RHETORICA MOVET ‘Studies in Historical and Modern Rhetoric in Honour of Heinrich F. Plett EDITED BY PETER L. OESTERREICH AND THOMAS O. SLOANE NEGIy TAS wre °Uy ~ brie Ss; 1683 BRILL LEIDEN - BOSTON - KOLN 1999‘This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rhetorica movet : studies in historical and modern rhetoric in honour of Heinrich F, Plett_/ edited by Peter L.. Oesterreich and Thomas O. Sloane, p- cm. (Symbola et emblemata, ISSN 0923-9073 ; v. 9) udes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9004113398 (alk. paper) 1, Rhetoric, . Plett, Heinrich F. Il, Oesterreich, Peter Lothar. IIL. Sloane, Thomas O. IV. S PNI83.R455 1999 808 —de21 9.29764 crp Die Deutsche Bibliothek ~ CIP-Einheitsaufnahme Rhetorica movet : Studies in historical and modern rhetoric in honour of Heinrich F, Plett / ed. by Peter L. Oesterreich and Thomas O. Sloane. - Leiden ; Boston ; Kéln : Brill, 1999) (Symbols et emblemata ; Val. 9 ISBN 90-04-11339-8 ISSN_ 0923-9075 ISBN 90 04 11339 8 © Copyright 1999 by Koninklijte Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands All rights rserced. No part ofthis publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in 4 retrial system, oF transmilted in any form or by any means, electronic, ‘mechanical, photocopying, recording or othercise, without rir written ‘permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items fr internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Coppright Clearance Center, 22? Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Dancers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to chargeTABLE OF CONTENTS IIE seeeiesterenoneernrisirensnnannaaictcannassaccsassssstimnnenessemmseessassseeneees OE L Hictorical B. wasis and Enargeia in Quintilian’s Institutionis oratoriae libri xii Bernnarb F. Scuoiz (Groningen). Dialectica docet, rhetorica movet: Luthers Reformation der Rhetorik ‘Anprea Gri-Orsrereeicy / Pever L OusrerReicu. (Essen / Neuendettelsau) M Good O Bea Good Man? R ‘ Gi ‘ Controversy Jovrrn Rice, Henverson (Saskatoon) . 43 Rhetoric and Civic Harmony in the Dutch Republic of the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Century Manyxe Spies (Amsterdam) . 57 Lawrence D. Green (Los Angeles) Dr. Thomas Wilson, The arte of Rhetorique (1560): Mentalitat und Rhetorik im England des 16. Jahrhunderts Jeroen Kew (Greifswald) ‘K)ein Chaucer-Sonett? Horst Weinstock (Aachen) . Syllogism and Enthymeme in Shakespeare Wotrcane G. Miuer (Jena) Synoiceosis and Antithesis in The Winter’s Tale Perer Mack (Warwick).. On Dior S + in Poste Dheccume Jost Awroxto Mayorat. (Madrivt ‘TABLE OF CONTENTS Rhetoric in the Early Royal Society Ricnarp Nate (Essen) Dilthey’s Hobbes and Cicero’s Rhetoric Nancy S. Srrurver (Baltimore) i 233 “That Divine Spirit of Uterance that Moves Them”: ni wel is Derek N. C. Woop (Antigonish) »» 263 john Dryden: Versification in Poetry and Drama Hermann BiunMe (Antwerp) ... 285 Ars Rhetorica—Ars Fortificatoria: Die Shandy-Briider und die “Sister > Hever Perers (Essen)... English, Scots and the Scottish Literati Giavspirk Powter (Leipzig) »Die Rhetorik bliihte noch“: Zur Einschatzung des Vortrags in Heinrich Laubes Schriften zum Parlament und zum Theater Kari-Heinz Gorrerr (Cologne).. 343 Versuche, das Unsagbare 2u sagen: Modi der Naturdarstellung bei Emily Dickinso Goyter Aurenps (Bochum). IL. Modern Rhetoric Sprachreinheit / puritas und die Entwicklung der modernen chechiechen Rhetas Jiki_ Kraus (Prague) .. 373 Metonymic und Moderne: Ein schulrhetorischer Begriff im Hinblick auf die neuere deutsche Literatur (Benn, Brecht) ‘Tueopor Verweven (Erlangen). 381 “Die Dialektik der Beredsamkeit” Oder: Uber die goldenen Ketten der Rhetorik Joser Korrerscusnpr (Erkclenz)‘TABLE OF CONTENTS vu Does Linguistics Contribute to the Decline and Fragmentation of Rhetoric? In Defence of a Cognitive Paradigm Rainer Scuurze. (Hanover). oo “Au quai?”—“Okay.” Zur stilistischen Leistung des Wortspiels (cin Forschungsbericht) Manin Srinceiin (Basel) Forum und Theater: Anmerkungen zu einem rhetorikgeschicht- lichen Thema Hear Scuanze (Siegen) ..... Die Rhetorik des Cyberspace Noserr Borz (Essen) . Urteile sind unverstindlich ‘THomas-MicHaet Seiert (Frankfort). ‘Wher Totenreden Gerr Orro (Mainz)... ‘The Mystery of Rhetoric Unveiled: A Memoir ‘Tuomas O. Stoane (Berkeley) Bibliography of Publications by Heinrich F. Plett...POREWORD From his earliest publications Heinrich F, Plew’s scholarly int been focussed on both the system and the historical and inter aspects of rhetoric. This multi-faceted approach was furthered by his extensive studies in General and Gomparative Linguistics and Literature, in Classical Philology and English and American literature at the univer- sities of Cologne and Bonn. From 1965 through 1970 he was university assistant at Bonn, Giessen and Cologne. In 1972 he was appoit professor Heinrich F. Plett taught rhetoric and stylistics at the University of Hamburg from 1976 to 1977 and at the University of Saskatchewan in 1986. Together with an international group of scholars he founded the International Society for the History of Rhetoric in 1977 and was its first secretary-general (1977-1979). In 1989 he established the Centre for Rhetoric and Renaissance Studies at the University of Essen and as its director organized several international and interdisciplinary confer ences: in 1991 on Renaissance rhetoric, in 1993 on Renaissance poetics, in 1995 on contemporary rhetoric. In 1993 he became an associate editor of Rhetorica, the official publication organ of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric. Moreover, he is editor and co-editor of several publication series. His books and articles have been translated into di- verse languages: Rumanian, Japanese, Polish and Portuguese. The articles assembled in this volume deal with subjects belonging to Heinrich F. Plett’s principal scholarly interests and are dedicated to him by his friends and colleagues on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. Perer L. Orsrerreicn ‘THomas O. SLoanE.PART | HISTORICAL RHETORICEKPHRASIS AND ENARGEIA IN QUINTILIAN’S INSTITUTIONS ORATORIAE LIBRI XID Bernhard F. Scholz 1. Introduction Modern literary scholarship displays a marked tendency to turn to the theoretical texts of Classical Antiquity in search for terms which would allow it to articulate its own theoretical concerns. Those concerns, nec less to say, are usually rather different from those of the Ancients. The same goes for the conceptual frameworks into which the terms excised from Classical texts are subsequently implanted. “Plot” [mythos], lifted out of the Aristotelian Poetics, and transferred into structuralist narratology, is no longer capable of referring to the manner in which the imitation of an action [mimesis praxeos] is organised in a tragedy or an epos, nor can it any longer be understood as one of the situs where the skill of the poet [poietike techne] is put to work. Instead it is, in one re-explication at least, split up. into histoire and récit, with the organizing or structuring potential of mythos associated with récil. Both histoire and récit are now viewed as terms nam- ing descriptive concepts for analysing the syntactic structures of a narra- tive text. Mythos, by contrast, was a term for naming both a descriptive concept for analysing narrative/dramatic structures, and a norm for cre- ating such structures. That both uses of mythos are not clearly distin- guished in the Aristotelian Poetics, as they would undoubtedly have to be with an eye to modern methodology, was, moreover, not a question of oversight. The Poetics as a treatise on "poictical” rather than “theoretical” knowledge insisted on constructing artefacts in terms of ends-means-rela- tions, and in that context the term mythos referred both to a means, namely that of achieving katharsis on the part of