elision
A metrical figure: a suppression, marked
by an apostrophe, of a final unstressed vowel before an initial vowel, to
obtain a more harmonious sound. It must not be confused with ‘troncamento’/
apocope, by which a complete syllable can be eliminated, also before words
beginning with a consonant and is not marked by an apostrophe (v.). Ex.:
d’amore, l’eterno l’amico.
ellipsis
A grammatical figure consisting in omitting
some part of the sentence, that can be easily understood from the context. Ex.:
“and you to me” (implied: said); “naughty!” (implied: you are); “woe to you”
(implying: will come).
emblema
(an inserted thing)
A symbolical figure, accompanied by a motto
or saying, within a whole composed by three parts: a short motto (inscriptio)
to introduce the subject, symbolically represented by a figure (pictura),
which is then described and explained by an epigram (subscriptio) or a short
prose writing. The three parts contribute, each one in its own way, to the
double function of representing and interpreting the whole of the emblem. In
1531 Andrea Alciato, from the Veneto region, issued “Emblemata” with a very great
success. He was followed by other authors, in 1500 and 1600. It is a form of
allegorical thought, that does not exhaust itself in a book, but covers
Picture, decoration, tapestry weaving etc.
Pictures 52, 53
enallage
(inversion)
A grammar figure , consisting in using a
part of the speech different from that which ought to be used according to
grammar; noun for adjective: “each strike is death” (deadly); adjective for
noun: “I admire the beautiful” (beauty); adjective for adverb: “I speak clear”
(clearly); a present time for a future time: “I am going tomorrow” (I will go),
etc.
enjambement
A French word (striding over) indicating
the metrical phenomenon by virtue of which the logical phrase of the poetical
speech does not coincide with the line, but goes on in the successive line and
strides over the first.“Vi fan vaghe spalliere ombrosi e forti/tra i
purpurei rosai verdi mirteti” (G. Marino). “Gran tempo intenti e fissi/ I lumi miei nei
lumi suoi tenendo”. (G.
V. Imperiali). “This wit, like faith, by each man is applied/to one small sect”
(A.Pope).
epanalepsis
(doubling)
A repetition of the same word at the
beginning and at the end of the line.Ex.: “res hominum fragile alit, et pariunt
fors./fors dubia, aeternumque labans quam blanda fovet spes./spes…”
(D.M. Ausonio).
epenthesis
(addition )
A metrical figure: insertion of a sound or
of a syllable in the middle of a word. Ex.: “umilemente” for
“umilmente”.
epiphoneme
(exclamation)
A figure of speech consisting in concluding
a sentence with an exclamation which contains a moral saying. Ex.: “The culprit
was finally arrested: justice always reaches him who breaks it”.
epiphora
(addition)
A return of the same word at the end of
several clauses (Compare with anaphora)..
epistrophe
(conversion)
A particular form of rhetorical repetition
(see), by which the final word or member of the phrase is taken up again
several times in the same sentence.
epithesis
see: paragoge
eteostic
see: chronogram
euphemism
A figure of speech of content, consisting
in using pleasant and extenuated words or circumlocutions to express some
concepts that, openly indicated with their real name, would be unpleasant and
painful. Ex.: “to give up the ghost”, “pass over”; “streetwalker” (instead of whore).
evident poetry
Czechoslovakian Jíři Kolár gives this
title to a thick series of experiments, substituting word with the object or
the collage: “rolages” (wrappings), “chiasmages” (intersections), “point poem”,
“abstract poems” with creased pages, partially erased “censored poems”,
“nodular poems”, with interlaced strings, “poems for the blind” with a
pseudo-Braille writing, “analphabetic poems” with scribbles, “musical poems”,
with broken and recomposed staffs; “laundry poems”, with rags hanging by
clothes pegs; “object-poems”, with throw-outs.
Picture 54
exclamation
see: interjection
gematrici, poems
A linguistic expression in which a numeric
value is attributed to the alphabetical letters which compose it. See:
chronogram.
