Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Paradiastole as Distinction-Making

  • Article
  • Published:
International Journal of the Classical Tradition Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Data availability

Not applicable.

Notes

  1. For a succinct introduction, see Q. Skinner, ‘Paradiastole: Redescribing the Vices as Virtues’, in Renaissance Figures of Speech, ed. S. Adamson et al., Cambridge, 2007, pp. 149–66; for a comprehensive survey, see id., Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes, Cambridge, 1996, pp. 138–80 (‘The Technique of Redescription’); for its relation to conceptual change, see id., ‘Rhetoric and Conceptual Change’, Finnish Yearbook of Political Thought, 3.1, 1999, pp. 60–73. Other treatments by Skinner include: ‘Thomas Hobbes: Rhetoric and the Construction of Morality’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 76, 1991, pp. 1–61; Visions of Politics, II: Renaissance Virtues, Cambridge, 2004, pp. 264–85 (‘Moral Ambiguity and the Renaissance Art of Eloquence’); Visions of Politics, III: Hobbes and Civil Science, Cambridge, 2004, pp. 87–141 (‘Hobbes on Rhetoric and the Construction of Morality’); From Humanism to Hobbes: Studies in Rhetoric and Politics, Cambridge, 2018, pp. 89–117 (‘Rhetorical Redescription and Its Uses in Shakespeare’).

  2. II Corinthians 3:19. All biblical quotations are from The New Oxford Annotated Bible, 4th ed., ed. M. D. Coogan, Oxford, 2010.

  3. Q. Skinner, Machiavelli, New York, 1981, pp. 45–6.

  4. Q. Skinner, Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, 2019, pp. 43–4.

  5. Skinner, Visions of Politics, III (n. 1 above), pp. 107–9.

  6. Ibid., p. 89.

  7. Ibid., pp. 87–8.

  8. See also G. Kowalski, ‘Studia Rhetorica II: Ad Figurae ΠΑΡΑΔΙΑΣΤΟΛΗΣ Historiam’, Eos, 31, 1928, pp. 169–80, which Skinner cites, e.g. in Visions of Politics, III (n. 1 above), p. 91 n. 21.

  9. See, e.g. Skinner, Visions of Politics, II (n. 1 above), pp. 274–9.

  10. See, e.g. Skinner, ‘Paradiastole’ (n. 1 above), pp. 150–54.

  11. N. Zeeman, The Arts of Disruption: Allegory and Piers Plowman, Oxford, 2020, pp. 37–74 (‘The Hypocritical Figure’), which mainly draws on R. Newhauser, Sin: Essays on the Moral Tradition in the Western Middle Ages, Aldershot, 2007, pp. 1–26 (‘On Ambiguity in Moral Theology: When the Vices Masquerade as Virtues’).

  12. Zeeman, Arts of Disruption (n. 11 above), p. 38.

  13. See D. Parry, The Rhetoric of Conversion in English Puritan Writing from Perkins to Milton, London, 2022, as well as his shorter and earlier discussion in The Hermeneutics of Hell: Visions and Representations of the Devil in World Literature, ed. G. Thuswaldner and D. Russ, New York, 2017, pp. 47–71 (‘As an Angel of Light: Satanic Rhetoric in Early Modern Literature and Theology’).

  14. Zeeman, Arts of Disruption (n. 11 above), pp. 55–7; Parry, Rhetoric of Conversion (n. 13 above), pp. 225–42; Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric (n. 1 above), p. 159. Paradiastole in Milton’s Paradise Lost is also discussed in A. P. Cassidy, ‘Paradiastole, Lost and Regained’, Milton Studies, 64.1, 2022, pp. 23–50. For a selective list of recent studies of paradiastole in late medieval and early modern literature and theology, see Cassidy, p. 148 n. 13.

  15. ‘Paradiastole’, in Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford, 2023, at https://www.oed.com/, accessed 10 Jan 2024.

  16. ‘Paradiastole’, in A Latin Dictionary, ed. C. T. Lewis and C. Short, Oxford, 1879.

  17. ‘Gorgias (2)’, in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th ed., ed. S. Hornblower et al., Oxford, 2012.

