What is APOSIOPESIS? Definition & examples using William Shakespeare {Aposiopesis Figure of Speech}

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What is aposiopesis? How does William Shakespeare use aposiopesis? The video provides a definition & explanation of the meaning of aposiopesis as a figure of speech in rhetoric & as a literary device / technique. I provide examples using William Shakespeare’s plays. Examples from William Shakespeare include: King Lear’s aposiopesis in conversation with his daughters, Goneril & Regan, from The Tragedy of King Lear; Hamlet’s aposiopesis in soliloquy, over his mother Gertrude’s hasty marriage to his uncle Claudius, in The Tragedy of Hamlet; Mark Antony’s aposiopesis as a tool of public rhetorical persuasion, in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar; Iago and Othello, & the different ways William Shakespeare uses aposiopesis in their dialogue, in The Tragedy of Othello.
OUTLINE
What does aposiopesis mean?
• Defines & explains the meaning of aposiopesis
• Provides examples of aposiopesis using the literature of William Shakespeare
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14 окт 2021

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Комментарии : 49

@DrOctaviaCox 2 года назад

If you like my videos, then you can support my work here: www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=D8LSKGJP2NL4N Thank you very much indeed for watching my channel.

@rmarkread3750 2 года назад

What I love about all of your "close readings" is that the analyses do not point out the devices the masters use as mere literary tricks and, so, destroy our pleasure, but rather, they are opportunities to slow down, if you will, and savor these masters using the craft of form to intensify and deepen our experience of content. My own interpretation of the scene in "King Lear" is that this is the moment when a man who has been used to his word being law begins to see how powerless he actually is. His aposiopeses are the sputterings of an enraged, spoiled child, who in revenge, runs away from home ("I'll show them!"). it seems to me that "Lear" does not depict a man whose reason is dissolving, but who, for the first time in his life, is forced to see reason and face reality--to "see the way the world goes." And the world goes badly for him, costing him "not less than everything."

@DrOctaviaCox 2 года назад

That's a very kind thing to say, and exactly what I hope to achieve in my analyses - so thank you for saying it! And that's a very astute point about Lear - he's used to his word being law, and now he feels his power crumbling perhaps his certainty of utterance is disintegrating too.

@rmarkread3750 2 года назад

@@DrOctaviaCox Yes. "Howl, howl, howl, howl."

@stevenlight5006 2 года назад

Well said . brovo.

@RaysDad 2 года назад

This introduction to aposiopesis is so -- My thoughts are utterly beyond utterance!

@petersburg2 2 года назад

I never knew there was a term for this!

@delhatton 2 года назад

Very interesting. Now I have a cool word to describe when I start a long discourse and somewhere in the middle forget where I am going with it.

@bethanyperry5337 2 года назад

Another fine lesson to give structure to experiencing literature both written and performed. Thank you

@DrOctaviaCox 2 года назад

It's my pleasure, Bethany.

@CaroleMcDonnell 2 года назад

The Bible is full of aposiopesis. The first was Gen 3:22 where God doesn't even want to discuss what would happen if humanity in its fallen state would touch the tree of life. My favorite is Psalm 27:13 which is translated often as "what would have happened to me if i did not believe i would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living?" or "I had fainted unless i believed i would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." But the unsaid is so terrifying...it's downright unspeakable. I remember reading about how Hebrew language affected the growth of English. Forgot where i read it but it was very interesting how not only Greek and latin but Hebrew has influenced English. Thanks for the analysis as usual.

@nobirahim1818 2 года назад

When I understood that word, I thought of Genesis 3:22 as well 😄 It's great getting into God's head like that, isn't it?

@CaroleMcDonnell 2 года назад

@@nobirahim1818 yes. very much so.

@luciamokte1090 2 года назад

Dr. Cox. I´m delighted with this videos, learning about retoric figures and enjoying the examples; my native language is Spanish, and English is the language I love. Thanks for sharing this with us, you are an amazing teacher.

@clairemeehan7250 2 года назад

I regularly suffer from aposiopesis during my working days - luckily my colleagues totally understand! 😆

@thomassmith6232 Год назад

Iago has always been one of my favorite villains. Just the way he manipulates everyone around him in such a way that they actually believe he's acting out of friendship.

@chriscarson7384 Год назад

I really appreciate these videos. It has been many years since I studied literature, and it is wonderful to be reminded of the techniques gifted writers use to draw us into their stories.👏👏👏👏

@63Speed63 2 года назад

I believe Iago to be the most vile character in all of classic literature, and Shakespeare's use of aposiopesis makes it so. Thank you for making that so clear to me. Seeing you read the play here reminds me of Iago's evil: he destroys true love, and makes you its murderer. It's enough to make one weep.

@nastyaissor7825 2 года назад

This is an accelent way to learn figures of speech and to dive into the classic literature

@jrpipik 2 года назад

Lear is unable to finish his sentences at least in part because of his loss of faculties dues to age, something that indeed becomes more apparent in moments of high emotion. One sees how Lear, who once would immediately know what things he would do to someone who betrayed him, is not that the man he once was. He's now just a blustering old man. In a similar way, one could argue that Hamlet is unable to complete his thought even to himself because he is going mad (I wouldn't make such an argument myself, since I happen to think that Hamlet is terribly sane).

@DrOctaviaCox 2 года назад

Yes, aposiopesis absolutely could be a technique used to convey or suggest madness. I agree with you - especially in this opening scene I don't think Hamlet is mad, I think he's unable to cope with what's happening, and is in the process of processing it.

@jennysedgley8284 2 года назад

That was really interesting. I haven't heard that term before. Good old Shakespeare!

@MurphysEveryWhim 2 года назад

I particularly like these videos on structures or figures of speech with specific examples.