Picture 64
gliommeri, or gliuommeri
Eleven-syllable compositions with internal
rhyme, so called with a word of the Neapolitan dialect whose meaning is “ball”.
They are composed by a series of mottos, quips, sayings and various other
elements, which are interlaced like an intricate skein. The most ancient vulgar
example is a northern one, a bisticcio or gliommero by Francesco di Vannozzo
about the zara game (1399). In Quattrocento the gliommero was taken up again by
Sannazzaro.
glossolalia
From the Greek: about a person speaking in
tongues or the “strange speaking” as St. Paul says in the
first letter to the Corinthians. It is also witnessed by Plato, as of somebody
speaking in an ecstatic mood: the Pythia, the Sybils, the shamans or voodoo wizards
(the witchlike invocations to the evil spirits, to obtain a certain kind of
diagnosis, or cure; and the obsession and the trance fight of the same with
demons in a form of dramatic personification, also with the use of special
voice tones and of pantomimes). Also among the glossolalias are to be
considered the linguistic externalizations occurring during the functions of
certain Christian denominations, like the Pentecostals*. In this last form, the
most researched form, glossolalia turns up as a kind of vocalization of
supposed nonsensical words, which by the congregation is interpreted as
directly inspired by God. It is composed by expressions of different length of
time, from a few seconds to one hour and more. Such expressions, although
unintelligible, vary from person to person, and certain persons possess more
than one “language”. Most times, glossolalia originates in the moments of
thanksgiving and praise to the god and is combined with feelings of great
freedom and peace, which can persist much longer than the spoken event.
Glossolalia satisfies certain functions both social and individual. For ex. it
justifies a kind of religious experience, confirms the authority of certain
spiritual leaders. A lot of individuals indulge in glossolalia, when they are
in some peculiar conditions of well-being, that is to say they feel the
necessity of speaking without saying anything. G. has not any cognitive
functions and works as a relief mechanism of psychological tensions. G. is a
kind of tendency to transgression of linguistic communication, thanks to it the
mere phonic values of the significant are exalted, to the detriment of the
current linguistic codification. G. is not a mere repetition or a mere
stammering, but a distinct speech and very precise; it appears as divided in
speech units based on breathing pauses and produced by the natural use of
volume, accent, rhythm, intonation or melody variations. Repetitions of certain
speech unities or melodic phrases and the rhythm show some prosodic aspects. Cadences
of syllabic series look like a pseudo-grammatical form. For ex. the speaker,
after choosing a syllable, may combine it with other syllables, which precede
or follow them, like suffixes or prefixes, so creating a facsimile of word, an
illusion soon destroyed if you try to break up the speech unities that are
separated by the breathing. The two models of glossolalic formation, the
syllabic model and the melodic model, are independent. On listening to them it
looks as if constantly altered words were emerging, a typical character of G.
Since such supposed words are unintelligible, that to say belong to an unknown
language, they are not distinguishable from the phrases of which they are a
part. A series of consonant variations result, more than a series of vowels,
with a masked repetition. According to a leading exponent “that speaks in
tongues” g. surpasses the normal language, a language that has been
contaminated by its own grammatical and syntactical structure.
G. must not be confused with the grammelot
(see) or with the several kinds of argot; but certain poetical forms of
pre-dada avant-garde are glossolalic: by Paul Scherbaart in his “Railway novel,
I love you”; or by Christian Morgenstern or by Hugo Ball, or in Panurge’s
“langage lanternois”, in the “Pantagruel” by Rabelais. I would not consider
glossolalic certain syllabic rhythms with a musical background, for ex. the
non-sense in the be-bop jazz or in the African or Afro-American sing-songs,
which are in my opinion analogous **
Being essentially a speech phenomenon, g.
cannot be adequately transcribed (as in the examples are giving), while other
values interfere, like intonation, a peculiar pronunciation of certain
syllables, rhythm, etc. – a lot of elements which only an audio- registration
of the event can evidence.
