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Enumeration. Enumerationis a stylistic device by means of which homogeneous parts of an utterance are made heterogeneous from the semantic point of view

Enumeration is a stylistic device by means of which homogeneous parts of an utterance are made heterogeneous from the semantic point of view. Let us examine the following cases of enumeration:

" Famine, despair, cold, thirst and heat had done

Their work on them by turns, and thinn'd them too..." (Byron)

There is hardly anything in this enumeration that could be regarded as making some extra impact on the reader. Each word is closely associated semantically with the following and preceding words in the enumeration, and the effect is what the reader associates with all kinds of consecutive disasters. The utterance is perfectly coherent and there is no halt in the natural flow of the communication. In other words, there is nothing specially to arrest the reader's attention; no effort is required to decipher the message: it yields itself easily to immediate perception.

That is not the case in the following passage:

"Scrooge was his soleexecutor, his soleadministrator, his soleassign, his soleresiduarylegatee, his solefriend and his solemourner ." (Dickens)

The enumeration here is heterogeneous; the legal terms placed in a string with such words as 'friend' and 'mourner' result in a kind of clash, a thing typical of any stylistic device. Here there is a clash between terminological vocabulary and common neutral words. In addition there is a clash of concepts: 'friend' and 'mourner' by force of enumeration are equal in significance to the business office of 'executor', 'administrator', etc. and also to that of 'legatee'.

Enumeration is frequently used as a device to depict scenery through a tourist's eyes as in Galsworthy's "To Let":

"Fleur's wisdom in refusing to write to him was profound, for he reached each new place entirely without hope or fever, and could concentrate immediate attention on the donkeys and tumblingbells, the priests, patios, beggars, children, crowingcocks, sombreros, cactus - hedges, old high white villages, goats, olive - trees, greeningplains, singingbirds in tiny cages, watersellers, sunsets, melons, mules, great churches, pictures, and swimminggrey - brownmountains of a fascinating land."

The enumeration here is worth analysing. The various elements of this enumeration can be approximately grouped in semantic clusters:

1) donkeys, mules, crowing cocks, goats, singing birds;

2) priests, beggars, children, watersellers;

3) villages, patios, cactus hedges, churches, tumbling bells, sombreros, pictures;

4) sunsets, swimming grey-brown mountains, greening plains, olive-trees, melons.

Galsworthy found it necessary to arrange them not according to logical semantic centres, but in some other order; in one which, apparently, would suggest the rapidly changing impressions of a tourist. Enumeration of this kind assumes a stylistic function and may therefore be regarded as a stylistic device, inasmuch as the objects in the enumeration are not distributed in logical order and therefore become striking.

This heterogeneous enumeration gives one an insight into the mind of the observer, into his love of the exotic, into the great variety of miscellaneous objects which caught his eye, it gives an idea of the progress of his travels and the most striking features of the land of Spain as seen by one who is in love with the country. The parts of the enumeration may be likened to the strokes of a painter's brush who by an inimitable choice of colours presents to our eyes an unforgettable image of the life and scenery of Spain. The passage itself can be likened to a picture drawn for you while you wait.

Here is another example of heterogeneous enumeration:

"The principle production of these towns... appear to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, officers and dock - yardmen ." (Dickens. "Pickwick Papers")

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