Climax and Anticlimax
1.The meaning of climax and anticlimax
The Greek word climax means “ladder”; the Latin gradatio means “ascent, climbing up”. In climax we deal with strings of synonyms or at least semantically related words belonging to the same thematic group.[4, p. 155]
According to Efimov L. P., climax (or Gradation) – is the figure of unequality, which consists in arranging the utterance so that each subsequent component of it increases significance, importance or emotional tension of narration.[1, p. 69]
Galperin I. R. views climax as an arrangement of sentences (or of the homogeneous parts of one sentence) which secures a gradual increase in significance, importance, or emotional tension in the utterance, as in:
"It was a lovely city, a beautiful city, a fair city, a veritable gem of a city." or in:
"Ne barrier wall, ne river deep and wide,
Ne horrid crags, nor mountains dark and tall
Rise like the rocks that part Hispania 's land from Gaul." (Byron)
Gradual increase in emotional evaluation in the first illustration and in significance in the second is realized by the distribution of the corresponding lexical items. Each successive unit is perceived as stronger than the preceding one. Of course, there are no objective linguistic criteria to estimate the degree of importance or significance of each constituent. It is only the formal homogeneity of these component parts and the test of synonymy in the words 'lovely ', 'beautiful ', 'fair, ' 'veritable gem, in the first example and the relative inaccessibility of the barriers 'wall ', 'river ', 'crags ', 'mountains ' together with the epithets 'deep and wide" 'horrid ', 'dark and tall ' that make us feel the increase in importance of each.[1, p.220]
2.Different types of climax
A gradual increase in significance may be maintained in three ways: logical, emotional and quantitative.
Logical climax is based on the relative importance of the component parts looked at from the point of view of the concepts
The Greek word climax means “ladder”; the Latin gradatio means “ascent, climbing up”. In climax we deal with strings of synonyms or at least semantically related words belonging to the same thematic group.[4, p. 155]
According to Efimov L. P., climax (or Gradation) – is the figure of unequality, which consists in arranging the utterance so that each subsequent component of it increases significance, importance or emotional tension of narration.[1, p. 69]
Galperin I. R. views climax as an arrangement of sentences (or of the homogeneous parts of one sentence) which secures a gradual increase in significance, importance, or emotional tension in the utterance, as in:
"It was a lovely city, a beautiful city, a fair city, a veritable gem of a city." or in:
"Ne barrier wall, ne river deep and wide,
Ne horrid crags, nor mountains dark and tall
Rise like the rocks that part Hispania 's land from Gaul." (Byron)
Gradual increase in emotional evaluation in the first illustration and in significance in the second is realized by the distribution of the corresponding lexical items. Each successive unit is perceived as stronger than the preceding one. Of course, there are no objective linguistic criteria to estimate the degree of importance or significance of each constituent. It is only the formal homogeneity of these component parts and the test of synonymy in the words 'lovely ', 'beautiful ', 'fair, ' 'veritable gem, in the first example and the relative inaccessibility of the barriers 'wall ', 'river ', 'crags ', 'mountains ' together with the epithets 'deep and wide" 'horrid ', 'dark and tall ' that make us feel the increase in importance of each.[1, p.220]
2.Different types of climax
A gradual increase in significance may be maintained in three ways: logical, emotional and quantitative.
Logical climax is based on the relative importance of the component parts looked at from the point of view of the concepts
References: 1. Гальперин И. Р. Стилистика английского языка / И. Р. Гальперин. – М.: Высшая школа, 1981 2. Єфімов Л.П., Ясінецька О.А. « Стилістика англійської мови і дискурсивний аналіз ». Учбово-методичний посібник. – Вінниця: Нова Книга, 2004. – С. 69-71 3. Кухаренко В.А. Практикум з стилістики англійської мови: Підручник. – Вінниця. «Нова книга», 2000 - 160 с. 4. Скребнев Ю. М. Основы стилистики английского языка: Учебник для ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз./ Ю. М. Скребнев. – 2-е изд., испр. – М.: ООО «Издательство Астрель»; ООО «Издательство АСТ», 2003. – 221, [3] с. (на англ. яз).