Hyperbole: More than true

Hyperbole (Greek, excess) is a trope by which more is expressed than is literally true:

I shall strike the stars with my crown. 

Hyperbole: More than true

From English Composition and Rhetoric, by Alexander Bain;  English Composition by W. Davidson; Practical Rhetoric, by Albert Raub:

I. In hyperbole, objects and ideas are magnified.

Hyperbole consists in magnifying objects beyond their natural bounds, so as to make them more impressive or intelligible.

swift as the wind

rivers of blood and hills of slain

 

II. Hyperbole comes naturally.

A. Every strong passion magnifies whatever concerns it. 

1. Love, fear, hatred, exaggerate their several objects in proportion to their intensity.

A day in Thy courts is better

than a thousand outside. (intense devotion)

a. Affection has always been permitted to enhance its objects far above their reality.

b. Fear exaggerates danger.

c. Hatred intensifies, and even creates, bad qualities in the person or thing hated.

B. These passions have to be attended to in depicting character.

Anyone under strong passion is represented as magnifying the object of the passion. The terrified scout, in Ossian, is made to describe the enemy thus: 

I saw their chief tall as a rock of ice;
his spear the blasted fir;
his shield the rising moon;
he sat on the shore,
like a cloud of mist on the hill.

C. Human desire is limitless.

1. Therefore, whatever pleases us in poetry, or in the fine arts generally, is magnified as far as can be done without offending our sense of reality and truth.

Wordsworth, in his praise of Duty, exclaims, “And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.”

2. It is a function of poetry to please us by presenting pictures of surpassing grandeur or loveliness, taken from nature and from humanity.

a. Accordingly, it raises actual things by the force of elevated description, and by all the arts of admissible exaggeration.

b. On account of this feature of the poetic art, Plato banished poets from his Republic.

c. Bentham styled poetry “misrepresentation in verse.”

D. Exaggeration is often used for comic effect.

As the ludicrous requires that a certain object should be depreciated in some mode or other, this is often done by exaggeration. Voltaire, speaking of England, said “The English gain two hours a day by clipping words.”

III. Hyperbole must be kept within limits.

A. Hyperbole should take into account what the hearer will tolerate in the way of departure from the known reality.

B. It should be used sparingly.

C. It should not be trite.

1. The feelings of those addressed must be sufficiently strong to enable them to appreciate the hyperbolical expression. Few were prepared, in this respect, for Dryden's couplet on Charles II:

The star that at your birth shone out so bright,
It stained the duller sun’s meridian light.

D. Originality is indispensable.

A mere exaggeration is easy; the kind that yields pleasurable surprise must have novelty, grandeur, or point, to recommend it. Plato compared the idea of good to the Sun. Horace speaks of a man “striking the stars with his sublime head.”

The following example is from Shelley:

There was such silence through the host, as when
An earthquake, trampling on some populous town,
Has crushed ten thousand with one tread, and men
Expect the second.

IV. Hyperbole may be used for the purpose of illustrating truth.

We reproach a man for neglecting some common duty by putting it to him what would be the consequences if every one were to be equally remiss.

To show the influence of the mind on the body, it is usual to quote the extreme instances:

dying of a broken heart
killed by grief or joy

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Rhetoric: Hyperbole

Source: wronghands1

From Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities, by William Shepard Walsh and Pantologia: A New Cyclopaedia, Vol. VI:

Hyperbole:

From the Greek "excess," "overstrained praise," etc.

1. Hyperbole is an extravagant statement or assertion not to be taken too seriously or too literally. 

Aristotle observes that hyperboles are the favorite figures of young authors, who love excess and exaggeration, but that philosophers should not use them without a great deal of reserve. Yet hyperbole is used unconsciously by those of vivid imagination whom the world sometimes calls liars and fools.

2. In hyperbole the truth and reality of things are excessively enlarged or diminished. 

An image uncommon in size, either very big or very little, surprises us. This imagining gives the mind a momentary conviction that the object is indeed greater or less than it really is.

a. An example of an hyperbole of  minimizing (meiosis):

This author boasts of having a large mansion and an extensive forest; I assure you, on my honor, that he has not wood enough to make a toothpick, and that a tortoise might make the tour of his house in a quarter of an hour.

b. The hyperbole of magnifying (auxesis) is more common,

as in this example of one Gascon soldier describing another:

Hit him anywhere, and the wound is mortal, for he is all heart.

