CAMPBELL, George. The Philosophy of Rhetoric. London: V. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1776. 2 vols.
Correction / Climax / Vision / Exclamation / Apostrophe / Interrogation
[v. 1, p. 238] It would be endless to enumerate all the rhetorical figures that are adapted to the pathetic. Let it suffice to say, that most of those already named may be successfully employed here. Of others, the principal are these: correction, climax, vision, exclamation, apostrophe, and interrogation. The first three, correction, climax, and vision, tend greatly to enliven the ideas, by the implicit, but animated comparison and opposition conveyed in them. Implicit and indirect comparison is more suitable to the disturbed state of mind required by the pathetic than that, which is explicit and direct. The latter implies leisure and tranquility, the former rapidity and fire. Exclamation and apostrophe operate chiefly by sympathy, and they are the most ardent expressions of perturbation in the speaker. It at first sight appears more difficult to account for the effect of interrogation, which, being an appeal to the hearers, though it might awaken [v.1, p. 239) a closer attention, yet could not. One would imagine, excite in their minds any new emotion that was not there before. This, nevertheless, it doth excite, through an oblique operation of the same principle. Such an appeal implies in the orator the strongest confidence in the rectitude of his sentiments, and in the concurrence of every reasonable being. The auditors, by sympathizing with this frame of spirit, find it impracticable to withhold an assent which is so confidently depended on.
Campbell. 1776
Dialogue
[v. 2, p. 46) The instance I mean is this, «Lesias promised to his father never to abandon his friends.» Were they his own friends, or his father’s, whom Lisias promised never to abandon? This sentence rendered literally would be ambiguous in most modern tongues. In the earliest and simplest times, the dramatic manner in which people were accustomed to relate the plainest facts, served effectually to exclude all ambiguities of this sort from their writings. They would have said, «Lysias gave a promise to his father in these words, I will never abandon my friends,” if they were his own friends of whom he spoke; «your friends,» if they were his father’s. It is, I think, to be regretted, that the moderns have too much departed from this primitive simplicity. It doth not want some advantages, besides that of perspicuity. It is often more picturesque, as well as more affecting; though, it must be owned, it [v.2, p. 47) requires so many words, and such frequent repetitions of he said, he answered, and the like, that the dialogue, if long, is very apt to grow irksome. But it is at least pardonable to adopt this method occasionally, where it can serve to remove an ambiguity.
BLAIR, Hugh. Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. 1785. Ed. de Linda Ferreira-Buckley and S. Michael Halloram. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005.
Blair, Hugo. Lecciones sobre la retórica y las bellas letras. Trad. José Luis Munarriz. Madrid: Ibarra, 1817, 3ª ed.
Interrogation (and Exclamation)
Blair. (Ed. de Linda Ferreira-Buckley and S. Michael Halloram) 2005
[p. 190] The unfigured literal use of interrogation, is to ask a question; but when men are prompted by passion, whatever they would affirm or deny, with great vehemence, they naturally put in the form of a question; expressing thereby the strongest confidence of the truth of their own sentiment, and appealing to their hearers for the impossibility of the contrary.
Blair (trad. Munarriz, 1817)
[p. 123] El uso literal de la interrogación es hacer una pregunta: pero cuando los hombres son impelidos de las pasiones, ponen en forma d pregunta todo lo que quieren afirmar ó negar con mucha vehemencia; expresando de esta suerte la gran confianza en la verdad de sus propios sentimientos, y apelando á sus oyentes para la imposibilidad de lo contrario.
[p. 191] Interrogations may often be employed with propriety, in the course of no higher emotions than naturally arise in pursuing some close and earnest reasoning. But Exclamations belong only to stronger emotions of the mind; to surprise, admiration, anger, joy, grief, and the like :
Heu pietas ! heu prisca fides ! invictaque bello Dextera !
Both Interrogation and Exclamation, and, indeed, all passionate Figures of Speech, operate upon us by means of sympathy.
Blair (trad. Munarriz, 1817)
[p. 124-125] A veces se pueden emplear con propiedad las interrogaciones en medio de unas conmociones nada superiores, a las que se excitan naturalmente prosiguiendo con calor un raciocinio. Pero las exclamaciones solo vienen bien en las fuertes conmociones del ánimo; en la sorpresa, admiración, cólera, alegría, dolor, y otras semejantes:
Heu pietas! Heu prisca fides! Invictaque bello Dextera!
Tanto las interrogaciones como las exclamaciones, y otras cualesquiera figuras apasionadas de la elocución, obran en nosotros por medio de la simpatía.