Hypotyposis

The hypotyposis (Greek for figuring , illustration ) is a rhetorical and also a musical figure .

In classical rhetoric , hypotyposis is a descriptive description of an object that gives the listener the impression of having it in front of their eyes ( Quintilian ). A speech can thus be clarified and made more convincing through a hypotyposis . - For more information on the rhetorical use of the term, see the synonymous keyword evidence (rhetoric) .

The hypotyposis was described as a musical-rhetorical figure by Joachim Burmeister in 1599 . He defined it as "an elucidation of a text through which inanimate things are apparently vividly represented or clarified to the eyes".

While the term has been used only rarely in the sequence that hypotyposis considered "far the most common figure" Baroque music "in the face of music, whose concern for several generations of Zarlino called imitazione della natura was" (p Leopold).

In the 20th century, the term was taken up again by several authors as an umbrella term for a class of musical-rhetorical figures ("pictorial or hypotyposis class"), in contrast to figures of emphasis or those with allegorical meaning. As belonging to this class z. B. the anabasis ( ascent ) and the katabasis ( descent ).

literature

• Dietrich Bartel: Handbook of musical figure theory , Laaber 1985.
• Hartmut Krones : Music and Rhetoric, in: Music in Past and Present , Sachteil Vol. 6., 1997, Col. 814–852
• Silke Leopold: Barock, in: Ibid. , Sachteil Vol. 1, 1994, Col. 1235-1256
• Art. Hypotyposis. In: Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil (ed.): The great lexicon of music. Volume 4: Half a note - Kostelanetz. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau a. a. 1981, ISBN 3-451-18054-5 , p. 150.