The same effect follows figurative grandeur or littleness, and hence the hyperbole, which expresses this momentary conviction. A writer, taking advantage of this natural delusion, enriches his description greatly by hyperbole, and the reader relishes the exaggeration as an operation of nature upon a warm fancy.

3. A writer is generally more successful in magnifying by a hyperbole than in diminishing. 

A minimized object may contract the mind and fetter its powers of imagination, while a magnified object may open the mind and unleash imagination.

The following account of the valor of Henry V, by Shakespeare, is extravagantly hyperbolical:

England ne'er had a king until this time.
Virtue he had, deserving to command:
His brandish'd sword did blind men with his beams;
His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings:
His sparkling eyes replete with awful fire,
More dazzled and drove back his enemies,
Than mid-day sun, fierce bent against their faces.
What should I say? his deeds exceed all speech:
He ne'er lift up his hand, but conquered.

4. Hyperboles lie without deceiving.

Seneca says hyperbole leads the mind to truth by fictions; they convey the sentiment intended, though by expressing it in terms which render it incredible. The hyperbole premises too much in order to make you conceive enough. Sydney Smith's less than kind burst of astonishment when told that a young neighbor was going to marry a very fat woman double his age illustrates the point:

Going to marry her? Going to marry her? Impossible! You mean a part of her: he could not marry her all himself. It would be a case not of bigamy, but trigamy; the neighborhood or the magistrates should interfere. There is enough of her to furnish wives for a whole parish. One man marry her!—it is monstrous. You might people a colony with her, or give an assembly with her, or perhaps take your morning's walk round her,—always provided there were frequent resting-places, and you were in rude health. I once was rash enough to try walking round her before breakfast, but only got half-way and gave it up exhausted. Or you might read the Riot Act and disperse her. In short, you might do anything with her but marry her.

 5. The pitch to which an hyperbole may be carried is a point of great delicacy. 

To carry it too far, is to destroy it. Hyperbole is of the nature of a bow-string, which by immoderate tension, slackens, and frequently has an effect quite contrary to that intended.

The best hyperboles are those which are latent and are not taken for hyperboles. For this reason, they should scarcely ever be used but in a passion, and in the middle of some important incident, such as this hyperbole of Herodotus, speaking of the Lacedaemonians, who fought at Thermopylae:

They defended themselves for some time with the arms that were left them, and at last with their hands and teeth, till the Barbarians, continually shooting, buried them with their arrows.

---

Hyperbole: Two of two -- Meiosis minimizes

"Bag of bones:" Meiosis is a form of hyperbole which diminishes its subject.

 There are two types of hyperbole,

1. Auxesis augments, making things greater than they really are.
2. Meiosis minimizes, making things less than they really are.

This  post considers meiosis.

Meiosis (my-o'-sis), from a Greek root meaning "to lessen," is a form of hyperbole that diminishes, rather than expands, a subject.* 

Noah Webster,  remarks that "when we say, a lean man is a mere skeleton, we exceed the truth in diminution," which is meiosis.

Meiosis is sometimes hard to distinguish from litotes, in that the "lessening" may be equated with understatement. However, Nordquist tells us that true litotes is "an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite," as in 

"Are you also aware, Mrs. Bueller, that Ferris does not have what we consider to be an exemplary attendance record?" (Jeffrey Jones as Principal Ed Rooney, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, 1986)

As in litotes, there often is irony involved. William Walsh, in Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities, makes the following observations:

[Meiosis] is a favorite trick in American humor. The English jester emphasizes, italicizes, and underscores his jokes; he distrusts his audience; the American drops his good things carelessly—under his breath, as it were—and hurries on almost before his hearers are "on to him." An excellent and widely known example of this rhetorical figure occurs in Bret Harte's description of the scientific gentleman who, being hit in the abdomen by a chunk of old red sandstone,—

Curled up on the floor,
And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.

...Another good American example lies in the familiar chestnut, the story of the traveling Yankee's reply to a European who wished to know if he had just crossed the Alps:

"Wal, now you call my attention to the fact, I guess I did pass risin' ground."

...Though this noble figure [meiosis] is far less regarded in English than in American literature, it cannot be said to be entirely unknown there. W. S. Gilbert is very fond of it, as in his "Bab Ballads:"

I've studied human nature, and I know a thing or two;
Though a girl may fondly love a living gent, as many do,
A feeling of disgust upon her senses there will fall
When she looks upon his body chopped particularly small.