the viewer, and to an end, namely that of the ordering of the incidents of praxis. Of such an ends-towards-means argument there is hardly a trace left in modern narratological re-explications of mythos." ' ‘The suggestion of the so-called "Russian Formalists” of the first third of this century that the “sujet” of a narrative text should bring about a new way of seeing on the part of the reader might be seen as such a trace. See e.g. Aage A. Hansen-Love. Der Russische Formalismus, Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1976, pp. 19-384 BERNHARD F. SCHOLZ, While it is thus fairly easy in the case of the term mythos to ascert the seachange it underwent in the course of its migration from the Ar totelian Poetics into Structuralist narratology, there are other terms elided from the Classical tradition and put to new use in modern theorizing where things are not as obvious. That is especially true in cases when a single term or a cluster of related terms is culled from a group of Classical texts which are no longer as familiar to modern readers as the Aristote- lian Poetics (fortunately) still is. In such cases the borrowed terms possess little more than a vague Classical aura, and a suggestiveness of precision and dignity which tends to come with that aura. The terms in question thus lose on both ends: they no longer call up their original situs, and they thus no longer offer the possibility of referring them back to their frame- work of introduction, nor do they insist on an adequate sifus within their new contexts, immunized as they are against such needs by their classical aura. The employment of the rhetorical terms ekphrasis and enargeia in con- temporary word-image studies, it seems to me, is a case in question. Originally both of them elements of Classical rhetorical terminology, the former has of late metamorphosed into a term for a specific literary genre while the latter now frequently serves to designate a quality exhibited by successful specimens of that genre. ‘The proposal to use the term ekphrasis as a name for a literary genre appears to be due to Leo Spitzer who, in the context of a memorable analysis of John Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Um, suggested that Keats’ poem should be viewed as [1] first of all a description of an urn—that is, it belongs to the genre, known to Occidental literature from Homer and Theocritus to the Parnassians and Rilke, of the ckphrasis, the poetic description of a pictorial or sculptural work of art, which description implies, in the words of Théophile Gautier, “une transposition dart’, the reproduction through the medium of words of sensue ously perceptible objets d’art (ut pictura poesis). I feel that I am justified in beginning with such an obvious ‘generic’ statement by the title of the poem, “Ode on a Grecian Urn,’ which though located outside of the poem proper still belongs to it and contains the orientation intended for us by the poet, who, as is always the ease, speaks in his title to his public as a critic, Since, then, the ode is a verbal transposition of the sensuous appearance of a Greck urn, my next question must be: What exactly has Keats seen (or chosen to show us) depicted on the urn he is describing? The answer to this question will furnish us with a firm contour, not only of the object of his description but of the description itself, which may later allow us to distinguish the symbolic or metaphysical inferences drawn by theLEKPHRASIS. AND. ENARGELA IN QUINTILIAN’S INSTITUTIONS ORATORIME LIBRI XI poet from the visual elements he has apperceived.? While the usage proposed by Spitzer has indeed found wide acceptance in recent literary scholarship, the question can nevertheless be raised whether using ekphrasis and enargeia as terms for a literary genre and for a distinguishing feature of that genre, respectively, is sufficiently warranted by the rhetorical tradition in which both were first explicated. Should we not rather follow the example of both Classical and Renaissance rhetoric, and treat ekpliasis, on the analogy of terms such as metastasis or apostrophe as the name of a rhetorical figure which should be defined in terms of its affectual nature, ic. in terms of its disposition to create a particular effect in the mind of the listener/reader, namely that of enargeia?> Should we then treat ekphrasis as a term for a type of textual clement, rather than for a type of text as a whole? Or should we perhaps take our cue for reaching a decision on the ‘true’ nature of ekphrasis from the fact that ekphrasis in the course of the 2nd century A.D. did indeed come to serve as the name of a kind of text, namely that of one of the exercises of the Progmnasmata of Classical Antiquity, i.e. one of the beginner's exercises for the aspiring rhetorician. In that case we would indeed be justified in treating it as a term for a (descriptive) genre which, like dispositio, exordium or exemplum, should be defined in terms of composition and typical subject matter. In what follows I shall attempt to trace the concept of ekphrasis, and, in its wake, enargeia, in its original conceptual framework, namely that of Classical rhetoric. My purpose in doing so, however, is not a philological or a historical one in the first place but a theoretical one, Hence the decision to focus on one—albeit exemplary—argumentative context only, in which the terms ekphrasis and enargeia or their Latin equivalents sub oculos subiectio and evidentia are to be met, namely that of Quintilian’s Jnstitutionis oratoriae libri XH, and to by and large ignore the immense amount of philological commentary which Quintilian’s rhetoric has received through the ages.> 2 Leo Spitzer. "The ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, or Content vs. Metagrammar.” Compara~ tive Literature 7 (1955), 203-225, quotation: 206. Also in: Essays on English and American Literature. Nona Hatcher (ed seton: Princeton University Press, 1962. 3 For a detailed discussion of enargeia in the context of Renaissance rhetoric see Heinrich F, Plett, Rhetorit der Affekte: Englische Wirkungsdsthelik im Zeialter der Renaissance. ‘Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1975, passim. * On Aphthonius’ and Hermogen see Plett, Rietorik der Affiki, pp. 95 MT. > The Instituio Oratoria of Quintin. ‘Trans. Harold E. Butler. London: Heinemann, 1966. [Loeb Classical Library]. I shall henceforth use 10 to refer to this edition of Quintilian’s Jnstituionis oratioriae libri X11. Progymnasmata and their Renaissance descendents6 BERNHARD F, HoLz 2. Rhetorical Ekphrasis: Its Aims, Means and Effects As is well-known, the earliest references to and definitions of ekphrasis are to be found in the texts of Classical rhetoric, The term there does not refer to the texts of a specific literary genre, nor docs it refer to a specific relation between a literary work of art and a work of visual art, It refers, loosely speaking, to a writerly procedé, to, technically speaking, a figura entis or a figura in mente As Fritz Graf, the author of an important historical study of the use of the term and the concept of ekphrasis in Classical rhetoric and literature, has suggested, the noun ekphrasis is derived from the verb ekphratzein which, in turn, is derived from phratzein, "to show”, "to make clear”. The prefix ek in this context, we learn from Graf, suggests that the activity in question reaches its intended goal. The term ekphrasis therefore, Graf suggests, refers to the (verbal) activity of clarifying something completely and without a remainder.