Peculiar forms of g. may be considered some
essays in imagined languages created by Antonin Artaud in “Pour en finir avec
le jugement de Dieu”. In the “Lettres de Rodez” (1946) Artaud hints at a book
“Letura d’Eprahì tali tete fendi photìa o fotre tudi” and adds: “After many
years I had an idea about the internal consumption, consummation of language,
caused by the exhumation of I don’t know what muddy and crapulous necessities.
In 1934 I wrote a whole book in this sense, in a language that was not the
French language, which everybody could read, whatever their nationality… but it
can be read only if scanned on a rhythm that the reader himself must find, in
order to understand and to think… but this (abstract language) is valid only if
it gushes out all of a sudden; if looked after syllable after syllable, it is
no use, it is only ash; another element is necessary, for it to live when
written, an element that can be found in that book, which has gone lost”. But,
in our opinion, the book has been lost because it could not but go lost: such
is the destiny of g., which lives the fugitive moment of that kind of ecstasy
which is the “strange speech”.
* The word Pentecost means the 50th
day from Christ’s resurrection. According to the Christian tradition this day
is marked by the descent of the Holy Ghost on the apostles, which determines
the faculty of the same apostles to be understood in every language (see the
popular saying “to have more languages than the Pentecost’s”).
The fact is remarkable in itself, whether
considered or not in the light of Christian tradition, as an archetypal idea.
The dove, under whose form the Holy Ghost reveals itself, symbolically
expresses the incarnation of the third person of Trinity, nearly to signify
that only one incarnation, that of the second person in Jesus Christ, is not
sufficient. So both must descend on earth, to fulfil the soteriological plan of
bodies and souls. The salvation of souls and bodies, as a matter of fact, is
not enough; it is absolutely necessary for the “saved” bodies and souls to have
the possibility to communicate between them the event itself of their
salvation.
Now, for such a task has been chosen not at
random a winged creature, which does not announce anything transcendent, but simply
promises to men to express the word, not only the human word, but the
ecumenical word. It is significant that just the Pentecostal confession has
developed and cultivated the “strange speech”, g. as the ‘effability’ of the
ineffable Verb.
** A curious but interesting case I’d like
to consider as of a glossolalic kind, is the case of the poetry by Augusto
Blotto, who from 1959 has published with Rebellato publishing House about a
score of big volumes of poetry, which form a corpus practically ignored by
critics and public.
Blotto’s poetry involves a significant
structure, which is almost immediately undone by an irrepressible drive to
verbal superfetation, which sweeps away the lexical significance within the
syntactical structures, and introduces first a process of dissolution of the
meanings and then goes on to an ever-lasting change of colour of the semantic
micro-events.
The author accepts being surprised and
overwhelmed by the flux of a magma, that is at the same time a euphonic event
and a semantic twisting, nearly as a Pythia obsessed by the god of the
significants.
Pictures 68, 69
grammelot
An emission of sounds, that are similar in
rhythm and intonation to expressions of speech in a language, but without the
pronunciation of real words; it characterises the farcical or comic recitation.
It developed in 1600 with the Italian Commedia dell’Arte, since the actors,
being compelled to perform in different European countries had the necessity to
conform somehow to the local speech. Modern examples: in “The great dictator”
by Chaplin the speeches of “Adenoideo” or in some of Dario Fo’s farces.
Children g. is spontaneous, as a form of imitation of the speech of the adult
people. In many ways, both from a technical and performing point of view, grammelot
is closely related to sound poetry. In Dario Fo’s words: “G. is a term of
French origin, coined by the “comici dell’arte” and changed into macaronic
Venetian as ‘gramlotto’. It is a word with no meaning of its own, but a mess of
sounds which succeeds anyway in conveying the sense of the sentence. G. means,
in a word, an onomatopaeic arbitrarily articulated game, which can transmit a
complete speech with the help of gestures, rhythms and peculiar sonorities. In
this key it is possible to ad-lib or better to articulate G. of any kind,
referring to most different lexical structures. The first g. form is performed
without doubt by the children, with their unbelievable imagination, when they
pretend to speak very seriously with some extraordinary mumbling utterances
that are perfectly understood by them. I attended to a dialogue between a
Neapolitan and an English child and I noted that both never hesitated a moment.