In this gay trifling with a gruesome subject Gilbert may have taken the cue from De Quincey's famous essay on "Murder as a Fine Art." Here is a sample paragraph:

If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begin upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.

...What is called "breaking the news" frequently takes the form of meiosis. Sheridan, the sorely dunned, tells the story of how his faithful old servant gave him information of the visit a bailiff had paid him in his absence. Sheriffs' officers were known far and wide in London in those days by their scarlet waistcoats, the color being a sort of signal of distress, as in an auctioneer's flag. When the graceless but gifted Sheridan got home the old woman broke it gently to him in this fashion: "Please, sir, there was a gentleman called while you were away, as was rather in a red waistcoat than otherwise, sir."

*Meiosis is also a biological term for cell division when chromosomes are reduced by half.

Hyperbole: One of two -- Auxesis augments

"The fan blew me across the room." Auxesis is a form of hyperbole which "enlarges" the truth.

 There are two types of hyperbole,

1. Auxesis augments, making things greater than they really are.
2. Meiosis minimizes, making things less than they really are. 

This  post considers auxesis.

Auxesis ( ok-see'-sis), from the Greek root meaning "to increase" or "to amplify," is a form of hyperbole that increases, rather than diminishes, its subject.* The increase in intensity is often gradual.

Noah Webster,  remarks that 

we say of a very lofty thing, it reaches to the skies. The spies sent to explore the land of Canaan, reported that the cities were great and walled up to heaven. Saul and Jonathan are said to have been swifter than eagles, and stronger than lions. This is auxesis, or exaggeration. 

Luís de Camões, calls auxesis, or exaggeration, "the very language of love."

If music be the food of love, play on.-- Shakespeare

Henry Peacham says that in using auxesis, 

the orator doth make a low dwarf a tall fellow; of a little cottage, a great castle; of pebble stones, pearls; and of thistles, mighty oaks.

Auxesis may include the use of other tropes and schemes, such as simile and climax.

*Auxesis is also a biological term for the proliferation of certain cells.

Trope: Hyperbole soars high or sinks low

Hopefully a gross exaggeration.
(Source: cheezburger.com)

Hyperbole (hy-per'-bo-lee) is overkill.

J. Newbery, in Rhetoric Made Familiar and Easy, tells us that the word 'hyperbole' comes from a Greek word meaning 'to overshoot' or 'to exceed.' He gives us a grammatically awkward rhyme to help us remember both the definition and an example:

Hyperbole soars high, or sinks too low:
He touch'd the Skies: A Snail don't crawl so slow. 

By this trope, says Newbery, 

...we go beyond the bounds of truth in representing things greater or smaller, better or worse than they really are, in order to raise admiration or love, fear or contempt.

Noah Webster contends that "hyperbole is the boldest of all tropes, for it exceeds the limits of truth, and represents things greater or less, better or worse, than they are. But the representation is made in such a manner as not to deceive and mislead the reader or hearer."

When using or evaluating hyperbole, keep in mind the following suggestions from Albert Newton Raub:

1. Hyperbole should be used sparingly.—The continued use of hyperbole not only tires the ear, but also leads the reader to doubt the statements of the writer.
2. The terms of an hyperbole should be consistent.— Thus, we should not speak of one's being powerful weak, or of the weather's being as cold as blazes, or of persons' being exquisitely ugly, and the like. 
3. In order to have force, an hyperbole should be briefly expressed.—The effect of an hyperbole is lost when too many words are used as preliminary to the hyperbola itself. 
4. Hyperbole is not appropriate to scientific statements.

Examples of hyperbole:

1. Falstaff, thou globe of flesh, spotted o'er with continent of sin.—Shakespeare. 
2. Here Orpheus sings; trees, moving to the sound, Start from their roots, and form a shade around.—Pope. 
3. They (Saul and Jonathan) were swifter than eagles; they were stronger than lions.
4. His mind was a vast magazine of knowledge.
5. The sky shrunk upward with unusual dread,
   And trembling Tiber dived beneath his bed.—Dryden. 
6. The diamonds in thine eyes might furnish crowns for all the queens of earth.
7. I saw their chief, tall as a rock of ice; his spear, the blasted fir; his shield, the rising moon: he sat on the shore like a cloud of mist on the hill.— Ossian.