® Transferring this expression, as well as its Latin equivalent, descriptio, from everyday language into the terminologi- cal repertoire of Classical rhetoric apparently involved three moves, namely those of specifying what it was that was thus being clarified, of ing what exactly that clarification consisted in, and, last but not ing the (verbal) means through which that clarification was to be achieved. A glance at the various rhetorical explications of ekphrasis which have conveniently been collected in Heinrich Lausberg’s monumental Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik,? suggests that the first and the second issue have been dealt with frequently. The third issue, by contrast, that of the means of achieving the kind of clarification associated with ekphrasis, has received little attention. With ekphvasis being explicated as a term of thetoric, and rhetoric being understood as the techne needed for making persuasive speeches, it seems to have been a matter of course that what was at issue was clarification by verbal rather than by pictorial or by musical means. The orator whose fechne was to be analyzed made use of language exclusively; the kind of clarification which was to be designated by the term elphvasis therefore had to be specified with an eye to lan- guage. © Fritz Graf. "Ekphrasis: Die Entstehung der Gattung in’ der Antike.” Beschreibungskunst—Kunstbeschreibung: Ekphrasis von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, Gott Bochm / Helmut Pfotenhauer (eds.). Munich: Fink, 1995, pp. 143-155, esp. p. 143. 7 Heinrich Lausbeng. Handbuch der terarschen Rhetorik Eine Grundlegung der Literaturwissenschafi.. Munich: Hueber, °1960, pp. 544 £3 see also Heinrich Lausberg. Elemente der titerariscen Rhetoik: Eine Einfdbrung ffir Studierende der Klassschen, romanischen, englischen und deutschen Philologie. Munich: Hueber, 1963 ($1971), pp. 117 f.ERPHRASIS AND EXARGELA IN QUINTILIAN’S INSTITUTIONS ORSTORUE Ld Si 7 What should perhaps be added in this context is that Classical rheto- ric—or Classical poetics, for that matter—did not yet have at its disposal the conceptual means needed for distinguishing between verbal, pictorial and musical signifiers. Hence the familiar and yet puzzling fact that the Renaissance debate about ut pictura poesis tended to focus on the compa- rability of the pictorial res picta and the literary res descripta, and insisted that their tertium comparationis should be seen in their shared historia, rather than in any structural similarity of word and image.’ In view of the fact that the orientation of Classical rhetoric was ”affec+ tive”, i.e. primarily interested in the manner in which oratory affected its listeners, it will not come as a surprise that the greatest amount of atten- tion was given to the question of what exactly the clarification consisted in which was to be achieved by means of ekphrasis, The terms employed in order to describe this effect on the listener were enargeia and its Latin calque evidentia. Ekphrasis, the definition goes, is the act of verbally de- scribing an object in such a way that enargeia or evidentia are achieved on the part of the listener, i.e. that the listener (or reader) of the description in question gets the impression of having the object described before his own eyes. Hence the much quoted formulation of Nicolaos of Myra: *Enargeia’ is the distinctive feature of ekphrasis since it is this characteristic which most clearly distinguishes ekphrastic writing from mere reporting; the latter namely contains only a bare representation of the object while the former tries to turn readers into spectators.° Note that the term enargeia used in this manner does not refer to a par- ticular property of the ekphrastic text itself but to what such a text will do to the listener or reader. Quintilian offers a distinction between evidentia/ enargeia and perspicuitas which further clarifies this point: ® On the Renaissance debate about ut pictura poesis see Rensselaer W. Lee. "Ut pietura poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting.” The Art Bulletin 22 (1940), 197-269. On Renaissance views on the relation of word and image see e.g. Carsten-Peter Warneke, Sprechende Bilder—sichtbare Werte: Das Bildverstindnis der frien Neuzeit, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1987. ® Nicolaos von Myra. Progymnasmata, p. 68; quoted from German in Graf, "Ekphrasis”, p. 145. The concept of enargeia has received a considerable amount of attention in recent years: Plett, Rhetoik der Affete, passim; Perrine Galand-Hallyn. "De la rhétorique des affects a une métapoétique: Evolution du concept denargea.” Renaissance-Rhelorik / Reneis- sance Rictoric. Hcinrich F. Plett (ed.). Berlin / New York: de Gruyter, 1993, pp. 244-265; Perrine Galand. "Lienargeia chez Politien.” Bibliothique d’Humanisme @ Renaissance 49 (1987), 25-53; P.G. "Le Songe et la rhétorique de l'enargia.” Le Songe @ la Renaissance: Actes dt colloque international R.HLR. de Cannes, 29°31 mai 1987. Frangoise Charpentier (ed.). Paris: Presses de l'Université de Saint-Btienne, 1990, pp. 125-136.8 BERNHARD F. SCHOLZ. [...] we must place among ornaments that enageia which I mentioned in the rules which I laid down for the statement of facts, because vivid illustration [evidentia), or, as some prefer to call it, representation [zepraesentatio}, is some~ thing more than mere clearness [perspicuilas], since the latter merely lets itself be seen [pate], whereas the former thrusts itself upon our notice [se quo- dammodo ostendit|. eis a great gift to be able to set forth the facts on which we are speaking clearly and vividly [clare atque, ut cerni videantur]. For oratory fails of its full effect, and does not assert itself as it should, if its appeal is merely to the hearing [usque ad aures), and if the judge merely feels that the facts on which he has to give his decision are being narrated to him, and not dis- played in their living truth to the eyes of the mind [non exprimi et aculis mentis ostendi]. (LON 3, 61-62) ‘There is thus a special mode of description, here ranked among the ornaments and later in the text among the figurae, which aims at evidentia or enargeia, i.c. at an emphatic "showing itself” [se astenderé] of the repre- sented object. In doing so it goes beyond other forms of description which aim at perspicuitas only, apparently an unemphatic “letting itself be seen” [pateré]. Note in passing the obvious difficulty of distinguishing clearly between se ostendere and evidentia on the one hand, and patere and perspicuitas on the other. Also note the shift from the ouler car [aures] to the inner eye [oculi mentis] which is thought to parallel the one from ’mere’ narration to the type of description in question, eplrass. If we combine, as we certainly may, Nicolaos’ observation on what happens to the reader of an ekphrastic text with Quintilian’s observation on the manner in which an ekphrastic text ’shows’ the object it describes, we arrive at the claim that there is a kind of reading experience which is like seeing with one’s inner eye; the object read about, for its part, seems to be emphatically showing itself. If we ask ourselves whether Quintilian’s formulations amount to an “operational definition” of the type of description he is thinking of, the answer is likely to be negative at first. No criterion is mentioned which would allow us to decide when the described object “shows” itself, no criterion cither for deciding whether or not we have undergone the meta- morphosis from reader to spectator. It is all, it seems, a matter of intro- spection, But we must not overlook the cultural presuppositions which have gone into this formulation: assume a community of interpretation with a shared life-world and a set of shared cultural codes, and the for- mulation, if viewed from the participant's perspective, can stand as it is. Only then we also have to acknowledge that it is not the presence of certain enargeia-signals in the text which turns us from readers into spec- tators, certain textual elements to which the reader has to pay attention in order to undergo that transformation, but