erotesis

Definition:

A rhetorical question implying strong affirmation or denial. Also, as defined by Richard Lanham in A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (1991), a rhetorical question "which implies an answer but does not give or lead us to expect one, as when Laertes rants about Opehlia's madness: 'Do you see this, O God?' (Hamlet, IV, v)." See also:

• Epiplexis
• Hypophora

Etymology:

From the Greek, "a questioning"

Examples and Observations:

• "Was I not born in the realm? Were my parents born in any foreign country? Is not my kingdom here? Whom have I oppressed? Whom have I enriched to other's harm? What turmoil have I made in this commonwealth that I should be suspected to have no regard to the same?"
  (Queen Elizabeth I, response to a Parliamentary delegation, 1566)



• "Was I an Irishman on that day that I boldly withstood our pride? or on the day that I hung down my head and wept in shame and silence over the humiliation of Great Britain?"
  (Edmund Burke, Speech to the Electors of Bristol, Sep. 6, 1780)



• "You may think that you are not superstitious. But would you walk under a burning building?"
  (Robert Benchley, "Good Luck, and Try and Get It")



• "Do you then really think that you have committed your follies in order to spare your son them?"
  (Herman Hesse, Siddhartha, 1922)



• "Erotesis, or Interrogation, is a figure by which we express the emotion of our mind, and infuse an ardour and energy into our discourse by proposing questions. . . . As these questions have the force of a climax, they ought to be pronounced with increasing force to the end."
  (John Walker, A Rhetorical Grammar, 1814)



• D-Day: War's over, man. Wormer dropped the big one.
  Bluto: Over? Did you say 'over'? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
  Otter: Germans?
  Boon: Forget it, he's rolling.
  (John Belushi as "Bluto" Blutarsky in Animal House)

Pronunciation: e-ro-TEE-sis