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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hypotyposis | 3/6 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypotyposis | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T15:41:29.493054+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== The "rhetorical hypotyposis" === The rhetorical use of hypotheticals is based on the idea that they are "a device for representing the idea". In rhetoric, the visual perception is indeed first and is always privileged because it allows to strike the mind of the listener or the public, because it is linked to memory, explains Frances Yates. It thus aims at an effect or an emotion on the reader. Metonymy and metaphor are thus the fundamental figures of style composing it. As part of the rhetorical arsenal available to the orator, it intervenes in the rhetorical part of the narratio and allows the elements of the described object to be seen. It also makes it possible to situate the action, by the topography, or to make the physical portrait of an individual, by means of the prosopography. The orator then seeks to move and touch the pathos of the listeners, to convince without resorting to a logical argumentation or to evidence. Hypotyposis is also related to the part of the rhetorical system called memoria, memory. The ancient oratorical exercises (progymnasmata) consisted in particular in the making of hypotyposes, either of works of art, or of dialogues between two famous characters but whose meeting is fictitious, for the needs of the exercise. Hypotyposis (or ekphrasis, this second term being in use at the time) is based on the reuse of truism.
== The confusion of hypotyposis with simple description == The theoretical and stylistic distinction between hypotyposis and conventional description remains unclear. Nevertheless, for many authors, such as Georges Molinié, the two figures are equivalent macrostructural processes. Molinié cites this verse by Victor Hugo as an illustration of the suggestive power of hypotyposis on the one hand, and its brevity on the other:
I will not look at the gold of the falling evening Nor the sails in the distance going down towards Harfleur The collusion of the two figures is such that the Encyclopedia's article Hypotypose gives an example of allegory, citing Nicolas Boileau's lines in Le Lutrin:
Oppressed softness In his mouth at this word feels his icy tongue; And tired of talking, succumbing to the effort,
Sighs, stretches her arms, closes her eyes and falls asleep.
== Stylistics of hypotyposis ==
=== Literary uses of the figure === The hypotyposis allows to put under the eyes of the readers or spectators a picturesque scene, its effect is above all suggestive. It is indeed a question of addressing the imagination of the reader. The figure is based on what Roland Barthes calls the "effect of reality": the use of stylistic processes allows to imitate the observation of a real scene. Realist as well as romantic or even surrealist authors use it to evoke a scene and make it come alive. Moreover, the hypotyposis establishes a relation between the outside and the inside, the nature and the feelings of the one who contemplates it, which explains its use by the poets as Charles Baudelaire and by the romantic authors then surrealists. Psychoanalysis is interested in it, insofar as it informs on the analogical mechanism, through the concepts of "regressiveness" and "contiguity". Moreover, hypotyposis is above all a figure of speech, in that it has an argumentative aim. Olivier Reboul shows that "its persuasive force comes from the fact that it "makes see" the argument, associating pathos with logos". Literary critics speak of a "tableau" when the hypotyposis develops over several pages, composing a very detailed painting of a single subject, perceived from all angles and in an exhaustive manner. In stylistic technique, hypotyposis has become a notion used to identify fragmentary descriptions where only sensitive notations and striking descriptive information are rendered, in an aesthetic close to the kaleidoscope or impressionist style applied to literature. This meaning owes a lot to the cinematographic approach and to the constant mixtures between the two arts during the 20th century. Moreover, hypotyposis is above all a figure of speech, in that it has an argumentative aim. Olivier Reboul shows that "its persuasive force comes from the fact that it "makes see" the argument, associating pathos with logos". The modern linguist Henri Morier revives this original definition of hypotyposis as a vivid painting in his Dictionnaire de poétique et de rhétorique. Morier thus distinguishes hypotyposis from allegory in that the former wants to do without discourse to be perceived in itself: "even if some formal features have been repeatedly emphasized, such as the possible use of the present tense in a past tense narrative, or the absence of any mention referring to the narrator's position with respect to the theme, the main emphasis has been rather on the picturesque force of a hypotyposis, going so far as to say that it makes one see the spectacle as if there were no screen of the discourse relating it (which is linguistically ridiculous)". Morier then indicates the technique that founds the figure, which is very particular: "in that in a narrative or, even more often, in a description, the narrator selects only a part of the information corresponding to the whole of the theme, keeping only particularly sensitive and strong, catchy notations, without giving the general view of what it is about, without even indicating the global subject of the discourse, or even presenting an aspect under false expressions or of pure appearance, always attached to the cinematographic recording of the unfolding or of the exterior manifestation of the object. This fragmentary, possibly descriptive, and strongly plastic side of the text constitutes the radical component of a hypotyposis".