Writing: 24 basic terms to know

You'll come out way ahead if you take time to knock back a few literary terms before tackling your next book. Then read and let your new background knowledge illuminate the text. Can you identify the author's use of literary devices and grammatical techniques?

From the Sixth or Classic English Reader, by William Swinton:

Def. 1. A figure of speech is a deviation from the direct and literal meaning of a word or phrase.

Def. 2. A simile, or comparison, is the statement of a likeness between one thing and another:

    The tear down childhood's cheek that flows
    Is like the dewdrop on the rose.

Def. 3. A metaphor speaks of one object as if it were another:
    Virtue is a jewel.

Simile and metaphor both express comparison. In the simile, one object is said to resemble another; and some sign of comparison (as, like, etc.) stands between them. In the metaphor, an object is spoken of as if it were another, and no sign of comparison is used. A metaphor is an implied simile. Thus,—

    Simile. — He is like a lion in the fight.
    Metaphor. — He is a lion in the fight.

Def. 4. Personification is a figure of speech in which an inanimate object is represented as animated or endowed with personality:

The mountains sing together, the hills rejoice and clap hands. 

Def. 5. Antithesis is the statement of a contrast or opposition of thoughts and words:
    I do not live that I may eat, but I eat that I may live. 

Def. 6. Climax (meaning literally a ladder) is a series of statements rising in strength or importance until the last:

    Learning is better than wealth; culture is better than learning; Wisdom is better than culture.

Def. 7. Synecdoche¹ is the figure of speech by which the whole of a thing is put for a part, or a part for the whole:

    Sail, for ship. 

    Daily bread, for daily food.

Def. 8. Metonymy² is the use of the name of one object to represent some related object:

Gray hairs, meaning old age.

The fatal cup, meaning the drink in the cup.

Def. 9. Hyperbole  consists in magnifying objects beyond their natural bounds to make a statement more emphatic:
    "Swift as the wind"
    "Rivers of blood, and hills of slain"

Def. 10. Apostrophe consists in addressing some absent person or thing as if present:

Milton, thou shouldst be with us at this hour!

Def. 11. Irony is the use of words to express meanings that are opposite their literal meaning:

Brutus is an honorable [meaning not honorable] man!

Def. 12. Ellipsis is the omission of words grammatically necessary, but supplied by the thought:

    Sit down [meaning You sit down].

Def. 13. The direct or grammatical order of words is their ordinary prose arrangement:

    In the sentence, "I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny the atrocious crime of being a young man," ³  the words are arranged in the grammatical order,—subject, verb, object.

Def. 14. The indirect or rhetorical order of words is an inverted arrangement of words adopted to make a statement more impressive:
    In the form, "The atrocious crime of being a young man, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny," the words are arranged in the indirect or rhetorical order.

Def. 15. A period sentence is one in which the meaning is suspended, by using an inverted order of words, till the end or near the end of the sentence:
    On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, the Puritans looked down with contempt.

Def. 16. A loose sentence is one which may be brought to a grammatical close at one or more points before the end:
    The Puritans looked down with contempt on the rich | and the eloquent, | on nobles and priests.

III.

Def. 17. Description is the representation of things observed at any one point in time.

Def. 18. Narration is the report of a succession of events observed chronologically.

Def. 19. Exposition is the discussion of principles.

Def. 20. Poetry is a kind of composition in which words are arranged in lines and verses containing a definite number and order of accented and unaccented syllables.

Def. 21. Rhyme is a kind of verse in which there is a concord of sounds in words at the end of lines.

Def. 22. Blank verse consists of unrhymed lines containing five feet of two syllables each, with the accent on the second syllable.

Def. 23. A refrain is a phrase or verse which occurs at the end of each stanza of a poem.

Def. 24. Style is the peculiar manner in which thought is expressed in language. There are many descriptive words used to denote the various kinds of style:  figurative, flowery, plain, verbose, terse, simple, sublime, witty, epigrammatic. 

Download this page to use as a cheat sheet.

¹Synecdoche (pron. sin-ek'do-ke, from the Greek sun, "together with," and ekdechomai, "to understand in a certain sense."  
²Metonymy (pron. me-ton'i-me), from the Greek meta, implying "change," and unoma, "a name."
³Both irony and hyperbole are used in this statement. Can you explain them?