Figure of speech. Of Gerald Fitzgibbon's remarks
opposing the revival of the Irish language, Professor MacHugh
says that "It was the speech...of a finished orator, full of
courteous haughtiness and pouring in chastened diction I will
not say the vials of his wrath but pouring the proud man's
contumely upon the new movement." Saying that one will not say
something is one way of saying it. The rhetorical tradition
has a name for this ironic tactic: paralepsis. It
sometimes uses the term apophasis for the same
purpose.
Paralepsis
(par-uh-LEP-sis, from Greek
para- = beside +
leipein
= to leave), sometimes spelled paralipsis or paraleipsis, is
"leaving aside" something that one nevertheless mentions. Gideon
Burton (rhetoric.byu.edu) defines it as "Stating and drawing
attention to something in the very act of pretending to pass it
over. A kind of irony." As an example he quotes from the
"Breakfast" chapter of
Moby-Dick: "We will not speak of
all Queequeg's peculiarities here; how he eschewed coffee and
hot rolls, and applied his undivided attention to beefsteaks,
done rare." Richard Nordquist (thoughtco.com) cites another
lovely gustatory use by Tom Coates on Plasticbag.org: "Let's
pass swiftly over the vicar's predilection for cream cakes.
Let's not dwell on his fetish for Dolly Mixture. Let's not even
mention his rapidly increasing girth. No, no—let us instead turn
directly to his recent work on self-control and abstinence."
Among other examples, Nordquist cites the moment in
Julius
Caesar in which Mark Antony waves Caesar's will in front
of the plebeians, implying that they are beneficiaries but not
reading from the document.
Apophasis (uh-POF-uh-sis, from Greek
apo- = off +
phanai
= to speak) is "speaking off" or denying something. For
rhetoricians it can have the non-ironic meaning summarized by
Burton: "The rejection of several reasons why a thing should or
should not be done and affirming a single one, considered most
valid." But it can also mean, as Nordquist observes, "the
mention of something in disclaiming intention of mentioning
it––or pretending to deny what is really affirmed." In
The
Mystery of Rhetoric Unveiled,
John Smith defines it as "a
kind of Irony, whereby we deny that we say or doe that which we
especially say or doe." Nordquist cites a slew of stinging uses
from the political arena. If apophasis differs from paralepsis
in any real way (I am not sure that it does), it would consist
in the use of outright denial to advance one's ironic attack: I
will
not blame my opponent for having done the
despicable thing that I have just insinuated he has done, or
hold against him the terrible failing of which he is clearly
possessed.
§ MacHugh's
use of one or the other of these rhetorical devices is
relatively mild. Describing the scorn that Fitzgibbon "poured"
on the Irish language movement, he calls it a principled
dislike ("the proud man's contumely") rather than
emotional intemperance ("the vials of his wrath"). He
borrows both expressions from famous works of literature. The
writer of the book of Revelation recalls "a great voice"
telling the seven angels to "pour out the vials of the wrath
of God upon the earth" (16:1), and in his "To be or not to be
soliloquy Hamlet speaks of "The oppressor's wrong, the proud
man's contumely" (3.1.70).
