The figure of speech, or trope, called
hyperbole (Greek for "overshooting") is bold overstatement, or the extrava-
gant exaggeration of fact or of possibility.
It may be used either for serious or
ironic or comic effect. Iago says gloatingly of Othello.
Not poppy nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou ow'dst yesterday.
Famed examples in the seventeenth century are Ben Jonson's hyper-bolic compliments to his lady in "Drink to me only with thine eyes," and the ironic hyperboles in "To His Coy Mistress," by which Andrew Marvell attests how infinitely slowly his "vegetable love should grow"—if he had "but world enough and time."
The "tall talk" or tall tale of the American West is a form of mainly comic hyperbole.
There is the story of a cowboy in an eastern restaurant who ordered a steak well done. "Do you call this well done?" he roared at the waitress. "I've seen critters hurt worse than that get well!"
The contrary figure is understatement (the Greek term is meiosis, "less-
ening"), which deliberately represents something as very much less in magni-
tude or importance than it really is, or is ordinarily considered to be.
The effect is usually ironic—savagely ironic in Jonathan Swift's A Tale of a Tub, "
Last week
I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it altered her person for the worse," and comically ironic in Mark Twain's comment that "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
Some critics extend "meiosis" to
the use in literature of a simple, unemphatic statement to enhance the effect of a deeply pathetic or tragic event.
An example is the line at the close of the narrative in Wordsworth's Michael (1800): "And never lifted up a single stone."
A special form of understatement is litotes (Greek for "plain" or "sim-
ple"), the assertion of an affirmative by negating its contrary: "He's not the
brightest man in the world" meaning "He is stupid."
The figure is frequent in
Anglo-Saxon poetry, where the effect is usually one of grim irony. In Beowulf,
it's been used.
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