SYLLEPSIS – AN INSTRUMENT FOR COMIC AND IRONY
SYLLEPSIS – AN INSTRUMENT FOR COMIC AND IRONY

Summary/Abstract: Functioning as a rhetorical figure, syllepsis may be regarded as the possibility of encapsulating two different meanings into a single word – the first rendering the proper meaning while the second revealing the figurative sense. Placed among other figures such as metaphor or comparison, syllepsis seems stuck between the two elements it contains which, when perceived simultaneously, can generate different types of oratorical or literary effects but, when noticed in a progressive manner, may stand for a stylistic development employed as a source of comic, humour or irony. Mainly used in literature, syllepsis was transferred to other arts, such as theatre, cinema or music. Aiming to obtain a comic or ironic effect, the figure represented a basis for all these new artistic opportunities. Starting from a literary approach based on Beaumarchais’s “Le Mariage de Figaro”, the study intends to analyse the manner in which not only the literary syllepsis but also the musical syllepsis employed by Mozart in his “Le nozze di Figaro” was transposed into theatrical syllepsis as it was used in the homonymous opera performance.

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