the experience of undergo- ing that metamorphosis which allows us to say that the text in questionPAPHRASIS AND ENARGELL IN QUINTILIAN’S INSTTTUTIONIS ORSTORUE LiBes xt 9 possesses enageia and hence deserves to be called “ekphrastic” If that sounds implausible, here is how Quintilian introduces the con- cept of evidentia: Is there anybody so incapable of forming a mental picture [an quisquam tam procul a concipiendis imaginibus rerum abest] that, when he reads the following passage from the Verrines, he does not seem not merely to see {non solum ipsos intueri videalur] the actors in the scene, the place itself and their very dress, but even to imagine to himself other details that the orator does not describe? U0, VILL 3, 64)"° ‘Then follows the ckphrastic passage in question: "There on the shore stood the praetor, the representative of the Roman people, with slippered feet, robed in a purple cloak, a tunic streaming to his heels, and leaning on the arm of this worthless woman [muliercula],” (10, VILL 3, 64) And Quintilian concludes: For my own part, I seem to see before my eyes [ego certe miki cemerevideor..J his, face, his eyes, the unseemly blandishments of himself and his paramour, the silent loathing and frightened shame of those who viewed the scene. (JO, VIII 3, 64) Note how, almost imperceptibly, the agents of this event, the Roman official and his lady, become actors on a stage, how the location where the event described takes place, the shore, turns into a setting where a cene is being staged, how the witnesses of this occurrence on the shore change into involved spectators, and how, finally, the listener or reader of the quoted passage also metamorphoses into a spectator watching a scene being played out. Calling this yet another instance of the stage metaphor which occupied such a prominent place in Roman society would undoubtedly be correct. ‘The praetor consorting in public with a worthless woman is indeed being viewed as playing a role which clashes with the role which he is supposed to play. The persona which he is actually displaying is not commensurate with the persona which goes with his office.! Hence the “silent loathing and frightened shame” of the onlookers for whom this behavior on the "An quisquam tam procul a coneipiendis imaginibus rerum abest, ut non, cum illa in Verrem legit, Sietit soleatus practor fopuli Romani cum pallio purpureo tunicaque talari muliercula risus in litre, non solum ipsos intueri videatur et locum et habitum, sed quaedam etiam ex iis, quae dicta non sunt, sibi ipse adstruat” See e.g. Cicero's discussion of the four personae in De offs 1, xxx, 107 and xxi, 115, On the significance of the theatre metaphor in Greek and Roman culture see Hannah Ahrendt. On Revolution, New York: Viking Press, 1963, pp. 102 £10 BERNHARD F. SCHOLZ part of the praetor was a failure to carry out his duties which, in turn, amounted to a breakdown in “reciprocal personal relationship”.!? But in pointing to yet another occurrence of the stage metaphor and leaving it at that, one would be missing the remarkable difference between what the text quoted by Quintilian actually “says”, and what Quintilian, the reader, “sees” while reading the text. What should we make of that difference? We surely cannot claim that the passage from Cicero's Verrines quoted by Quintilian describes in all detail what the text as read appears to be “showing” to the reader. But we may claim, it seems to me, without reading anything into Quintilian, that the passage quoted apparently “prompted”, “suggested”, perhaps even “initiated” a particular reading, namely a reading in which the transformations of agent into actor, event into scene, place into setting, and reader into spectator could take place. Accepting such a claim raises the question whether perhaps the reader of this ekphrastic passage, Quintilian, had himself to bring something to the text which made the enargetic showing possible in the first place For a proper understanding of Quintilian’s attempt at clarifying what is meant by enargeia /evidentia it is important to note Quintilian’s tacit assumption of a shared manner of "seeing”: "Is there anybody so incapa- ble of forming a mental picture [...]?” together with the way in which he assures his readers that he for one is capable of seeing in that manner: "For my own part, I scem to see before my eyes ... ”. Quintilian himself, one suspects, would be a poor rhetorician if with formulations such as these he would not get his readers to agree: "So do 1...” What should also be noted is the expressly mentioned possibility of supplementing details not mentioned in the text, a possibility which clearly presupposes a life-world shared between the text in question and its intended readers. Significantly enough this possibility in the example given by Quintilian does not only cover additional features of the persons described like the facial expression and the eyes of the praetor and his dame. It also covers, surprisingly, perhaps, for the modern reader, the fact that the "inner cye” of the reader in front of which the scene in question unfolds, not only sees” several witnesses to the scene but also their reaction to what they are witnessing. They experience "silent loath- ing” and “frightened shame”, and those responses, Quintilian appears to be saying, are the ones called for by the praetor’s worthless performance. But they are also those prompted by reading or listening to the ekphrastic rela kv }2 On the Roman understanding of ofcium [duty] as a "reciprocal person: ship” see Matthias Gelzer. The Roman Nobili. Trans. Robin Seager. Oxford: 1969, p. 66.LEKPLIRASIS AND ENARGELA 1S QUINTILIAN’S INSTITUTIONS ORATORUAE LiBRI Xt V1 description of the occurrence by the shore. The reader, one might put it, discovers his own double in the scene. Are we going too far in suggesting that in this example of a successful ekphrastic text we are not only meant to witness an instance of turning something read into something seen, and of undergoing a metamorphosis from being a reader into being a spectator? Apparently we are also meant to witness a case of "seeing” seeing itself. Ekphrastically prompted seeing, this passage appears to be saying, is as such reflexive The following passage a little later in Quintilian’s text would seem to support such an interpretation: At times, again, the picture which we endeavour to present is fuller in detail, as, for example, in the following description of a luxurious banquet, which is also from Cicero, since he by himself is capable of supplying admirable ex- amples of every kind of oratorical ornament [namgue ad omnium ornandi virtutum exemplum vel unus suffcif\: "I seemed to see [Videbar videre] some entering, some leaving the room, some reeling under the influence of wine, others yawning with yesterday's potations. The floor was foul with wine-smears, covered with wreaths half-withered and littered with fishbones.” What more would any man have seen who had actually entered the room? [Quid plus videret qui intrasset?