Over the weeks since my last post, and as I continue to teach my undergraduate introduction to literature and film analysis in Spanish, I have been introducing my students to figuras retóricas or rhetorical devices. Rhetorical devices are technical vocabulary associated with the production of various forms of writing in order to give it greater depth, beauty, and expressivity. These devices include the basics that most of us are very familiar with such as: alliteration, analepsis, hyperbole, metaphor, simile, etc.
Rhetorical devices are more than technical embellishments used to demonstrate a writer’s skill. On the contrary, they are tools used to construct new structures to convey new meanings. Therefore, the utilization of these tools structures the form of content in such a way that it constructs and conveys new meaning. In this way, the employ of these techniques as exercises can lead artists—whether writers, painters, or book artists—to experiment with new formats of presentation, as well as lead them to explore new discoveries, and create new content.
As I have been reviewing and providing examples of each of these and other meaning-making devices to my students, I have reflected upon their potential significance if applied as theoretical frameworks or guidelines to create artist books.
What if hyperbole, a form of extravagant exaggeration, was the parameter for the creation of an artist book? Every aspect of the book would have to be pushed into some form of exaggeration. Paper with an extreme amount of tooth. The sewing on the binding would have to be so elaborate that it would have to be recognized as an essential part of the book. The printing exaggerated in such a way that the work is potentially unreadable or readable in multiple formats, printed in multiple directions, producing a shifting prism of potential readings.
Shifting gears to something a little more radical, how could the use of hyperbaton, the alteration of idiomatic word order—exemplified by the way that Yoda talks in Star Wars movies, where “Do your judge me because of my size?” becomes “Judge me by my size, do you?”—influence the creation of a work of book art? This transposition of word order as a framework for a book could inspire some really topsy-turvy work. For example, a book where the binding and cover are in the middle of the book with the pages all around the outside. Or a book with only pages and no cover at all. Perhaps even a book where the binding is along all the edges with each page opening up in another direction from the center out.
What of metonymy, or the use of a figure of speech in which the name of one thing is used to stand in for another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated? Recently Levi Sherman, in his August 15th 2024 Book Art Theory blog post People as Books / Books as People, examined several ways in which discourse surrounding book art reflects this metonymic perception of the book as body, individuals as books, books as stand-ins for their creators, libraries standing in for their collectors, and libraries as multitudes. Another possible approach would be to create a book work where everything used in the book had to be a metonymic reference to another object, the book itself would then be assembled of parts that all referred or alluded to something else, and never to the ultimate question that could be perhaps posed as a riddle: I begin where the story ends, my life in your hands it depends. What am I?
What about the use of alliteration, or the repetition of similar sounds at the beginning of two or more words or within them—which also includes assonance: alliteration with vowel sounds, and consonance: alliteration with consonant sounds—as the premise for the production of an artist book. This could be a book where all the materials used to create it all share a similar consonant or vowel sound in their name. It could equally be a book where every page or part includes the deliberate repetition of some sound motif (in this way it could also be an example of synesthesia where the repeated sound motif is presented by means of a very tactile medium to bring both the sound and the haptic sensation together).
Finally let me propose the use of anaphora, the repetition of a word or expression at the beginning of a succession of phrases, clauses, sentences, or verses for not only rhetorical or poetic effect but also for the purpose of emphatically highlighting the particular reiterated element. Such a work that made use of this technique could begin on each page with the same phrase or visual element that grounds or iterates continued reflection upon the material presented upon that page as well as upon each succeeding page.
These ideas are just to suggest that while book artists are frequently aware of the book-ish nature or their creations, perhaps there is another book-ish aspect, one that has been there since hermeneutics began, that has been overlooked or underappreciated as a potential source of creative concepts, of inspiration, to construct their works. Just think about what could be done by employing:
Phantom structure: When the second line of the first stanza becomes first line of the second.
Cesura: A pause or break in a line of poetry that mimics the natural rhythm of speech.
Antiphrasis: The usually ironic or humorous use of words in senses opposite to the generally accepted meanings
Chiasmus: An inverted relationship between the syntactic elements of parallel phrases
Apophasis: The raising of an issue by claiming not to mention it
Dysphemism: The substitution of a disagreeable, offensive, or disparaging expression for an agreeable or inoffensive one
Dialogism: A disjunctive conclusion inferred from a single premise
Acrostics: poetic composition in which the initial letters, read vertically, form a name or a phrase.
Blank verse: Poetry with regular meter but no rhyme
Onomatopoeia: Naming a thing using a world that makes the sound like the thing.
Oxymoron: The combination of contradictory or incongruous words.
Kennings: A figurative phrase or compound word is used instead of a simple noun.
Antiphrasis: An ironic or humorous use of words in an opposite sense of their meaning.
Red herring: Misleading through irrelevant diversion.
Tautology: Unnecessary repetition of meaning using different words to say the same thing.
Peter Tanner teaches Spanish Language and Literature at Utah State University and is Editor of Openings: Studies in Book Art. He has a Ph.D. in Latin American literature, an MA in Latin American Art History, and a BFA in Painting and Printmaking. His research focuses on artist books from Latin America.
