Download Hendiadys - T4HLHenson

Hendiadys
(-As cool as anaphora?)
What is hendiadys?
hen-di'-a-dis
 Greek: hen, "one" dia, "through" dis, "two“
 “One by means of two“
 Definition: Expressing a single idea by two
nouns instead of a noun and its qualifier. A
method of amplification that adds force.

Examples of hendiadys


He came despite the rain and weather.
Instead of "He came despite the rainy weather"
The distinction and presence of the dignitary
moved his audience.
Instead of “The distinctive presence of the
dignitary moved his audience.”
What is the purpose?
Through hendiadys,
adjectives are accentuated
by being transformed into
nouns. Through separation,
the modifier gains potency.
What do the experts say?


Critic Frank Kermode has described hendiadys as "a
way of making a single idea strange by splitting an
expression in two" (Shakespeare's Language).
“Hendiadys has the effect of using language in order
to slow down the rhythm of thought and perception,
to break things down into more elementary units, and
thereby to distort normative habits of thought and put
them out of joint. Hendiadys is a kind of rhetorical
double take, a disruptive slowing of the action so
that, for example, we realize the hatching of
something more complex” (Lukacher).
Why do I want you to know this?
Hamlet is the play most marked by the use of
hendiadys (66 instances according to Wright).
Why? George T. Wright hypothesizes:
"hendiadys is most congenial to Shakespeare's
purposes in those plays that explore the
problematical depths of thought and feeling, as
opposed to those that survey, from a
perspective less intensely or less personally
involved, the spectacle of erring human
behavior" (173).
Challenge
Find examples of hendiadys within Hamlet and
explore the larger impact of doubles in the play.
How important to the play do you think the idea of
doubling is? What does it add to the drama?
(For example, consider the extent to which we see
characters in doubles: Voltemand and Cornelius,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Laertes and
Ophelia, Gertrude and Claudius. Apart from
Horatio, Hamlet is a figure of profound isolation
highlighted by his soliloquies).