| (IO, VIII 3, 66).! Once again the reader is expected to be able to extrapolate additional details, and once again that possibility seems to involve one’s double in the scene unfolding before the eye of the reader on reading a description which is capable of offering the kind of evidence which gocs with ekpkrasis: "What clse would someone have seen on entering that room himself?” The attempts, finally, at formulating an answer to the question about the kinds of objects which are amenable to ckphrastic representation within the conceptual framework of Classical rhetoric all agree in offering a relatively short list. Living beings, including, naturally, humans, events, places, and situations: all of these, it was understood, could be rendered ckphrastically.!4 Note that works of the visual arts are not mentioned explicitly as objects of ekpluasis. But we may assume that they are tacitly included in this list. That they were not viewed as a categorically distinct class of 8 “Interim ex pluribus efficitur illa quam conamur exprimere facies, ut est apudl eun- dem (namque ad omnium ormandi virtutum exemplum vel unus suffiit) in deseriptione convivii taxtriosi: Videbar videre alos intrants, alos autem exeuntes, quosdam ex vino vactlantes, quosdam hestera es potatione oscitantes. Humus erat immunda, lutuleta vino, coronis languidulis ct spinis cooperta piscium. Quiid plus videret qui intrasse 8 See Graf's discussion of the list offered in Theon’s Progyraasmata, "Ekphras ps IM.12 BERNHARD F, SCHOLZ objects and hence as requiring special consideration may once again have to do with the possibilities and the constraints of the conceptual frame- work within which the exponents of Classical rhetoric had to operate. For all we can tell, there was as yet no perceived need to distinguish theoreti- cally between an object depicted by a picture or described by a verbal text on the one hand, and an object as depicted by a picture or as described by a verbal text on the other." Speaking from hindsight one might argue that what was still missing in that conceptual framework was a distinction along the lines of the structuralist one between the signifier and the signi- fied of a verbal or a pictorial sign, and, in the wake of such a distinction, an understanding of a sign and its referent which could go beyond the traditional claim that words and pictures both are capable of “signifying” a res, and which would allow focussing on the manner in which the significr “constitutes” its signified. Had such a distinction or one like it been available, it would indeed have been possible to articulate in theo- retical terms the difference between an object and a verbal description or a pictorial rendering of that object, and subsequently, the difference be- tween a verbally described and a pictorially rendered object. It would then also have been possible to account for the fact that an ekphrasis of a statesman in vivo, and an ekphrasis of his marble bust are quite different matters. So when we are told that “a tendency to limit ckphrasis to descriptions of works of art is discernible in the later progymnasmata of Nicolaus Sophistes (Sth cent. A.D.) and in the prose works of Libanius, the Philostrati, and Callistratus, but only in modern times does it bear that exclusive meaning”,!® we will have to look for circumstantial rather than theoretical reasons for this tendency to restrict the extension of the term ekphrasis. The explanation may in fact be quite trivial: if the purpose of the progymnasmata was the practice of dispositio, exordium, exemplum and descriptia or ekphrasis, the description of pictures and busts may have sug- gested itself as an exercise once the “real” objects normally present in the classroom, inchiding the teacher of rhetoric and his students, had all been described ad nauseam. But since the purpose of those exercises was to '5 ‘This is obviously not to suggest that there was no clear everyday awareness of differences such as these. One only has to think of the general fascination with the pictorial trompe-Uoril. But there appears to be no evidence that these differences were in addition theoretically reflected. With the ontological distinction of verbum and res (and the analogous one of pictura and res picta or historia) firmly in place right into the 18th century, it would have been difficult if not impossible to articulate theoretically the insight that verbal and pictorial texts not only denote their objects, not only refer to them but also in some way of another ‘shape’ them, ‘constitute’ them as a result of the properties of the picture or the verbal text itself, rather than the decision of the poet or the painter. Ant. "Ekphrasis.” The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Alex Pr al. (eds), Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993, p. 320.PAPHRASIS AND ENARGELI IN QUINTILIAN’S INSTITUTIONS ORATORIAE LnRE xt) 13 practise ekplrasis in general rather than the description of works of art, what those ekphrases of pictures and busts focused on were once again those “real” objects as if they were present in vive. What they did not focus on were those “real” objects as depicted objects.” Whatever the reasons behind the failure of Classical rhetoric to distin guish theoretically between objects described ekphrastically and objects as described ekphrastically, a quote like the following one from Rudolf Agricola’s De incentione dialectia libri tres (1539) suggests that the under- standing of ekphrasis as a kind of description irrespective of the object of description remained in force right into the Renaissance For those who are thoroughly familiar with the loci, and who wish to find something with their aid, the next step consists in acquiring the ability to lead any object whatever through the loc: such a procedure is identical with, or at least comparable to, what the teachers of Rhetoric used to consider as preparatory exercises (pracexercilamenta) for the beginning student, and what in Greek called ekphrasis, and in Latin by most is called descripto,'® As late as the middle of the 16th century, that is to say, ekphrasis regarded as a procedure for describing any object whatsoever. And when, as the case of Agricola shows, the need or the opportunity arose to fu ther specify this procedure, it is in terms of the how and not the what, in terms of the means of description but not in terms of the object of de- scription." It hardly needs mentioning that Humanist theorizing on art had de- veloped ways of accounting for the formal properties of a painting in relation to its historia by the middle of the 15th century. Thus Alberti has the following to say about the compositio of a paintiny \7 On this issue see Graf, "Ekphrasis”, p. 148: "Dem Kunsuverk wird [...] Autonomic aberkannt, es wird auf die blofie Abbildungsfunktion reduziert. [..] Ziel der Rhetorikschule ist die Praxis, und dort [..] geht es nicht um Kunstwerke, sondern um reale Menschen. Geldufig ist freilich, daB auch antike Kunsttheorie den Mimesis- Charakter eines Bildes kaum in Frage stellte; diskutiert wurde das ‘Thema vor allem im mmmenhang damit, inwieweit Kultbilder Aussagen tiber die Natur des Gotliche machen kénnten.” "© Rudolf Agricola, De incentionedialectica libri tres. Drei Bicher ber die Invento dialectca. Ea and trans. Lothar Mundt. Tabingen: Niemeyer, 1992, p. 404: "Proximum est ei, qui ditigenter cognitos habet locos, voletque ex eis invenire, parare facultatem sibi cuiusliet vei per locos deducendae, quod vel idem est, vel simile ill, quod solebant, qui docebant rhetoricen, inter preacexercitamenta ponere puerorum, quod Graece ekphrasis, latine a plerisque de- scriptio vocatur. mine) '® Julius Caesar Scaliger in his Poetices libri septem (1561/81) uses the formula sub oculis subicere for the purpose of characterizing the figure called demonstratio. But he, too, men- tions a specific object of description, in this case a building, only by way of exampl “Demonstrationem, veluti_quum loca describimus ambitiosius, ita vt sub oculis subiiciantur.” (IHL, xxxiii, 2 £)4 BERNHARD F. SCHOLZ Compositio is that method [ratid] of painting which composes the parts into the work of art. [..] The parts of the historia are bodies, the parts of the body are members, the parts of the member are plane surfaces. The primary parts of the work of art therefore are the plane surfaces, out of these the members, out of the members the bodies, out of these the historia.