oxymoron
An oxymoron ( plural Oxymora ; ancient Greek τὸ ὀξύμωρον , from oxys 'sharp (meaningful)' and moros 'stupid') is a rhetorical figure in which a formulation is formed from two opposing, contradicting or mutually exclusive terms, e.g. B. " old boy ". Often, Oxymora are coined in the form of twin formulas. Single words, terms and even one or more whole sentences can form an oxymoron. The stylistic device is used, for example, to achieve dramatic enhancement effects or to force the hardly expressive or even the unspeakable into a pair of opposites and thus to express them.
The antonym to Oxymoron is pleonasm ("coal coal black").
properties
The inner contradiction of an oxymoron is deliberate and serves the pointed representation of an ambiguous, ambiguous or multi-layered content by conceptually reflecting the as well as the facts. As a stylistic figure, the oxymoron is therefore important in poetry and poetic prose , but can also be found in political discourse and in advertising . The word oxymoron itself is already an oxymoron. A logical contradiction that is formulated without intention is called in Latin contradictio in adiecto (German: "contradiction in the attachment").
Examples
- " Old boy "
- " Eloquent silence "
- "This abundance made me poor" (German translation of inopem me copia fecit from Ovid's Metamorphoses III, v. 466)
- The joke poem Dark was it, consisting of a string of Oxymora , the moon shone brightly
- "Former future" (from Ödön von Horváth's novel Jugend ohne Gott )
- "Haste makes waste"
- "War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength" (from George Orwell's novel 1984 )
- Factual romance (by Erich Kästner )
- "Black milk in the morning, we'll drink you in the evening" (from Paul Celan's poem Death Fugue )
- "silent Scream"
- "Sadly glad" (from Friedrich Hölderlin's Ode Heidelberg )
- "Invisibly visible" (from Goethe's Faust I , V. 3450)
- "¡Viva la muerte!" ("Long live death!", Motto of the Falangists in the Spanish Civil War )
- " Less is more "
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gero von Wilpert : Subject Dictionary of Literature (= Kröner's pocket edition , Volume 231). 4th, improved and enlarged edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1964, p. 483, DNB 455687854 .
- ↑ Jochen A. Bär : Oxymoron . ( Memento from August 19, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) baer-linguistik.de, The Year of Words - Episode 81 (March 22); accessed on November 2, 2018