2.2. Figures of contrast
Oxymoron
Oxymoron is a combination of words which are semantically different. As a result of such combination the object under description obtains characteristics contrary to its nature. For example the famous and much often quoted Shakespearian definition of love, being syntactically perfectly correct attributive combinations, presents a strong semantic discrepancy between its members: O brawling love! O loving hate! O heavy lightness! Serious vanity! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!These lines that represent the strong confrontations of notions impress the reader (hearer) by the great power of tension and vibration between the components of the poetic image. Thus, the cited chain of oxymorons represents one of the brightest examples of deep penetration into the complexity of the notion of love ever known in European Renaissance literature.
Oxymoron as a combination of semantically different notions helps to emphasize contradictory qualities simultaneously existing in the described phenomenon as a dialectal unity. As a rule one of the two members of oxymoron illuminates the feature which is universally observed and acknowledged, while the other one offers a purely subjective, individual perception of the object. Oxymoron makes the reader or hearer to reinterpret the sense of the utterance which is at the same time striking, unpredictable and truthful, revealing the essence of the object in question and pointing out its complicated nature.
The main structural pattern of oxymoron is Adjective + Noun, Adverb + Adjective or Verb + Adverb, so it easy to believe that the subjective part of the oxymoron is embodied in the epithet-attribute. Thus the oxymoron is very often associated with epithet, because the latter also proceeds from the foregrounding of emotive meaning.
E.g. hot snow, pleasantly ugly, to cry silently, to shout mutely, солодкий сум, холодний жар, etc.
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true (A. Tennyson).
Безпощадний блиск твоєї вроди лагідно в душі моїй сія (Д.Павличко).
But there are some other structural types of this stylistic device represented by predicative relations or free syntactic patterns:
Silence was louder than thunder (J. Updike).
Sara was a menace and a tonic, my best enemy; Rosy was a disease, my worst friend (J. Cary).
Oxymoron is the sort of playful and witty effect of language usage, it seldom becomes trite. A few frequently used oxymorons, all of them showing a high degree of the speaker’s emotional involvement in the situation, as in damn nice, awfully pretty, жахливо гарний, страшенно цікавий,are the rare examples of speech oxymoron.
Oxymoron is a figure of poetic language, a device much loved by poets and writers in all periods of the development of national literature, because it enables them to express complex ideas in a very compressed form:
And painful pleasure turns to pleasing pain (E. Spenser).
Where grey-bearded mirth and smiling toil retired
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain (O. Goldsmith).
На нашій славній Україні,
На нашій не своїй землі (Т. Шевченко).
Ні, я буду крізь сльози сміятись,
Серед лиха співати пісні (Леся Українка).
Сам я сонний ходив землею,
Але ти, як весняний цвіт,
Стала совістю і душею,
І щасливим нещастям моїм (В. Симоненко).
Oxymoron is a powerful means of humour and satire:
...дика качка любить убиватися тихими вечорами (О.Вишня).
There were some bookcases of superbly unreadable books (E. Waugh).
Authors sometimes use oxymoron in titles in order to catch readers’ attention and to emphasize the complexity of the described notion: Мертві душі (М.Гоголь), Украдене щастя (І.Франко), Прекрасні катастрофи (Ю.Смолич), Жорстоке милосердя (Ю.Мушкетик), Сад нетанучих скульптур (Л.Костенко).
Antithesis and Paradox
Antithesis is another figure of contrast that stands close to oxymoron. The major difference between them is structural: oxymoron is realized through a single word combination or a sentence, while antithesis is a confrontation of at least two separate phrases or sentences semantically opposite:
oxymoron – wise foolishness
antithesis – the age of wisdom, the age of foolishness.
The essence of antithesis lies in the intentional emphasizing of two contradictory but logically and emotionally closely connected notions, phenomena, objects, situations, events, ideas, images. Antithesis makes the reader’s or hearer’s impression stronger and the utterance more convincing and may be used alongside with the comparison.
E.g. I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck (J.K. Jerome).
Самій не довго збитися з путі, та трудно з неї збитись у гурті (В.Стус).
Такий близький ти, краю мій, і безнадійно так далекий (В.Стус).
Syntactic structures that express the meaning of antithesis are quite various:
a single extended sentence;
a composite sentence;
a paragraph or even chain of paragraphs.
The main lexical means of antithesis formation are antonyms which represent complex and contradictory nature of the world (heaven – hell, sky – earth, light – dark, up – down, good – evil, joy – sorrow, etc).
Antithesis is one of the oldest stylistic devices. Antithetic worldview penetrated the structure of myths, folklore and ancient literature of different nations. The stylistic device of antithesis nowadays is men-of-letters’ favourite tools to express complex logical and emotional notions, moral concepts and even common truth:
Some people have much to live on, and little to live for (O. Wild).
It is safer to be married to the man you can be happy with that to the man you cannot be happy without (Y. Esar).
Є вірші – квіти.
Вірші – дуби.
Є іграшки вірші,
Є - рани.
Є повелителі й раби.
І вірші є каторжани (Л.Костенко).
The principle of antithetic organization of a literary text is aimed at a description of changeable surrounding, minute and eternity, reason and sensibility, motion and stagnation, harmony and chaos, at breaking the constrains of everyday thinking and at exploration of new space of human cognition.
Paradox is one more type of utterance based on semantic and syntactic opposition. Paradox is a statement that appears to be self-contradictory but contains something of a truth:
E.g.: The child is father to the man.
Cowards die many times before their death.
Paradox and antithesis are the oldest of the stylistic devices known from the time of ancient rhetorics. Their main communicative function was (and remains) to strike the readers or hearers, to influence their believes, to convince them by the power of the arguments the utterance contains and to force them to see the world differently. The following lines of Shakespearian immortal play are the bright example of paradox in Renaissance poetry:
The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb,
What is her burring grave that is her womb? (W. Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet).
XX-th century poetry and emotive prose (the epoch of postmodernism) feature paradox and antithesis as the leading instruments of creating imagery and conceptual space of the text. Paradox in modern literature is the most powerful way to describe the many-dimensional and many-sided world by the least number of language resources:
E.g.: Life is a stage, dev-ill, d-evil, -dia-(e)vil
Playing tricks with you
Leading up the stairs
going
down (D. Levertov).
весь світ вміщається
у кишеньковому люстерку
у яке кожному дозволено зазирнути
однак лише вибраним
дається побачити в ньому себе (В. Слапчук).