Happy Thanksgiving

From Webster's 1828 dictionary:

GRAT'ITUDE, n. [L. gratitudo, from gratus, pleasing. See Grace.]

1. Gratitude is an emotion of the heart,

excited by a favor or benefit received; a sentiment of kindness or good will towards a benefactor; thankfulness.

2. Gratitude is an agreeable emotion,

consisting in or accompanied with good will to a benefactor, and a disposition to make a suitable return of benefits or services, or when no return can be made, with a desire to see the benefactor prosperous and happy.

3. Gratitude is a virtue of the highest excellence,

as it implies a feeling and generous heart, and a proper sense of duty.

The love of God is the sublimest gratitude.

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Synecdoche: Part for a whole or whole for a part

Synecdoche is a type of metonymy founded on the relation of a whole to its parts.

Synecdoche: Part for a whole or whole for a part

From English Composition and Rhetoric, by Alexander Bain;  Manualof English Rhetoric by Andrew Dousa Hepburn; Rhetoric, by Thomas Gibbons:

There are various forms of synecdoche, answering to the different kinds of wholes and parts.

I. Part for a whole

A. Species is put for the genus, an individual for species.

1. Specific for general

 For instance, bread for food; silver and gold for riches.

“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks,”—swords and spears are here used for all weapons of war, plowshares and pruning-hooks for the implements of the peaceful arts; a Homer, instead of an epic poet; a Demosthenes, instead of an orator.

2. Individual for specific

For instance, a Solomon, for a wise man; a Judas, for a traitor.

In introducing new ones care must be taken that their application be instantly recognized.

B. A quality or attribute of an individual object or person is put for the individual.

“Thus spoke the tempter”; “the philosopher” for Aristotle.

Although seemingly substituting the general for the particular, it really presents the individual with some prominent characteristic, and thus makes the notion more distinct.

C. The matter of an object is put for the form.

The material the thing is made of is used:

“The breathing marble and the glowing canvas.”

Likewise, steel for sword, lead for bullet. The object is thus presented more vividly by suggesting some of its visible aspects.

D. A part of an integrate whole is given instead of the whole.

“The captain and his crew sailed the waves.”

(the waves for the ocean)

“The farmer bought twenty head at market.”

(the head for the whole body)

E. A lesser is used for a greater.

1. Determinate for indeterminate

 “ten thousand swords” for a multitude of weapons

2. Singular for plural

“an old man is venerable” for “old men are venerable”

F. Effects of using a part for a whole:

1. More easily imagined

What is abstract and general is conveyed by means of particular and individual notions that can be pictured in the imagination. 

2. Necessity of care in choosing what parts are used to represent the whole

a. Most appropriate are those prominent characteristic parts which suggest most naturally and readily the entire object.

b. A part only should be chosen which is appropriate to the idea and purpose of the writer, and corresponds to what is said of the whole which it represents. 

II. Whole for a part

A. General for specific

a vessel for a ship; a creature for a man.

To substitute the more general is less common than substituting the specific for general. This is because the effect is less dynamic unless the generic name has a peculiar expressiveness.

B. Plural for the singular

“We misled the People, and gained the reputation of Orators.”

 This Cicero tells Brutus, when he intends only himself.

C. Abstract for the concrete

The case of putting the abstract for the concrete is, like the general for the specific, an exception. Youth, beauty, may sometimes stand for the young, the beautiful; the figurative effect lies in isolating, as it were, the main quality, and thus giving it greater prominence.

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Fable and Parable: Short allegories

Fables (apologues) and parables are short allegories.

