Synathroesmus

Synathroesmus (sin-ath-RES-mus) is a rhetorical device which involves the collection or listing of words, often adjectives, in a list; it also may be spelled synathroismos or sinathrismus and is also referred to as frequentatio or the heaping figure. The gathered words may or may not be synonyms and may involve the collection of previous phrases or ideas from an oral or written work. Often, synathroesmus is used invectively: to emphasize blame or negative traits.

Etymology

Synathroesmus is derived from Greek synathroismos (Greek: συναθροισμός; "a collection, union")

Rhetorical use

Synathroesmus, being a collection of like terms, is meant to emphasize a description of the subject. When the subject is an inanimate object, synathroesmus may enliven it and create vivid imagery. The piling up of descriptions can accentuate a cumulative favoring or disfavoring towards its subject; in the latter case, where is it a heap of insults, it is referred to as bdelygmia

According to Mark Forsyth, part of the effectiveness of such listings is because of their unnaturalness in normal oral language which emphasizes imagery or tone in a manner unfound in human speech: "Nobody but a God or a fool talks in lists."

Examples

In "Nicholas Nickleby," Dickens uses synathroesmus by describing a character as "a proud, haughty, consequential, turned-up-nose peacock." The device is used to exacerbate the snobbyness of the character.

Shakespeare, in The Tempest, uses synathroesmus in the following lines: "The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, / The solemn temples, the great glope itself"

The following quote (with liberty taken to modernize archaic spelling) is an example given by Richard Sherry: "He is an harlot of his own body, he lies in wait for others, greedy, intemperate, wanton, proud, unnatural to his parents, unkind to his friends, troublesome to his kinsfolk, stubborn to his betters, disdainful to his equals, cruel to his inferiors, finally, intolerable to all men." Note the device, similar to the above example, being used to degrade its subject; Sherry describes his use of synathroesmus more akin to accumulatio.

In The Path to Rome, Belloc declares, "So this threat about the heavy task of beginning breeds discouragement, anger, vexation, irritability, bad style, pomposity and infinitives split from helm to saddle, and metaphors mixed as the Carlton."

Belloc, again in The Path to Rome, jokes, "I see. You would not pile words one on the other, qualifying, exaggerating, conditioning, superlative, diminishing, connecting, amplifying, condensing, mouthing, and glorifying the mere sound: you would be terse."

Subcategories

Synathroesmus is a broad rhetorical category that describes types of listings; those subcategories include the following:

Synonymia

Synonymia is synathroesmus in which the listed terms are synonymous with each other with the purpose of emphasizing emotional meaning or increasing clarity.

For example, in Julius Caesar, a Roman tribune named Marullus insults the Caesar-supporting Romans by exclaiming, "You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!" This bdelygmia is an example of synonymia because it involves repeated synonyms and aims to intensify the pejorative name-calling.