They did not use their own language to communicate, but another language, an
invented one: just G. The Neapolitan child pretended to speak English and the
other child pretended to speak a form of southern Italian. They understood each
other perfectly. Through gestures, cadences and varied mumbling utterances
they had created their own code”. (D. Fo, “A minimal manual of the actor”,
1987).
heroic ciphers
A combination of an acrostic and a ciphered
anagram of a noun. Example (from G. Caramuel, “Theologia”, 1654):
Calor heat
Humectus humidity
CHAOS
Algor cold
Olympus Olympus
Siccitas
drought
hendiadys
(one through two)
A grammar figure consisting in expressing
one single idea through two co-ordinated words. Ex.: “Fortune and chance” (a
lucky accident); “light-heartedness and youth” (lighthearted youth).
hiatus
(opening)
A metrical figure: the meeting of two
vowels, that are to be pronounced separately, at the end and at the beginning
of word: “idea, vial, echoing”. It is the opposite of diphthong.
hieroglyph
(of sacred carving)
A contrivance by which a complete word is
designated by a single drawing. A succession of side-by-side drawings may thus
form a complete linguistic sentence. It derives from the mistaken idea that
Quattrocento Italian humanists had about Egyptian writing.
Pictures 65, 66
hiulchic, lines
Lines crammed with linguistic relational
words, without any semantic function: “tu in me ita es, hem in te at ego et te
hic tam ego amo”.
horror vacui
As opposed to the “absent text” (see) we
have a text which is crammed with signs, like in Jíři Kolár’s collages,
crowded with heaped up words one upon the other. The Englishman John Furnival
snapped the photo of a road packed with of advertisements, that bore the title
“little enchanting farm” (from “Auf ein Wort!” 1987). The German Carlfriedrich
Claus occupies the page space with a thick calligraphy using transparent papers
and writing on both sides. An umpteenth example of total occupation of the
space is the series of collages by Arrigo Lora Totino with the title “Shop of
redundant verb” (from 1965 on), composed with material taken from the daily
newspapers after eliminating photos, large body types, rules and blank spaces:
a text with minute types is the result, a facsimile of the unlimited daily
chattering.
Pictures 70 -72
hypallage
(commutation)
A syntactical figure by which the relation
between two words is inverted: “the fierce of Juno ire and wraths”.
hyperbaton
(overcoming)
A syntactical figure by which the natural
order of the words of the sentence is altered, in order to put into more relief
those to which the reader’s attention must be attracted: it is an inverted
construction and may take the form of an hypallage or of an anastrophe (see).
hyperbole
(lack of restraint)
A figure of speech by which, wishing to get
particular effects, the truth of a thing is altered, exaggerating it: “he has
got such a strength that he could be able to shit mountains”; “as strong as a
lion”; “he runs like the wind”.
hyper-rhyme
Luigi Groto condenses 56 rhymes in his
sonnet “A un tempo temo e ardisco” (At the same time I fear and I dare),
“Rhymes”, 1557, whilst Lodovico Leporeo (1582.1655 ca.) concentrates the rhymes
of a single sound on the horizontal row of the line, up to three rhymes in the
same line.