  18. ‘Intelligi’ is the reading of all manuscripts. Brooks adopts ‘intelligenti’, proposed by Ruhnken, which does not seem to make much sense. Halm brackets ‘intellegi’. Madvig introduces ‘debere’ (‘You demonstrate that you should be understood ...’). Burtt omits the word and prints ‘appelles’ instead, probably influenced by Quintilian’s quotation of the phrase. Skinner, ‘Paradiastole’ (n. 1 above), p. 150, loosely translates the sentence as: ‘You are not able to show that you should be understood as wise rather than crafty ... .’ I have left out ‘intelligi’ in my translation.

  19. P. Rutilius Lupus, De figuris sententiarum et elocutionis, ed. E. Brooks, Leiden, 1970, p. 8; translation, with modifications, from Skinner, ‘Paradiastole’ (n. 1 above), p. 150.

  20. All Latin quotations from Quintilian, Institutionis oratoriae libri duodecim, ed. M. Winterbottom, Oxford, 1970; all translations from Quintilian, The Orator’s Education, transl. and ed. D. A. Russell, Cambridge, 2001.

  21. Skinner, ‘Paradiastole’ (n. 1 above), p. 151.

  22. Ibid.

  23. A classic study of this topic is M. Winterbottom, ‘Quintilian and the Vir Bonus’, The Journal of Roman Studies, 54.1–2, 1964, pp. 90–97.

  24. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, III.vii.25.

  25. Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric (n. 1 above), p. 179.

  26. H. Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary Study, transl. M. T. Bliss et al., Leiden etc., 1998, § 783 and §§ 804–5. This view is also adopted in Quintilian, Institutionis oratoriae liber IX: introduzione, testo, traduzione, e commento, ed. A. Cavarzere and L. Cristante, II, Hildesheim, 2019, p. 631.

  27. Rutilius, De figuris (n. 19 above), p. 34. Translation mine.

  28. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, IX.iii.64, cited above.

  29. Carmen de figuris vel schematibus, ed. R. M. D’Angelo, Hildesheim, 2001, p. 64 (Παραδιαστολή, 115–17). Translation mine.

  30. Rhetores Latini minores, ed. K. Halm, Leipzig, 1863, p. 53. Translation mine. Cf. Skinner, ‘Thomas Hobbes’ (n. 1 above), p. 6.

  31. Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay, I, Oxford, 1911, p. 98. Translation mine.

  32. Skinner, ‘Paradiastole’ (n. 1 above), p. 151.

  33. Antonio Mancinelli, Carmen de figuris, de poetica virtute, vitae carmen, Venice, 1493, sig. H1r; transl., with modifications, Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric, p. 152 (n. 1 above) and Skinner, ‘Paradiastole’ (n. 1 above), p. 151.

  34. J. Brennan, ‘The Epitome Troporum ac Schematum of Joannes Susenbrotus: Text, Translation and Commentary’, PhD diss., University of Illinois, 1953, pp. 45–6; transl., with modifications, Brennan.

  35. See, e.g. Skinner, ‘Paradiastole’ (n. 1 above), pp. 151–2.

  36. Henry Peacham, The Garden of Eloquence, London, 1577, s. v. ‘paradiastole’.

  37. Apart from the definition cited earlier from Philips’s New World of Words, see, e.g. John Calvin, Commentary on Seneca’s De clementia, ed. F. L. Battles and A. M. Hugo, Leiden, 1969, p. 214 (87), where he cites Rutilius’s definition, and Luis de Granada, Ecclesiasticae rhetoricae siue de ratione concionandi libri sex, Lisbon, 1576, p. 220 (‘simillima discernuntur’).

  38. Petrarch, De remediis utriusque fortune, I, Grenoble, 2002, p. 526; all Latin quotations are from this edition. Petrarch, Phisicke against fortune, aswell prosperous, as aduerse, transl. T. Twyne, London, 1579, pp. 151–2; all translations from this edition because its diction better reflects the original word choice. See also Petrarch’s Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul, transl. C. H. Rawski, I, Bloomington, 1991, p. 323.

  39. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Part II, Section 2, Questions 20 (Despair) and 21 (Presumption).

  40. See, e.g. Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric (n. 1 above), pp. 153–61; Zeeman, Arts of Disruption (n. 11 above), pp. 40–41.

  41. See, e.g. Plato, Laches, 199de, and especially Protagoras, 329d, which, however, do not foreground the figure of paradiastole.

  42. Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, ed. M. Adriaen, II, Turnhout, 1979, pp. 1092–3 (XXII.i.2); all Latin quotations from this edition. Translation, with modifications, from Gregory the Great, Moral Reflections on the Book of Job, transl. B. Kerns, IV, Collegeville, 2017, pp. 321–2; all translations from this edition.

  43. Gregory, Moralia, XXII.i.2.

  44. James 2:10.

  45. St Augustine, The Works ... , ed. J. E. Rotelle et al., II.3, Charlottesville, 2001, p. 98 (Letter 167). For the Latin text, see St Augustine, Epistulae, ed. A. Goldbacher, III, Vienna, 1904, pp. 592–3.

  46. St Augustine, Works (n. 45 above), p. 99; Augustine, Epistulae (n. 45 above), pp. 594–5.

  47. Petrarch, Phisicke (n. 38 above), p. 151; Petrarch, De remediis (n. 38 above), p. 526.

  48. W. G. Smith, The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, ed. F. P. Wilson, Oxford, 1970, p. 310.

  49. L. Campi, ‘God is the Rewarder not of Nouns but of Adverbs: Hunting Abelardian Ghosts’, Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 29, 2018, pp. 155–90, 172, 175.

  50. Prudentius, Psychomachia, p. 169, l. 552: ‘inque habitum sese transformat honestum’. All Latin quotations from Prudentius, Carmina, ed. M. P. Cunningham, Turnhout, 1966, pp. 149–81; all translations from Prudentius, ed. and transl. H. J. Thomson (Loeb Classical Library), I, Cambridge MA, 1949, pp. 274–343. This episode has received much critical analysis: see esp. R. Newhauser, The Early History of Greed: The Sin of Avarice in Early Medieval Thought and Literature, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 82–4, which includes a bibliographical note on critical scholarship on this episode.

  51. Zeeman, Arts of Disruption (n. 11 above), p. 55.

  52. Prudentius, Psychomachia (n. 50 above), p. 170, l. 569.

  53. Ibid., ll. 573–83.

  54. Ibid., ll. 575–6: ‘militiae postrema gradu sed sola duello / inpositura manum ne quid iam triste supersit’.

  55. Ibid., ll. 572, 584–6.

  56. Ibid., p. 171, ll. 598–601. See Prudentius, Psychomachia: Einleitung, Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar, ed. M. Frisch, Berlin, 2020, p. 344.

  57. Prudentius, Psychomachia (n. 50 above), p. 563.

  58. Cassidy, ‘Paradiastole’ (n. 14 above), pp. 123, 126.

  59. John Milton, Paradise Lost, ed. A. Fowler, Harlow, 2007, pp. 353, 332, 348 (VI.289–90, V.782, VI.169).

  60. See Parry, Rhetoric of Conversion (n. 13 above), pp. 234–5.

  61. John Milton, The Complete Prose ... , ed. D. M. Wolfe, 8 vols, New Haven, 1953–82, III, pp. 190–91.

  62. John Milton, The Complete Shorter Poems, 2nd ed., ed. J. Carey, Harlow, 2007, p. 297.

  63. Thomas Wyatt, Collected Poems ..., ed. K. Muir and P. Thomson, Liverpool, 1969, pp. 88–91 (‘Myne Owne John Poyntz’). Cf. Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric (n. 1 above), p. 159; Skinner, Visions of Politics, II (n. 1 above), pp. 275–6; S. Brigden, Thomas Wyatt: The Heart’s Forest, London, 2012, pp. 258–61.

  64. Wyatt, Collected Poems (n. 63 above), p. 90, ll. 64–75.

  65. Ibid., ll. 60–61; Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric (n. 1 above), p. 159.

  66. Wyatt, Collected Poems (n. 63 above), p. 90, l. 57.

  67. Ibid., l. 61.

  68. Brigden, Forest (n. 63 above), p. 265.

  69. Wyatt, Collected Poems (n. 63 above), p. 90, l. 86.

  70. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, IX.iii.65.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Comparative Literature, Brown University, Box 1935, 36 Prospect Street, Providence, RI, 02912, USA

    Chenyu Tu

Authors
  1. Chenyu Tu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chenyu Tu.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The author did not receive any funding for conducting this study and has no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Tu, C. Paradiastole as Distinction-Making. Int class trad (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-024-00659-z

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-024-00659-z

Search

Navigation