Paradiastole: redescribing the vices as virtues

Debt's Poetry in Timon of Athens

“…Liberal/prodigal appears almost universally. 21 In The Arte of English Poesie (1589), George Puttenham Englishes and personifies paradiastole as "the Curry-fauell," defining it as "when we make the best of a bad thing … as, to call an vnthrift, a liberall Gentleman: the foolishhardy, valiant or couragious: the niggard, thriftie." 22 Of meiosis, or "the disabler," he writes, "We vse it againe to excuse a fault … [to say] of an arrant ruffian that he is a tall fellow of his hands: of a prodigall foole, that he is a kind hearted man: of a notorious vnthrift, a lustie youth, and such like phrases of extenuation, which fall more aptly to the office of the figure Curry fauell before remembred."…”

“…28 Along with terming prodigality liberality, calling violence bravery was "one of the most frequently cited instances of paradiastole in the Renaissance." 29 The play's dramatization of a rhetorical strategy is fundamental to its presentation of an economic problem. Underneath the liberal/prodigal aspect of Timon's ethos lies a second contrasting pairing: rich/indebted.…”

“…(xiv. [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] Gold's power is redescriptive. It resembles the power of a skilled rhetorician, whose words are so potent they can alter not only perceptions of things but also things themselves.…”

Parliament as a Conceptual Nexus

“…The names of the chambers refer to those who are represented, although the word 'senate' (derived from the ancient Roman name for the assembly of the nobles, senatus, which literally meant a council of elders -seniores) is still used in the United States, France, Italy and Belgium, for example, and it sometimes even has a higher qualification age than the 'lower house'. The fact that the 'lower' or 'popular' house (sometimes also the 'second' chamber, as in the case of the Dutch Tweede Kamer), as a rule, is more powerful than the higher one (the U.S. House of Representatives is the great exception) is an interesting move of paradiastolic redescription (in the sense of Skinner 2007). Or, in Walter Bagehot's terms, the upper house refers to the 'dignified' and the lower to the 'efficient' aspect of parliamentary politics.…”

The best counsellors are the dead: counsel and Shakespeare's Hamlet

“…Both the image of 'colouring' and 'sugaring' vices were common ones for conniving flatterers, most often associated with the use of paradiastole -rhetorical redescription -another of Plutarch's signs, and a burning issue in sixteenth-century discussions of rhetoric and counsel. 68 The listening Claudius takes Polonius' words to heart and echoes them:…”