. Collection Sujets (in French). Paris: Armand Colin. ISBN 2-7011-1393-8. Dupriez, Bernard (2003). Gradus, les procédés littéraires. Domaine français (in French). Paris: Union générale d'édition. ISBN 978-2-264-03709-1. Gorp, Van; Delabastita, Dirk; Legros, Georges; Grutman, Rainier; and alii (2005). Dictionnaire des termes littéraires, Hendrik (in French). Hendrik: Honoré Champion. ISBN 978-2-7453-1325-6. Robrieux, Jean-Jacques (2004). Les Figures de style et de rhétorique. Les topos (in French). Paris: Dunod. ISBN 2-10-003560-6. Robrieux, Jean-Jacques (1993). Éléments de rhétorique et d'argumentation (in French). Paris: Dunod. ISBN 2-10-001480-3. Suhamy, Henri (2004). Les Figures de style. Que sais-je ? (in French). Vol. 1889. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. ISBN 2-13-044604-3. Aquien, Michèle; Molinié, Georges (1999). Dictionnaire de rhétorique et de poétique. La Pochothèque (in French). Paris: LGF. ISBN 2-253-13017-6. Groupe μ (1970). Rhétorique générale. Langue et langage (in French). Paris: Larousse. ISBN 2-02-006321-2. Genette, Gérard (1972a). Figures II (in French). Paris: Seuil. Genette, Gérard (1972b). Figures III. Poétique (in French). Le Seuil. Domingues de Almeida, José (2007). Réactions à la réaction. Brèves considérations sur le sens de l'épiphrase dans Les particules élémentaires de Michel Houellebecq. Vol. 3. Çédille. ISSN 1699-4949. Dodille, Norbert (2009). L'air ambiant : poétique de l'épiphrase dans L'amour impossible in Barbey d'Aurevilly 13. Sur l'Histoire. Vol. 824–828. Revue des lettres modernes. ISSN 0035-2136.