Stylistic classification of the english vocabulary

b) The Epithet

Epithet is a stylistic device based on the interplay of emotive and logical meanings in a word, phrase or even sentence. It shows the individual emotional attitude of the writer or the speaker towards the object mentioned. E.g.:

"She had a wide, cool, go-to-hell mouth."

Here a group of epithets helps the writer in a concise form to express the emotional attitude of a personage tow­ards an object or phenomenon.

From the point of view compositional structure epith­ets may be divided into simple, compound and phra­se-epithets.

Simple (one-word) epithets are ordinary adjec­tives: iron hate, silver hair.

Compound epithets are built like compound ad­jectives: heart-burning smile, cat-like eyes, fairy-like work.

Phrase-epithets are extremely characteristic of English language. Unlike simple and compound epi­thets, which may have pre- or post-position, phrase epith­ets are always placed before the nouns they refer to. They help not only to reveal the individual view of the author ana his characters but at the same time to do it in a rather economical manner: a life-and-death struggle; all's-well- in-the-end adventures.

Very often such constructions serve to produce a humorous effect.

Another structural variety of the epithet is the one which we call reversed epithets. The reversed epithet is composed of two nouns linked in an of-phrase:

The shadow of a smile; a devil of a job.

Rather often epithets are used in pairs:

"...they all stood safe and sound, hale and hearty upon the steps."

Sometimes three, four, five, and even more epithets are joined in chains. They are called string epithets. The structural type of string epithets is like enumeration. These attributes describe the object from different points of view:

It was an old, musty, fusty, narrow-minded, clean and bitter room.

Another distributional model is the transferred epithet. Transferred epithets are ordinary logical attri­butes generally describing the state of human being by re­ferring to an inanimated objects. E.g.: sick chamber, sle­epless pillow, merry hours.

As all the other stylistic devices, epithets gradually losing their emotive charge become hackneyed. Epithets in such combinations as bright smile, happy end, lucky chan­ce can hardly be called original, they are fixed, or traditi­onal. In folklore one can find a vast quantity of fixed, lan- uage epithets as golden hair, sweet smile, dark forest, right sun etc.

Individual epithets depend on the author's style and

his artistic purpose:

"He looked shy and embarrassed and a wild hope came to me."

Epithets should not be mixed up with logical attribu­tes which have the same syntactical function but which do not convey the subjective attitude of the author towards the described object. Thus the epithet is markedly subjec­tive and evaluative. The logical attribute is purely objecti­ve, non-evaluative. For example, in green meadows, white snow, round table, blue skies and the like, the adjectives are more logical attributes than epithets. They indicate those qualities of the objects which may be regarded as generally recognized. But in wild wind, heart-burning smile, steel will, cat-like eyes, iron hate, silver hair the adjectives do not point to inherent qualities of the objects described. They are subjectively evaluate. Compare:

1. 
   He unlocked the iron gate easily;
   
2. 
   The iron hate pushed him on again.
   

Iron in the first case does not depend upon the indivi­dual outlook of the author, while in the second case iron qualities anger, i.e. the first example illustrates the logical attribute and the second presents a genuine epithet.

Epithets may be classified from different standpoints: semantic and structural. Semantically, epithets may be divided into two groups: associated and unassoci- ated.

Associated epithets are those which points to a fea­ture which is essential to the objects they describe: the idea expressed in the epithet is inherent in the concept of the object:

dark forest, careful attention, dark clouds, the red sunset.

Unassociated epithets are attributes used to cha­racterize the object by adding a feature not inherent in it. Such association immediately brings surprising effect, attracts the reader's attention:

elegant books, heart-burning smile, voiceless sands.

When the link between components is comparatively close, we say there is a stable word combination. Combi­nations of this type appear as a result of the frequent use of certain epithets:

bright face, sweet smile, unearthy beauty, pitch darkness, deep feeling.

Language epithets have a tendency to become obso­lescent. That is the fate of many emotional elements in the language. They gradually lose their emotive charge and are replaced by new ones which in their turn will be rep­laced by neologisms.

Thus, the functions of epithets of this kind are to show the evaluating, subjective attitude of the writer to­wards the thing described. But for this purpose the author does not create his own, new, unexpected epithets; he uses traditional, "language" epithets as they belong to the lan- guage-as-a-system.

Thus epithets may be divided into language epithets and speech epithets. An example of speech epithet is: sleepless bay.

Stylistic function of epithet is to give subjective eva­luation of thing and notions. In most cases, as it was sta­ted before, it is the writer's subjective attitude to what he describes.