Evidence (rhetoric)
The evidence , latin evidentia called a rhetorical figure a figure of accumulation, more precisely the detaillierend-Detailed accumulation. It consists of the separation of the actual main idea into several coordinated sub-thoughts, which appear as a list, take up the main idea and explain it in detail.
history
Already in the third book of his rhetoric, Aristotle discussed bringing in front of one's eyes ( pro ommaton poiein ) as an effective stylistic device. What is represented must be vividly described in its effectiveness ( energeia ). As an example he cites a line by Euripides , "Hellas' men all jumped to their feet" ( Rhet. 1411b, transl. FG Sieveke). Elsewhere (1365a) he also mentions the detailed list.
The Stoics understood the human imagination materially, as the imprint ( typosis ) of the image in the soul. This made the clarity and unambiguity ( enargeia ) of the presentation a requirement. Cicero translates enargeia in his dialogue Lucullus (17) with the newly created word evidentia , which entered rhetorical, legal and philosophical usage from here. In De oratore (About the Speaker) he also takes up Aristotle's demand for liveliness:
- Because it makes a great impression to dwell on something, to paint things out vividly and almost as if they were really deceiving. (III, 202, trans. H. Merklin)
In Peri hypsous (About the sublime), Pseudo-Longinos also speaks of the function of rhetorical and poetic phantasia (visualization) to address the affects and to entice the listener:
- You will not have escaped ... that the aim of the poetic fantasy is shock (ekplexis), that of the rhetorical but clarity (enargeia), but both want to arouse in the same way (one word is missing) . (15.2, trans. O. Schönberger)
These traditions are summarized by Quintilian at various points in his Institutio oratoria (textbook of rhetoric). He calls Ciceros evidentia (8: 3, 61 ff.), Aristotle's energeia (ibid. 89) and the stoic enargeia , with the Greek hypotyposis or imprinting as a further term , "when a process is not stated as happening, but as it happened, is presented "(9,2,40, quoted after A. Kemmann). The hypotyposis also became the name of the corresponding musical figure in the Baroque era.
As a result, the two moments of liveliness ( energeia ) and detail ( enargeia ) were received with different weightings, sometimes mixed up and sometimes fanned out into finer distinctions. B. with Johannes Susenbrot .
example
“His eyes searched for a person - and a horror-awakening monster crawled towards him from a corner that was more like the bed of a wild animal than the dwelling place of a human creature. A pale, death-like skeleton, all the colors of life have disappeared from one face, in which grief and despair had torn deep furrows, beard and nails grown to hideous through neglect for so long, clothes half rotten from long use and from a complete lack of cleaning polluted the air around him - that's how he found this darling of luck, [...] "
literature
- A. Kemmann: Evidentia, Evidenz, in: Gert Ueding (ed.): Historical dictionary of rhetoric , Vol. 3, Tübingen 1996, Sp. 33-47