The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth

Hyperbaton: Good, this book is read it, you must.ĩ. Synaesthesia: You can smell the charm from this book, and it smells a little like daffodils.Ĩ. Blazon: Forsyth’s style is like a tickling feather Forsyth’s knowledge is like a musty old volume.Ħ. Merism: One will find many laughs in these pages, chapters, and sentences.ĥ. Antithesis: Some books are a slog this book is breezy.Ĥ. Polyptoton: I loved Mark Forsyth’s witty witticisms.ģ. Alliteration: Verily, this vivacious volume is very diverting.Ģ. So, without further ado, I present a half-hearted summary of this book's contents.ġ. So attributing Shakespeare’s greatness to ‘training’ explains very little his training didn’t set him apart, his genius did. A great many intelligent and diligent people have applied themselves to the art of writing indeed, the techniques of rhetoric used to be common knowledge. Now, I’m not sure how seriously he meant that, but it’s quite clearly nonsense. The only part that annoyed me was when Forsyth starts off by saying that Shakespeare wasn’t a genius Forsyth contends that Shakespeare was just a master of the tools of rhetoric. So the ratio of payoff to pleasure is actually quite high.

Nevertheless, I’ve been looking for a book to summarize some of the old techniques for turning a phrase, and Forsyth does an admirable job of it.

It promises the key to eloquence, but is probably better for a quick laugh. I don’t have all that much to say about this book (not counting the whole lot of nonsense I append to the end of this review).

The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth