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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
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| Hypotyposis | 4/6 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypotyposis | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T15:41:29.493054+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== A figure of enunciation === According to Jean-Jacques Robrieux, hypotyposis is a figure of speech whose aim is to "provoke emotion, laughter, through an effect of reality". The enunciative framework in which it develops means that the author or the narrator invests himself in the discourse, through enunciative procedures betraying his identity. Robrieux notes the revealing use of the historical present tense of narration (for example, in this line from Jean Racine's Phèdre: "The axle cries out and breaks ..."), which makes the scene lively and contemporary to the reading. The poetic rhythm and the versification are also employed to accelerate the action. But it is above all the enunciation of the "I" of the narrator that composes the figure. Robrieux thus cites the verse 1545 of the Phèdre: "Excuse my pain..." in which Théramène delivers his emotion about his vision of Hippolytus's tragic death. In other words, as a figure of speech, hypotyposis summons above all pathos, that is its main function. To do this, it uses a considerable number of linguistic means and stylistic or rhetorical devices: the thematic progression allows the syntagms to be linked together and makes the description more fluid, while the dislocation consists of highlighting an element (for example in: "This shield..."). The apostrophe allows the narrator to show his subjectivity by expressing his astonishment or amazement. Verbal and temporal devices such as emphasis allow the use of the imperfect tense and the simple past tense, giving an impression of vivid description. Combined with demonstrative adjectives and another deixis ("here you see...", "over there the trees were moving...") that anchor the narrative in the space-time frame, the reader thus has the illusion of seeing the object described before his eyes. The hypotyposes by the use of deixis are a specificity of Arthur Rimbaud's writing according to Dominique Combe. Stylistic processes are also used. The internal or omniscient focalisation gives an impression of almost cinematographic observation. Finally, figures of speech contribute to create the image. The ellipsis allows to pass under detail of the events and condenses the narrative on the fact to be described. The epithets (including the "Homeric epithets") participate in creating an effect of amplified reality. Numerous other figures form the hypotyposis: figures linked to the narrator such as palinody (the narrator pretends to go back on his statements to clarify them) and epiphrase (direct intervention of the author in the discourse) in particular, but above all figures of analogy such as simile (images allow identification with known or aesthetic things), allegory (the object or situation described becomes as if it were alive), metaphor (recourse to analogies makes it possible to put forward the fantastic dimension of what is being described), personification. Finally, we can cite figures of rhythm and sentence (or verse) construction such as: gradation (the description becomes more and more precise), hyperbole (the description goes beyond all realism), antithesis (contrast effect), alliteration and assonance (in the poems especially there can be a search for imitative harmony).
== Genres concerned == Being a macrostructural figure, holding the truism of the description, the hypotyposis and its variants are frequently met in literature. Georges Molinié enumerates, in a non-exhaustive way, the genres of "erotica, detective stories, fantasy, in novels and in the theater, in descriptive poetry, as well as in the pathetic parts of the narration".
=== In the art of oratory === Historically, hypotyposis is found in argumentative statements such as forensic rhetoric, in which the aim is to capture the imagination of the listeners. It then constitutes a rhetorical truism of the narratio.
Voltaire, for example, uses its shocking resources to make the powerful aware of the condition of the Portuguese people affected by a devastating earthquake in 1756 in his Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne:
Deceived philosophers who shout: "All is well"; Come and contemplate these awful ruins, These debris, these shreds, these unfortunate ashes, These women and children piled on top of each other,
Under these broken marbles these scattered members; Political figures are also fond of hypotyposis. They mobilize in their political discourse these descriptions with numerous metaphors and a rich vocabulary with great capacities of evocation. Indeed, this figure of the pathos, by playing with the emotions of its audience, has an argumentative effect but is also a tendency to manipulate.
=== At the theater === Hypotyposis is also frequently used in the theater, in descriptions, striking monologues, and reported stories. In the Classic period, it was used to help the spectator to imagine the scene, often mythological or taking place in an exotic country, or to imagine scenes considered violent and contradicting the rule of propriety, as in the works of Racine, Corneille, or Robert Garnier in Les Juives. One of the most famous descriptive hypotyposes is that of the death of Hippolytus told by Théramène in Phèdre by Jean Racine. The one showing Ulysses relating to Clytemnestra what happened near the altar, in the presence of Calchas, in Jean Racine's Iphigénie is also often quoted. The story of Le Cid recounting the battle against the Moors uses some of the best known hypotyposes in the dramatic genre. The evocation of the sack of Troy by Andromache in the play of the same name, by Racine, is an example of a monologue presenting a hypotyposis. The passage known as "Athalie's dream" by Racine, in the play of the same name, is finally, by the stylistic effects which emerge from it, a model of the genre: