Ancient rhetorical theories of simile and comparison

288 Pages·1969·4.224 MB·English

by  Marsh H. Mccall

LOEB CLASSICAL MONOGRAPHS
In Memory of
JAMES C. LOEB

ANCIENT
RHETORICAL THEORIES
OF SIMILE
AND COMPARISON
Marsh H. McCall, Jr.
mm
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS · 1969
© Copyright 1969 by the President and Fellows
of Harvard College
All rights reserved
The Loeb Classical Monographs are published with
assistance from the Loeb Classical Library Foundation.
Distributed in Great Britain by Oxford University
Press, London
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 71-88807
SBN 674-03430-9
Printed in the United States of America
To My Parents

PREFACE
The subject treated in this study evolved from a somewhat dif-
ferent plan of work. I had started an investigation of Vergil's
similes, not so much their symbolic aspects as their formal and
rhetorical construction and use. The first step was to trace pre-
Vergilian views on simile that might have influenced Vergil's own
approach. No great obstacles threatened. The modern English
concept of simile is clear enough, and Western literature for many
centuries has recognized the power and charm of Homeric and
Vergilian similes, to mention only those two ancient authors in
whom the use of simile is perhaps most prominent. In addition,
modern scholarship is filled with references not only to actual
similes in ancient literature but also to comments and discussion
of simile by ancient literary critics and rhetoricians. It was a matter
of considerable surprise, therefore, that, as the ancient testimony
was examined, the assumption that simile was being discussed
came repeatedly under suspicion. Increasingly the possibility sug-
gested itself that in reality there was no true concept in ancient
literary criticism of simile as a rhetorical figure separate from other
forms of comparison or illustration. If this were indeed the
case, it would be difficult to establish any pre-Vergilian ideas of
simile.
At this point, it seemed prudent to abandon—for the time
being, at least—the original Vergilian investigation and to pursue
further the question of the presence or absence of an ancient
concept of simile. The problem seemed, and seems, to be
the following. The English term "simile" refers very specific-
ally to a comparison stated by means of an introductory
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Preface
comparative word or phrase. An example might be from
Wordsworth:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills.
There appear to be two major types of simile. One, with equal
development of subject and comparative parts, generally takes the
form just as ... so. .. . The other develops only the subject or
the comparative part and generally takes either the form subject,
verb, likejas, comparative part developed, as in the Wordsworth
lines, or the form subject part developed, like/as, a single noun, as in
two more lines from Wordsworth:
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers.
Such handbook definitions of simile as "a simile is always a com-
parison; but a comparison is by no means always, and still less
often deserves to be called, a simile . . . the simile is known by its
as or like or other announcement of conscious comparison" or "a
simile declares that A is like Β and uses the word as or like"1 re-
enforce the common understanding of the term. The technical
terminology of English literary criticism will not easily accept
under the rubric "simile" such a conditional comparison as "if
wolves care for their young, so also should we cherish children,"
or such a causative comparison as "since trees are seen to put forth
buds after a long winter, so also should men expect an appearance
of happiness after a time of bad fortune," or such an illustrative
comparison as" the sea brings destruction upon towns not provided
with a sea wall; war, my friends, will destroy those who are unpre-
pared for defense." In each of these examples there is an element
of comparison; none of them, however, is in form a simile.
The situation in English critical terminology, then, is relatively
1 H. W. Fowler, A Dictionary of Modem English Usage (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1927) 535—536; Crowell's Dictionary of English Grammar, ed. Μ. H. Weseen
(New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1928) 582.
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Preface
clear, and the problem becomes this: are there critical terms in
Greek and Latin that are used to denote as specific and restricted
a figure as the English simile. The principal Greek and Latin terms
are the following: βίκων, elκασία, όμοίωσις, παραβολή, collatio,
comparatio, imago, similitudo. Each of these terms, either in general
or as used in certain contexts, has repeatedly received the transla-
tion "simile." The very number of the terms creates an initial
doubt. Granting that critical vocabulary is one of the more in-
constant elements of a language, is it likely that four Greek and
four Latin terms are all limited to the single idea of simile ? Of
course not, but the question is phrased incompletely. Almost all
ancient technical terms were originally nontechnical in meaning,
and the ones listed here are no exception. Thus, for example, be-
fore being used as a rhetorical term, ίΐκών meant "statue" or
"portrait" or "image." The question, therefore, should be put
differently: in contexts of rhetoric and literary criticism, is there
a regular use of any or all of the terms under consideration in a
meaning of "simile" such as can lead to recognition of an ancient
concept of simile. If not, then what can the use of these terms tell
about ancient ideas of comparison in general ? It has been indi-
cated above that the answer to the first query is repeatedly a
negative one, and the focus has become the second, larger ques-
tion, which still easily includes a recurring glance at the former,
more limited point. The present study, then, seeks through a de-
tailed analysis of such terms of comparison as are listed above to
arrive at the ancient understanding of the nature, scope, and pur-
pose of comparison. Further, and more specifically, the ancient
use of the terms is divided between contexts describing the general
act or process of comparison and contexts in which a figure of
comparison is present, and this study is concerned primarily with
the latter.
The absence of a rhetorical concept of simile does not, of
course, arise from any lack of similes in ancient literature. Nor
should it be thought that ancient rhetoric, involved as it was
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Preface
chiefly with prose and oratory, would for that reason have
avoided analysis of figures that belong frequently to poetry.
Modern scholarship has pointed out often that to the ancients
prose and poetry were closely inter-related, with the problems
and standards of the one bearing intimately on the other.2 Even if
similes had appeared exclusively in poetry, which they do not,
they would still have been a legitimate object of investigation for
the ancient critics.
It is to be hoped that this study may, among other things, serve
as a reminder against easy equation of the critical terminology of
different languages, particularly when they are separated by signi-
ficant intervals of time. Ancient terminology certainly forms the
basis for that of all subsequent literary criticism. This does not
mean, however, that because we continually speak, for instance,
of "metaphor and simile" we should assume without hesitation
that the ancients did the same. Such facile assumptions have led,
at best, to lack of precision among modern scholars in their under-
standing of ancient terms of comparison and, at worst, to real
inaccuracies and misinformation to which even careful scholars
have fallen prey.3 It has seemed worthwhile throughout to note a
fair number of the mistranslations and misinterpretations of pas-
sages dealing with comparison.
Certain limits had to be imposed. My first plan was to pursue
the use and understanding of terms of comparison to the very end
of antiquity, including such medieval figures as Isidore and the
Venerable Bede; but considerations of length have prompted de-
2 E. Nordtfn, Die antike Kunstprosa2 (Leipzig 1909) 52; Μ. Τ. Herrick, "The
Place of Rhetoric in Poetic Theory," Quarterly Journal of Speech 34 (1948) 3;
H. North, "The Use of Poetry in the Training of the Ancient Orator," Traditio 8
(1952) 2; G. A. Kennedy, The Art of Persuasion in Greece (Princeton 1963) 7-8.
3 A typical, and double, mistake is made by W. D. Anderson, "Notes on the
Simile in Homer and his Successors," CJ 53 (1957) 81, when he says that there
are just two classical words for simile, ΐίκών and similitudo. Not only do these
two terms really mean something different from "simile," but, if they had meant
"simile" to the ancients, so too would have παραβολή, είκασία, imago, and
collatio.
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