Paradoxical Encomium
What is a Paradoxical Encomium? It is praise writing, yet not for a topic you would typically consider praiseworthy. Paradoxical Encomium is taking a topic that is traditionally considered bad or weird, that has a negative association, like mosquitos or infidelity, and praising it an extensive degree. The goal is to use hyperbolic positivity and praise to address that topic that would otherwise be less than fun to read and write about. Paradoxical Encomium uses irony and satire to make readers laugh at absurdity or horror or whatever they normally would not laugh about it– it makes them think about subjects they would otherwise avoid or it sheds light on a new perspective readers had not yet considered.
I preface that my piece is not a whole Paradoxical Encomium as a traditional Paradoxical Encomium utilizes a specific form, a specific structure wherein there’s a backstory shared for the focus character and explicit comments must be made of the narrator’s inferiority to the subject they write about. My piece has neither of these elements, yet its ultimate goal, its purpose for being written is the same as a paradoxical encomium and so I will consider it as one, or at least I will consider it as inspired by the form.
Another note about Paradoxical Encomiums is in the grand spectrum of different levels of rhetorical styles, a paradoxical encomium is most closely paired with high and middle styles. This means, the goal of the writing is to inspire readers, to call them to action and to do so in a pleasant, pleasing manner. This should be a piece of writing that is genuinely fun to read, not only because the excessive use of sarcasm and irony make for some undeniable humor, but beyond that, because language is employed in ways that are pleasing to the ear, pleasing to the mind. It uses tools of style that better the flow of reading, that create audible patterns and associations. It is a style that is meant to heard, to be spoken. It’s a writing style that incites an emotional reaction, which you feel as a listener and portray as the reader.
So to make my piece enjoyable and inspiring and all those intended elements of the experience of reading it, I utilize a multitude of style techniques. I use anaphora– I start sentences with a repeated word or phrase. I use parallelism a lot– often lists or sentences that use the same grammatical structures in a series or on either side of a conjunction. I use right and left branching sentences– where you either have a statement followed by elaboration or you have description first and you to keep reading to know the sentence’s intent. I use imagery of my subject and his setting and his lifestyle– I use a variety of sensory details from sound, to visuals, to smells. There is some alliteration, but that is primarily because the best words happened to share the same first letters. I use instances of consonance, assonance– closely located words that share consonant or vowel sounds. And as this is meant to be paradoxical, ironic, my attitude through the piece is rooted in sarcasm, an excessive confidence and praise. The tone is inspirational, forceful– the narrator is desperate to be heard.
Content-wise, an observation I made is that my piece’s commentary can be interpreted in multiple ways. It is primarily a satire on the ever-present, unavoidable drunk fans at baseball games, but when my piece transitions into the absurd notion that the drunk fan should become a mascot, it starts to satirize the obsessions people, particularly drunk people, have with mascots. I had not intended to focus on the mascot obsession– this was a question I had wanted to explore when I first started exploring mascot, to understand why are people so obsessed with them, so I’m excited to have created this ‘story’ of the extreme actions an obsessed fan will take to be like their idol, though in my piece the drunk fan thinks he is superior, that he would do a better job as the mascot rather than it being that he wants to be more like the mascot. Nonetheless, there are parallels between both instances.