Pictures 79, 89
hypotyposis
(outline, sketch)
A figure of speech of feeling, by which an
object, an animal or a person is so sharply represented, that one nearly gets
the impression to have them before one’s eyes: “Ed el mi disse: Volgiti; che
fai?/vedi là Farinata che s’è dritto:/ dalla cintola in su tutto il vedrai”
(And he said to me: Turn round. What are you doing? /See there Farinata, who
has stood up:/ from the waist up you will see all of him ) (Dante, Inferno, IX,
31.33).
ideogram
A graphic type corresponding to an idea. The
ideograms of the Chinese writing, of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. An ideographical
system is a linguistic system whose graphemes refer to the morphemes,
representing ideas, notions and the like.
imaginary languages
Imaginary languages are languages where the
phonic sequences, non-existant in the language of the speaker, or rather in no
established language at all, may be interpreted only by resorting to other
activities, such as magic, mystics, utopias, where from the secret formulas
originate, glossolalia and speculations on the original language or also by
imitation of foreign languages only in their phonic appearances, giving birth
to the grammelot (see). Practically combinatory possibilities are used of the
lesser linguistic unities, rather than on the major unities: on the phonemes,
on the syllables, on prefixes and suffixes, on the roots or else on the groups
of phonemes in relation to phrases.
Use of sounds that do not exist in a
certain language: by the lectrist Isou in “Introduction à une nouvelle poésie”
(1947) the admission into poetry of new sounds (see lectrism) is proposed.
Onomatopoeia instead, which reproduces the
sounds of nature with the codified sounds of the language, cannot be enclosed
in this category.
Imaginary languages are a combination of
sounds which are not admitted in a certain established language: for ex. with
the Renaissance and Baroque anagrammatists or in the text “A” by Apollinaire
(“Lacerba” n. 14 of 15-7-1914) all permutations, including the nonsense ones.
Imaginary languages are also the
combinations of sounds admitted in a certain established language, but
connected in a way as to form words that do not belong to its lexical
thesaurus: a) sentences that form very long phonic combinations without any
break (and without simil-words and simil-phrases); b) sentences cutting the
linguistic continuum in segments that are similar, as to their measure, to the
words, but without corresponding to existing combinations in any constituted
language.
To the first group belong the sesquipedalian
words (see), which are formed by the association of existing words, like
certain examples we find in Rabelais (Quart Libre, ch. 15) or in Joyce
(“Finnegans wake”).
In the second group the resemblance of the
words is decided by the breaks in the continuum, while if such breaks were not
there the material length of the enunciation would coincide with the continuity
of the vocal emission, constraining to a recto-tone reading without any accent,
given that usually the accents are not indicated by the author. Therefore the
accent will be chosen by the reader, who will obey the phonic rules of his own
language. So the imaginary language will end up assuming the acoustical
physiognomy of a constituted language, it is to say that the mother tongue imposes
also in these cases its own mark. The emergence will be noted of sounds that
are typical of the mother tongue of the respective authors by comparing
between the poem “Seepferdchen und Flugfische” by Hugo Ball (1916): “tressil
bessil nebogen Leila/flusch kata/ ballubasch/ zack hitti zop/ hitti betzli
betzli/ prusch kata/ ballubasch/ fasch kitti bim” etc. with a fragment of the
“Abstract verbalization of a Woman” by Depero (1917): “rosluci/ acuci/ vidici/
cilocip…/ escoriacalami/ manisecherò/ chirullimaconi…”.
In the imaginary languages created by poets
the acoustical element is essential. It does not count much instead when it is
used to represent some utopian languages or cryptographic languages. The
imaginary language of the poets is a proof that a phonic instrumentation of the
language is possible, totally independently from the organization of the
meanings. Let us think of Dante’s “papè satan”, of the overwhelming Rabelais’
showers of laughs, of glossolalias, of Andreas Gryphius’ squeaking “och hax fax
stracks unde backs. E neugeleet ee unde jung bine wachs”.
imitative harmony
Amplified Onomatopoeia; while the simple
onomatopoeia consists in one single word, the amplified onomatopoeia usually
involves a whole clause or poetical strophe. It is caused by an intensified use
of words, which because of their uncommon and odd sound all together produce
peculiar sound effects. Ex.: (from
Poliziano): “Ogni varco da lacci e can chiuso era;/di stormir, d’abbaiar cresce
il rumore;/di fischi e bussi tutto il bosco suona,/del rimbombar de’ corni il
ciel rintrona”; (di I. H. Alstedius,
Encyclopaedia…, 1630): “lex, rex, grex, res, spes, ius, thus, sal, sol, (bona) lux,
laus; Mars, mors, sors, fraus, fex, styx, nox, crux, pus (mala) vis, lis”.