®° Contrasting the insight that the historia of a painting is ultimately com- posed of plane surfaces while that of a poem is ultimately composed of words might conceivably have led to a wish to distinguish between an ekphrasis of a painting and an ekphrasis of an event. But there is no evie dence that the Renaissance students of ekphzasis were aware of these de- velopments in the theory of art. 3. Ekphrasis as a figura mentis Having taken a closer look at the two distinctive features associated with verbal texts which deserve the label ’ekphrastic’, the one a feature of the object, the other of the reading experience, we must inquire into the category to which Quintilian assigns the combination of both features, into the place, that is, which he assigns to ekplrasis in his typology of tropes and figures of speech. Quintilian, it will be recalled, is extremely careful in developing his typology, chiding, as he goes along, those of his fellow students of rhetoric, among them one G. Artorius Proculus, who failed to notice, or chose to ignore the difference between tropes and figures on the one hand, and between different types of figures on the other (0, IX 1, 2)2" So it may turn out to be a matter of some signifi- st autem compositio ea pingendi ratio qua partes in opus picture componuntur. .] Historie partes corpora, corporis pars membrum est. Membri pars est superticies. tur operis partes superticies, quod ex his membra, ex membris corpora, ex illi <" (De Pictura, 1435), quoted in Michael Baxandall. Giolto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Painting in Haly and the Discovery of Pictorial Composition 1350-1450. Oxford: Clarendon, 1971, p. 130. Baxandall (p. 131) suggests that the hierarchy of plane, mem- ber, body and historia was modelled on the hierarchy of word, phrase, clause and period explored already in Isidor of Seville’s Etymologiae. But while the latter hierarchy is purely syntactical, the former shifts from syntactic to semantic categories at the transition from plane to member, thereby taking note of what in modern terminology might be called the “double articulation” of a painting, 2 ‘The validity of Quintlian’s distinction between figures and tropes is a source of wing disagreement among students of Classical rhetoric in general and of ‘lian in particular. Since [ am interested in the manner in which Quintilian argu- mentatively relates the concepts of etphrasis/descrpti and enargeia/ecidentia in the context of the conceptual framework of thetorie I shall ignore this debate. For a convincing attempt at tracing this disagreement back to the different assumptions entertained by the grameEAPHRASIS AND ENARGELA IN QUINTILIAN’S INSTITUTIONS ORATORIKE Linke X15 cance to find ekphrasis located among the figurae mentis, i.e. “figures of thought”, as it is usually translated. And it may also be instructive to find out which other figurae mentis besides ekphrasis are mentioned. Quintilian, it will be remembered, makes a point of distinguishing rather carefully between topes and figures, He does so in the following manner: he name of trope is applied to the transference of expressions from their natural and principal signification to another [sermo a naturali et principali significatione translatus ad aliam omandae oratinis gratia], with a view to the embel- lishment of style or, as the majority of grammarians define it, the transfer- cence of words and phrases from the place which is strictly theirs (0 another to which they do not properly belong [dictio ab eo loco, in quo propria est, translata in ‘eum, in quo propria non est}. figure, on the other hand, as is clear from the name itself, is the term employed when we give our language a conformation other than the obvious and ordinary. (20, IX 1, 4)? he difference between the two may scem slight indeed at first sight. Both tropes and figures, it is claimed, involve deviations. The difference, however, lies in the manner in which what is being deviated from is circumscribed: in the case of the trope it is the “natural and original meaning” [naturalis et principalis signifiatio], the “proper place” [locus pro- prius], while in the case of the figure it is the form of expression which is common and which first suggests itself” [communis et primum se offerente ratione]. A trope thus involves, in modern terms, a deviation from the linguistic norm, here associated with the idea of a natural or original meaning of an expression, while a figure “only” involves what one might call a deviation from a communicative expectation. Figures, in fact, as Quintilian points out, can make do with words in their proper meaning and in their proper order: "For a figure does not necessarily involve any alteration cither of the order or the strict sense of words.” [Nam et propriis verbis et ordine conlocatis figura fieri potest] (IO, IX. 1, 7). Such an understand- ing of a rhetorical figure does imply, it should be noted, that a particular figure might not on occasion involve the use of words not in their proper marians and the rhetoricians of Classical antiquity see Dirk M. Schenkeveld. "Figures and ‘Tropes: A Border-Case Between Grammar and Rhetoric.” Rhetorik zwischen den Wissenschaften: Geschichte, System, Praxis als Probleme des ‘Histrischen Weorterbuchs der Roetorik Gert Ueding (ed.). Tabingen: Niemeyer, 1991, pp. 149-157. This article was brought to ntion by Heinrich F. lett Est igitur tropos sermo a naturali et principali significatione translatus ad aliam ornandae orationis gratia, vel, ut plerique grammatici finiunt, dictio ab co loco, in propria est, translata in eum, in quo propria non est; figura, sicut nomine conformatio quaedam orationis remota a communi et primum se offerent ®16 BERNHARD F. SCHOLZ meaning, and not in their proper order, But doing so would not, accord- ing to Quintilian, be one of the defining characteristics of a figure.23 Before we can raise the question of what this understanding of a figura means for an understanding of the figure called ekphrasis we need to take a brief look at the impasse into which Quintilian appears to have manoevered himself by calling ekphrasis a figure, and by defining a figure in the way he docs. For if, as Quintilian appears to be suggesting, a figure, unlike a trope, cannot be described in terms of a deviation from a linguistic norm but only in terms of a deviation from a communicative expectation, the question how to recognize the presence of a specific figura in a text becomes a matter of some urgency.** For as soon as a figure is understood as a conformatio quaedam orationis remota a communi et primum se ofjerente ratione, the question which cannot be avoided is: from whose expectation docs it deviate: whose is the ratio in question? Quintilian is well aware of this problem, and he tries to solve it by distinguishing between two different senses of the term figura, a broad and a narrow one: In the first [sense] it [i.e. the word “figure’] is applied to any form in which thought is expressed, just as itis to bodies which, whatever their composition, must have some shape. In the second and special sense, in which it is called a schema, it means a rational change in meaning or language from the ordi- ary and simple form, that is to say, a change analogous to that involved by sitting, lying down on something or looking back. (JO, IX 1, 10-11)?5 If we adopt the first sense of figura, that is to say, it will not be possible to identify anything in an utterance which is not “figurative” [nihil non figuratum est), just as it is not possible to say of a body that it docs not exhibit some posture or another [sicut in corporibus, quibus (...] utique habitus est aliquis}. So it is the second sense of figura which Quintilian wishes to adopt, the one which singles out cases which involve a change from the simple, spontaneous manner of expression towards the poctie and the rhetorical [quod sit a simplici atque in promptu posito dicendi modo poetice vel manner in which Quintilian subtly distinguishes between irony as a trpus and as a figura mentis (10, IX 2, 44-47) would deserve special attention. ® Modern students of rhetoric, especially those of a structuralist persuasion would undoubtedly disagree with Quintilian on this point, See eg. Le Groupe w. Rhétorique générale. Paris: Librairie Larousse, 1970, esp. pp. 30-49: "Théorie générale des figures du langue”, and Rhétorique de la poésie. Lecture tineaire, lecture tabulaire. Brussels: Editions Complexe, 1977, pp. 46-5 * "Nam duobus modis dicitur: uno qualiscunque forma sententiae, sicut in corporibus, quibus, quoquo modo sunt composita, utique habitus est aliquis; altero, quo proprie schama dicitur, in sensu vel sermone aliqua a vulgari et simplici specie cum ratione mutatio, sicut nos secemus, ineumbimus, respicimus.”ERPHRASIS. AND ENARGELA IN QUINTILIAN’S INSTITUTIONS ORATORIAE User x17 oratorie mutatum]. Only the mutated form of expression, the one which in the carlier formulation was referred to as remota a communi et primum se offerente ratione, and now is identified as a simplici aigque in promptu posito dicendi modo poetice vel oratorie mutatam, will henceforth be called “figurative speech”, oratio figurata ([0, IX 1, 10-14). It is needless to point out that even with the adoption of the second sense of figua it will hardly become any easier to distinguish between an oratio figurata and an oratio non figurata. Quintilian, it seems, is aware of this problem, and he tries to take cognizance of it in the manner in which he goes about discussing the figure which is variously called subiectio sub oculos, evidentia, hypotyposis or ekphrasis: With regard to the figure which Cicero calls ocular demonstration (sub oculos subiecto}, this comes into play [fri sol, cum) when we do not restrict our- selves to mentioning that something was done, but proceed to show how it was done [res non gesta indicatur, sed ut sit esta ostenditur|, and do so not merely on broad general lines, but in full detail [nec universa, sed per partes). (10, IX 2, 40) Why does Quintilian use the formulation figura tum fie’ solet, cum ... , "the figure usually comes into play”, or “tends to come into play”, as we should perhaps better translate, instead of simply stating the textual fea- tures by which the figure of sub oculos subiectio may be recognized, namely the showing of how something was done, and the presentation in full detail? The formulation figura tum fieri sol, cum... recalls the formulation Quintilian uses in conjunction with his general discussion of figures at the beginning of Book IX of the Jnstitutio. There, too, he speaks of the "com- ing about” of a figure: "a figure can come about through words with their meaning and place” [nam et propriis verbis et ordine conlocatis figura fieri potest (0, IX 1, 7). In the case of tropes he does indeed use formulations which simply list the distinctive features of the trope in question. Thus, he says about metonymy that it "consists in the substitution of one name for another” [est nominis pro nomine positio] (IO, VILL 6, 23), and about allegory that it "either presents one thing in words and another in meaning, or else something absolutely opposed to the meaning of the words” [aut aliud zerbis aliud sensu ostendit, aut etiam interim contrarium (10, VIII 6, 44). By contrast, the formulations which Quintilian uses in connection with figurae mentis typically stress what the figure in question does rather than what it is. What is more, the nature of the figure is typically to be gleaned from examples: lla vero, ut ait Gicero, sub oculos subiectio tum fieri sole indicatur, sed ut sit gesta ostenditur, nec universa, sed per partes cum Fes non gesta18 BERNHARD F. SCHOLZ Aposiopesis, which Cicero calls reticentia, Celsus obticentia, and some interruptio, is used to indicate passion or anger, as in the line: "Whom I—But better first these billows to assuage.” (10, IX 2, 54)?” Apostrophe also, which consists in the diversion of our address from the judge, is wonderfully stirring, whether we attack our adversary as in the passage, >What was that sword of yours doing, Tubero, in the field of Pharsalus?” or turn to make some invocation such as, "For I appeal to you, hills and groves of Alba.” (JO, IX 2, 38)" Figurae mentis, these examples suggest, are rarely if ever defined, and if the formulation figura tum fieri solet, cum ... which Quintilian uses in conjunc- tion with the figure of sub oculos subiecto is an indication, there is always a “subjective” factor involved. Tropes, we may wish to say, are defined tively” as textual phenomena; figurae mentis, by contrast, are "emer gent” phenomena, ic. phenomena which, too, require a textual basis, but which in addition require a “qualified” act of perception if they are “to come about”. A figure like sub oculos subiectio, we may understand Quintilian to be saying, cannot be guaranteed to occur, even if the tex- tual condition is met of presenting an event not as having happened but in the manner in which it happened, and "not merely in broad general lines, but in full detail”. Recalling the passage from Cicero which Quintilian quoted in exlenso in order to let the reader share his own experience of a text which is capable of sub oculas subiectio, and thus making him/her part of the com- munity of interpretation of which he himself was part, we may wonder whether we are justified in connecting the fier’ solet of the discussion of the figure of sub oculos subiectio with that passage. There, we saw, Quintilian used his own experience and that of others as testimony for the occur- rence of enargeia: ego certe mihi cernere videor, "for my own part, I seem to see before my eyes ...”. In this particular case, then, the factual occurrence of the figura in question bears Quintilian’s own testimony, But someone else, someone, for example, who does not participate in the communis et primum se offerens ratio which is presupposed by the possibility of recognizing figurae mentis in general, may not be able to see what Quintilian saw on reading that passage.2? “Aposiopesis, quam idem Cicero reticentiam, Gelsus obticentiam, nonnulli interruptionem appell ipsa ostendit aliquid adfectus vel irae, ut. Quos ego—sed motos [raestat componere fluctus 28 "Aversus quoque a iudice sermo, qui dicitur apostrophé, mire movet, sive adversarios invadimus: Quid enim tuus ille, Tubero, in acie Pharsalica, gladius agebat? sive ad invocationem aliquam convertimur: Vos enim iam ego, Albani tumuli atque luc.” 2 This is admittedly a rather modern reading of Quintilian which puts considerable stress on the “subjective” resp. “intersubjective” aspects of "seeing with one’s inner eye”,EXPHRASIS AND ENAKGI 11 QUINTILIAN’S JNSTFUTIONS ORATORIAE LiBRs xt 19 4. Ekphrasis as a Dispositional Concept Our reading of Quintilian suggests that calling a text "ekphrastic” is not simply a matter of subsuming it under a concept which specifies what sort of properties that text must possess if the predicate "ekphrastic” is to be applicable. Rather, calling a text "ekphrastic” is an issue which involves both textual propertics, and ways of perceiving those properties, and responding to them in a suitable manner. Quintilian, unfortunately, is rather vague when it comes to specifying what those textual properties are. But whatever they are, whether they are identified by Quintilian as in the case of sub oculos subiectio, or introduced by way of example only, as in the case of aposiopesis, they at most amount to the necessary condition which has to be met if the figure in question is to come about. But they do not yet amount to the sufficient condition for that to happen. The same, clearly, applies to what I have above called “qualified perception”. It, too, is a necessary condition for the figure in question to occur, but not a sufficient one. Only together will they bring that occurrence about. ‘Together, that is to say, they represent