As I mentioned in my last point, part of my goal for this blog is to expand my knowledge of stylistic devices. Most of the time, I will do this by highlighting a stylistic device like “anaphora” or “parataxis.” On rare occasions I expect to create my own. Today is such a day. To my knowledge, there is no stylistic device to explain an increasingly precise enumeration. Take, for instance, the following passage from Thorton Wilder’s Our Town:
Emily: “Good-bye , Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners . . . Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking . . . and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths . . . and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”
In this passage, Emily’s good-byes gradually shrink in scope from world, to town, to parents, to objects around the house (associated with Mama and Papa), and then to basic physiological functions. Another example may be found in Hanson’s song, MMMBop: “plant a seed, plant a flower, plant a rose.” Owing to this apparent omission in the repertoire of stylistic devices, I have taken the liberty to coin my own term: Specificatio. This is a Latin root of the word “specification.”
It seems likely that there also may be instances of this in reverse. That is to say, instead of becoming more specific, the description becomes more generalized. At the moment, I have been unable to locate any literary examples—only the banal example of a post address. With the exception of the zip code, every consecutive detail is more general: Person, Street Address, Town, State, (Zip Code), Country. I have decided to appropriate the Latin root of the word “generalization”—Generalis—for this stylistic device.
Although I would need to examine further examples, it seems reasonable to speculate that specificatio and generalis may often be used in the sciences. This guess is largely grounded in scientists' reliance on two other etymologically linked words, species and genus, as modes of classification.
If anyone can think of examples, do feel free to let me know. Also, if these stylistic devices already exist, let me know.
**Thanks to John M. for informing me of the Our Town example.