(good things: law, king, flock, things, hope, right, incense,
salt, sun, light, praise. Bad things: Mars, death, fate, fraud, excrement,
styx, night, cross, rot, strength, fight).
Picture 10
impresa
(device)
It consists in a drawing, a coat of arms,
which conveys a part of the message and of a linguistic enunciation which
conveys the other part, the motto. The sense must be reconstructed. The
device, in its structure, is composed by two elliptical significants; put side
by side they acquire a meaning that they did not have in their respective
contexts.
Picture 75
interchangeable, lines
A permutation of supra-segmental linguistic
blocks (the strophe, at least) within the body of the speech. The condition is
that each line must contain a complete enunciation and therefore is independent
from the others. So each line may change place in any part of the poetical
composition and only the rhyme combinations can prevent some transpositions.
“Pensa prudente lo tempo futuro/ Maturo senso amor
iusto dispensa/ Sicuro prince suo stato ripensa/Propensa suo poder sagace puro/
immensa voluntade schiara oscuro/ Duro rivolve qualità condensa”. (Gidino di
Sommacampagna, “Trattato dei ritmi volgari”, new edition Bologna, 1870).
Pictures 77, 78
interjection
(interposition)
An uninflected part of the speech, which is
formed by an expression interpolated in the sentence, without any grammatical
connection with the text; it gives expression to sorrow, joy, irony, doubt,
etc. Interjections may be plain or composed or improper: the plain are: “ah!
ahi! eh! ehi! oh!” etc.; or else: “olé! deh! urrà!”; or else words like: “if
only! good heavens! goodness! Well!” Composed interjections are formed by
composed words: “alas! come now! come on! by Jove!” etc. Improper interjections
are formed by several words: “what ho! what a mess! my God!” etc.
The importance of the interjection can be
understood from the content, from the tone of the voice, from the gestures of
the person speaking. It is the part of the speech that is nearest to music,
which is formed by a synthesis of tonal interjections, by inflections and by
accents. Paradoxically, but not really so, music can be considered as an
abnormal development of interjection, set free of a speech linguistically
anchored to the grammatical and syntactical rules. Actually interjection is
declined and conjugated by the speaker’s tone of voice and gestures (think of
the gestures of the conductor of an orchestra ).
intermedia
A theory contrived by Dick Higgins, an
exponent of the Fluxus movement. Higgins is aware of the situation of
contemporary art, resulting in an expanding of the various artistic disciplines
one into the other. So continuous border violations are born between music,
Picture and poetry, between music and gestures, dance, cinema, between gestures
and poetry (gymnastic poem) and so on. This theory has many points of contact
with the theory of “total poetry” (poesia totale) proposed by Adriano Spatola
in 1969; according to such theory poetry tends to include all other arts or,
vice-versa each of these reacts in the same way. Such speculations, which
reflect today’s reality, must be kept distinct from the nineteenth century
theories of “fusion of the different arts”, as for ex. the Wagnerian theory of
total performance, as contemporary artists do not so much aspire to an
aesthetically totalizing vision, but to a series of inquiries within the range
of the different disciplines; these inquiries reveal some unexplored or at
least obliterated aspects of their effective consistency. For ex., word visuality
and musicality (concrete and sound poetry), dance as body music (the event ),
the happening as an intersection of picture, music, gestures etc.
Picture 76
isocolon
(equal point)
Equality of the members of the period,
which correspond to one another, having the same numbers of words.
isomorphism
Referring to compositions that are
analogous to each other.
isopsephic, lines
Lines in which the sum of the numerical
values of the letters gives an equal score, for each of them. In the anagram
the permutational variations of a single program are isopsephic.