Fable and parable: Short allegories

From English Composition and Rhetoric, by Alexander Bain, Aids to English Composition, by Richard Green Parker, and Elements of Rhetoric, by Henry Coppée:

I. Fable

A. Fables are written for the moral.

1. A fable, or apologue, differs from a tale, in that it is written expressly for the sake of the moral.

2. If there is no moral, there is no fable.

B. The characters in fable speak and act as monitors to mankind.

1. They are often personified inanimate objects or personified lower animals.

2. Fable attributes the actions and words of rational beings to what is inanimate and irrational.

3. The characters are purely fictitious—brutes and plants are made to think, and speak, and act like men.

4. When human beings are used as characters in fables they symbolize all of their class or kind.

C. A fable must be short.

1. If a moral truth is to shine through a fable, the whole of it must be quickly made apparent.

2. It is with a view to brevity that the fabulist makes use of animals of known character.

3. The reader recognizes the characteristics the instant the animal is mentioned, and the author thereby avoids the necessity of longer description. For example, the characters of a fable might be foxes used to symbolize crafty men.

 

II. Parable

A. A parable illustrates some truth.

Though fictitious, they are drawn from realistic events and characters, and are therefore supported by probability and easily applied to life situations.

B. Reformers and teachers of all times have made much use of them.

1. By means of parables, abstract truths can be presented in graphic form so that they can be easily understood.

2. Many common Western parables come from Christian scripture: “The Prodigal Son,” “The Sower,” “The Ten Virgins.”

III. Aristotle on fable and parable as rhetorical devices:

A. Often useful

Though true examples from history are “of greater effect in deliberation and more appropriate to persuasive oratory,” Aristotle in his Rhetoric tells us that fables and parables are often useful.

B. Easily invented 

“The occasion wherein fables are more in point, and employed with the greatest success, is in popular addresses, and in debates, upon great questions. They have this advantage over example, that it is difficult to find in history circumstances perfectly relevant to what we would wish to prove, whereas a fable is easily invented; and in order to this, nothing more is necessary than to draw a parable, which any man may do...” 

IV. Famous fabulists

A. Aesop

Ancient Greek fabulist.

B. La Fontaine

Seventeenth Century French poet known for his Fables.

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Allegory: One thing expressed, but another understood

The word ‘allegory’, derived from the Greek words for another, and to speak, means, literally, saying one thing and meaning another.

Allegory: One thing expressed, another understood

From English Composition and Rhetoric, by Alexander Bain, Aids to English Composition, by Richard Green Parker, and Elements of Rhetoric, by Henry Coppée

:

I. An allegory is a continued metaphor.

A. It is the representation of one thing by another that resembles it.

B. When the resemblance is long dwelt upon and carried into all its minute circumstances, an allegory is produced instead of a metaphor.

II. An allegory is often used to convey some moral or instruction.

As a figure it implies telling a story, the events and personages of which are fictitious, but which in their combination illustrate what is true and important.

A. The Pilgrim’s Progress is a well-known example.

In it the spiritual life or progress of the Christian is represented at length by the story of a pilgrim in search of a distant country, which he reaches after many struggles and difficulties.

B. Chaucer’s House of Fame is an allegory, imitated by Pope in his Temple of Fame.

C. Spenser’s Faerie Queene is allegorical throughout.

The virtues and vices are personified and made to act out their nature in a series of supposed adventures.

D. Swift’s A Tale of a Tub, “written for the universal improvement of mankind,” is an allegory.

The divisions of Christianity (Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinistic) are represented as three brothers, whose adventures are related. So, in the Travels of Gulliver, the vices of politicians are ridiculed by being exemplified in communities made up of imaginary beings (Liliputians or dwarfs, Brobdingnagians or giants, Houyhnhnms, Yahoos).

 

III. An allegory gives the reader the appearance of instructing himself. 

A. The analogy is intended to be so obvious that the reader cannot miss the application. However, he is left to draw the proper conclusion for his own use.

B. Allegory is, for this reason, chiefly used when a writer desires to communicate some important intelligence or advice; but is not permitted, or does not wish, to deliver it in plain terms. 

C. There is something akin to wit in telling a man what is personal, and leaving it to himself to make the application of it; and if, as in the powerful story of David and Nathan, it is so adroitly done that the meaning remains hidden until the moral has been inculcated in an impersonal manner, the application, “Thou art the man,” is all the more forcible and complete.

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