I was a bit sniffy about
oxymorons in my last post but they can be a very precise shorthand and phrases like eloquent silence and
expensive economy are a pretty neat way of summing up complex situations.
I just hate the knee jerk clash of opposites as in - groan - forgotten
memories.
I've done a little research (as
a way of avoiding more pressing duties i.e. revising a manuscript) and come up
with these very satisfying gems....anyone got others they would like to share?
I do here make humbly bold to present them with a short account of themselves and their art. . . . Jonathan Swift
The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head
Alexander Pope
He was now sufficiently composed to order a funeral of modest magnificence...
Samuel Johnson
I burn and freeze like ice -- a description of hell in Milton’s Paradise Lost
2 comments:
"An awful black sun from which the night shines" (Victor Hugo, Les Contemplations) = is my favorite oxymoron
But I am not sure 100% of the translation in English!
Zouzou
Ooo I like those! Specially "modest magnificence".
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