@susiezavodnyik4986 2 года назад

Love your videos! Would like an analysis of MIDDLEMARCH!

@DrOctaviaCox 2 года назад

Do share your own examples of aposiopesis. Shakespearean or otherwise!

@Helgatwb 2 года назад

One that I have found in a few places, though I cannot think of any specific examples, is to show a character that is less sophisticated or educated. The character will be describing an experience, and then break off and say "I know not what", or "I can't say what-all", or similar. The character is usually a 'rustic' or 'mechanical', sometimes silly or naive. Occasionally all of these at once, in the case of a young, untrained servant.

@DrOctaviaCox 2 года назад

@Helgatwb Ha! - yes, this is exactly what Alexander Pope says is the use of aposiopesis in his mocking 'Peri-Pathos, or the Art of Sinking in Poetry' (1728): "The Aposiopesis, an excellent figure for the ignorant, as 'what shall I say?' when one has nothing to say: or 'I can no more', when one really can no more. Expressions which the gentle reader is so good as never to take in earnest." (ch.10)

@nobirahim1818 2 года назад

You reminded me of something Lizzy said in Pride and Prejudice. "Engaged to Mr Collins! my dear Charlotte - impossible!" I think you were talking about Lizzy using the language of sensibility here. I can imagine Lizzy doing 😲 during that pause. I'm gonna look for that video now

@londongael 2 года назад

Perhaps another reason for aposiopesis is "butterfly mind"? I know someone who never finishes their...It drives me round the....Tangents! They go off on those, too!

@williamdaley4033 2 года назад

Prufrock has a difficult time explaining himself. “That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.”

@bealtruisticbealtruistic1056 2 года назад

Could you pls make a video on if possible on the close reading of Tennessee Williams' play, Cat on a hot tin roof...especially with reference to Capitalism

@louisbrady7716 2 года назад

This video gives a great explanation of aposiopesis with relevant examples.

@Scary_asmr101 Год назад

Your videos are brilliant. Thank you so much

@HRJohn1944 2 года назад

A fascinating video, thank you - so there's a great deal more to Marc Antony's speech than irony ("Brutus hath said Caesar was ambitious and Brutus is an honorable man". This is off-topic, but regarding Lear, at what point is he mad? Act 4 "Enter Lear mad, crowned with weeds and flowers.".....When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter, when the thunder would not peace at my bidding, there I found ’em, there I smelt ’em out. Go to, they are not men o’ their words: they told me I was every thing. ’Tis a lie, I am not ague-proof......" "...A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears; see how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark in thine ear: change places, and handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?..." "....Thorough tatter’d clothes small vices do appear;/Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,/And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;/Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw does pierce it...." Act 3 "...Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are,/That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,/How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,/Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you/From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en/Too little care of this! "...Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here's three on 's are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor bare, forked animal as thou art....." For all his verbal wandering, are these examples of madness? At the beginning of Act 3, he says "My wits begin to turn" - the question is, which way? At the beginning of the play, Lear has cut off his only loving daughter, and exiled under pain of death the only one of his nobles prepared to speak truth to power (is Kent's "Royal Lear, whom I have ever..etc" an example of aposiopesis?): can we really say that he was sane then?

@ruthfeiertag 2 года назад

What a brilliant question. And I love the way you have chosen such salient and complex quotations to make your question resonate. I would love to hear and see some gifted actor run through these lines (rather like Stoppard’s “Five-Minute Hamlet”) once as Lear going mad and then as Lear going sane.

@ruthfeiertag 2 года назад

Thank you for another engaging discussion! I have to find a way to retain these terms. If you have time, would you do an explication of the exchange in _Othello_ 3.4 in which Othello chides Desdemona for not having the handkerchief with her? OTH. That’s a fault. That handkerchief Did an Egyptian to my mother give;… She told her, while she kept it, ’Twould make her amiable, and subdue my father Entirely to her love; but if she lost it, Or made a gift of it, my father’s eye Should hold her loathed, and his spirits should hunt After new fancies. … DES. Is’t possible? OTH. ’Tis true; there’s magic in the web of it. A sibyl, that had numb’red in the world The sun to course two hundred compasses, In her prophetic fury sew’d the work; The worms were hallowed that did breed the silk, And it was dy’d in mummy which the skillful Conserv’d of maidens’ hearts. DES. I’ faith! Is’t true? I have always wondered whether Othello was telling Desdemona the truth or laying a guilt trip on her. It seems strange that he, who won Desdemona with his astounding stories, would have withheld this tale from her and she to doubt its veracity. But it’s an awfully elaborate mythology to concoct on the spot - unless Othello had fabricated the handkerchief story beforehand to trip up Desdemona? You see how it makes my head spin. I really appreciate your videos. You do such a beautiful job with the content, the visuals, and your presentations of the material. You’ve really helped me weather the pandemic and have kept at least some of my brain cells functioning.

@melissarey2973 2 года назад

Very interesting. Thank you!!

@DrOctaviaCox 2 года назад

My pleasure, Melissa! - thanks for watching.

@jackfruth3738 2 года назад

So looking at the hamlet soliloquy, how much of it also is the inability to depict any sort of sex because of the time period. I know Shakespeare was no prude and that his plays were for the lower classes and were rife with sexual innuendo and jokes, but there's a chicken-or-egg type thinking I always have regarding things like this. Lots of people think this type of beating around the bush about sex jokes/references makes them inherently "smarter", but they come from a time period where they HAD to be that way because of society's demands. Clearly hamlet's emotion is A reason for these omissions, but is it THE reason? Love your work

@ruthfeiertag 2 года назад

Hamlet’s reluctance to form fully articulated expressions of what Gertrude was doing may also have to do with the ick-factor that comes when contemplating one’s parents getting it on.