the necessary and suflic ditions for the occurrence of the figure in question. In the case of the figura in mente (or figura mentis) called ekphrasis, we have seen, the qualified perception involves having the feeling that we are turned from a listener/reader into a spectator. What makes the reference to the eye, which is involved in this appeal to enargeia/evidentia, so prob= lematic, and what, as a consequence, makes ekphrasis such a difficult con- cept to explicate, is the notion of the inner rather than the ouler eye, the mind’s ge, that is, to which Quintilian is appealing in this context. Quintilian, to be sure, does not explicitly make that distinction. But it is undoubtedly implied in the formulation "I seem to see before my eyes” {ego cerle mihi cernere videor ...] and similar formulations by means of which Quintilian attempts to describe what exactly happens when certain figurae mentis come about. The figure of ekphrasis, we can sum up Quintilian’s argument, when and if it happens, happens before the mind’s eye only That may seem obvious enough. But it is precisely the idea of sceing with the “inner eye”, it scems to me, which allows for the kind of extrapola- which, in his argument are indeed rather underdeveloped. However, it seems to me that we cannot avoid foregrounding these aspects if we wish to hold on to Quintilian’s own distinetion between tropes and figurae ments: if these figures do indeed arise in mente, the question which cannot be avoided is: "whose mind are you talking about?” % A factor ’A’ is a necessary condition of the factor "B’ if the non-occurrence of "A’ involves the non-occurrence of °B'. A factor ’A’ isa sufficient condition of the factor "BY if with the occurrence of 'A’, "BY will also occur20 BERNHARD F. SCHOLZ tion and augmentation which Quintilian finds acceptable in conjunction with the passages he quotes from Cicero. The seeing of the "outer eye”, we might put it, is restricted by the spatial and temporal limits of the here and now. Whenever several objects present themselves to the "outer eye” at the same time they do so thanks to their contiguity and co-presence in space and time. By contrast, the "inner cye” which comes into play in Quintilian’s discussion of figurae ments is not restricted in the same man- ner. It is entitled by memory and imagination to go beyond the limita- tions imposed on the outer eye. Hence the use of expressions like visio and phantasia both in the context of a discussion of the effect of oratory: But how are we to generate these emotions in ourselves, since emotion is not in our own power? I will try to explain as best I may. ‘There are certain experiences which the Greeks call phantasias, and the Romans visions, whereby things absent are presented to our imagination with such extreme viv that they seem actually to be before our very eyes. (JO, VI 2, 29)! Being moved thus depends on having visiones or phantasias as a result of the occurrence of a figurae mentis like sub oculos subiectio. But the latter occurrence, we have seen, is also conditional; it depends on the coming together of certain textual properties and an act of perception which is qualified to let that figure occur. If this is so, and I for one find Quintilian’s presentation quite convine- .g, applying the predicate “ekphrastic” as explicated in terms of enargeia/ evidentia to a descriptive text raises a problem. For labelling a text “ekphrastic” can then mean one of two things. I may myself have expe- rienced the sub ocules subiectio intended by its author, and I may therefore, on the basis of introspection, feel justified in calling the text in question “ekphrastic”. But I may also use that predicate in order to state that the text possesses the capability, the disposition to allow the figure in ques- tion to occur. That is to say, the predicate "ekphrastic” can be used both to refer to an episode, an occurrence of sub oculas subiectio caused by the text, and to the capability, the disposition of that text to cause such an episode, such an occurrence.’ 5! "At quomodo fict, ut adficiamur? neque enim sunt mots in- nostra Temptabo etiam de hoc dicere. Quas phantasias Graeci vocant, nos sane appellemus, per quas imagines rerum absentium ita repraesentantur animo, ut_ cas cemere oculis ac praesentes habere videamur. 2 The distinction between expressions which refer to episodes and occurrences and expressions which refer to capabilities and dispositions is due to Gilbert Ryle. The Concept ‘of Mind (1949}. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966, pp. 116-153. Its potential usefulness for literary scholarship was first suggested by Harald Fricke in Norm und Abweichung: Eine Philosophie der Literatwr. Munich: Beck, 1981, pp. 90 £5 see also Rudiger Zymner.EXPHRASIS AND EXARGELL IN QUINTILIAN’S INSTITUTIONS ORATORIAE BRI Xt 21 Now it is obvious that as literary scholars we are not particularly interested in finding out that a particular person underwent the occur rence called sub oculos subiectio; we are therefore not particularly interested cither in the use—let’s call it “episodic”—of "ekphrastic” to describe such an episode or occurrence. What we are interested in, however, is the “dispositional” use of "ekphrastic”, which will allow us to say that the text or textual properties in question have the capability of causing an episode or occurrence of sub oculos subiecto. The two uses, it appears, are not independent of each other. Having noted earlier on that the figura mentis as described by Quintilian only occurs when both necessary conditions, that of the presence of certain textual properties and that of an act of "qualified” perception are met, we can now say the use of the predicate “ekphrastic” ultimately rests on the fact that the text in question did indced cause the effect described as sub oculos subiecto. That is to say, the statement "this text is ekphrastic” must have been true as a statement about an occurrence of that figure as a result of reading it or listening to it being read, before it can be true as a statement about a disposition. That, it scems to me, is the deeper significance of Quintilian’s tend- ency of introducing the names of a number of figurae mentis by quoting a passage which, in his own experience is likely to cause an occurrence of the figure in question, rather than by listing the textual properties which constitute one of the two necessary conditions of that figure. It is as if Quintilian were saying to his readers: "Watch carefully what happens before your ‘inner eye’ as you read: (Whom I—but better first these billows to assuage’ [Quos ego—sed motus praestat componere fluctus]; whatever happens, let’s call it “aposiopesis.”” "Pay attention to the phantasia which Manierismus: Zur poetschen Artist bei Johann Fischart, Jean Paul und Amo Schnidt. Paderborn: 1995, pp. 62 f. My use of the notion of a “dispositional concept” deviates, e's to the extent that the later tries to make do without the hermeneutic concept of a community of interpretation: "Daf eine sprachliche Besonderheit in einem bestimmten Text eine bestimmte Funktion hat, laBt sich nicht direkt beobachten, sondern nur indirekt ermitteln—durch den Nachweis namlich, da Textmerkmale dieses ‘Typs agenerell gecigne sind, in vergleichbaren Kontexten diese bestimmte Wirkung zu erziclen. Dies enweist sich daran, daB-—gemaB empirischer Untersuchung einer hinreichend grofen Zahl von Fallendieser Merkmalstyp diese Wirkung in der Regel tatsichlich hervorbringt [...].” Fricke thus expressly rejects a role for introspection or for the hermeneutic reconstruction of shared ways of perceiving: "Das Poctische an einer Normabweichung hangt_weder von individuellen subjektiven Intention noch von kollektiven. subjektiven Reaktionen ab, sondern von ihrer intersubjektiv ermittelbaren Funktion.” Fricke, Norm und Abweickung, p. 90.