Definition:
In classical rhetoric, putting oneself in the place of another so as to both understand and express his or her feelings more vividly. One of the progymnasmata. Adjective: ethopoetic.
See also:
- Ethopoeia in George Orwell's "A Hanging"
- Ekphrasis
- Identification
- Mimesis
- Persona
- Personification
- Prosopopoeia
- What Are the Progymnasmata?
Etymology:
From the Greek, "delineation of character"Examples and Observations:
- "Ethopoeia was one of the earliest rhetorical techniques that the Greeks named; it denoted the construction--or simulation--of character in discourse, and was particularly apparent in the art of logographers, or speechwriters, who worked usually for those who had to defend themselves in court. A successful logographer, like Lysias, could create in a prepared speech an effective character for the accused, who would actually speak the words (Kennedy 1963, pp. 92, 136) . . .. Isocrates, the great teacher of rhetoric, noted that a speaker's character was an important contribution to the persuasive effect of the speech."
(Carolyn R. Miller, "Writing in a Culture of Simulation." Towards a Rhetoric of Everyday Life, ed. by M. Nystrand and J. Duffy. Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 2003) - "Do thou stand for me, and I'll play my father. . . .
"[T]here is a devil haunts thee, in the likeness of a fat old man; a tun of man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting hutch of beastliness, that swoll'n parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend Vice, that grey Iniquity, that father Ruffian, that Vanity in years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it?"
(Prince Hal impersonating his father, the king, while Falstaff--the "fat old man"--assumes the role of Prince Hal in Act II, Scene iv, of Henry IV, Part 1 by William Shakespeare)
Pronunciation: ee-tho-po-EE-ya
Also Known As: impersonation
