Whether by design or accident, we often see that two terms run together contradict each other, causing a reaction that we can shrug off as humorous or inconsequential. Take the following examples"
Act naturally
Happily married
Microsoft Works
Holy war
Found missing
Master writers, however, contrive to insert the oxymoron in their prose with the intention of making a point, or really calling attention to a subject that can only be approached with a contradiction.
St. Augustine seizes an oxymoron to illustrate the doctrine of original sin: Felix culpa ("Oh, most fortunate disgrace"). And when Nicholas of Cusa challenged the rigidity of Scholasticism, he summarized it as learned ignorance, which is also the title of his book, De docta ignorant. Obviously, this is a masterful use of the oxymoron.
Our daily speech is replete with picturesque expressions which are really but "genuine imitations" of sensible speech:
Resident alien
Minor Catastrophe
Affordable housing
Near miss
Not only can the oxymoron be used in a lighthearted manner, but also for serious discussion. We can see that the precise insertion of the oxymoron can be used to shake up the reader (in particular the skeptic, cynic, or irreverent) and, as the philosopher Immanuel Kant said, 'awaken him from his dogmatic slumbers.' And incidentally, Kant himself in his Critique of Judgment used antinomies-another name for oxymoron-to convey his sense of beauty as 'purposeful without purpose,' and 'a finality without end.'
When Don Quixote returns to his village to die free from his delusion, we learn that he only exchanged one insanity for another; that of becoming a virtuous, amorous shepherd. And his friends "approved his [new] madness as sensible." (Cervantes 932).
The erudite Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges delighted in the use of the oxymoron, and his essays and stories are all speckled with numerous examples. Here's one of which the narrator is absolutely conscious of its use: "Beatriz was tall, fragile, very slightly stooped; in her walk, there was (if I may be pardoned the oxymoron) something of a graceful clumsiness ..." (Borges, The Aleph 275).
Ishmael, the narrator of Moby Dick, explores the horror of whiteness by means of the oxymoron: "Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color, and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning ..." (Melville) How shall we make sense of such expression: visible absence? How can we visualize an absence?
Don Quixote stayed up many a night attempting to make sense of abstruse expressions that he found in books of knight errantry (such as the 'reasons of the unreason') and ended up mad.
Being a conundrum or an imponderable that defies logic, I should just leave the oxymoron alone. Except when evil leaders begin to use it to brainwash people -George Orwell's 1984, comes to mind-and make them believe one thing for another such as 'slavery is freedom,' then we should be concerned. But that is a topic for another article.
Retired. Former investment banker, Columbia University-educated, Vietnam Vet (67-68).
For the writing techniques I use, see Mary Duffy's e-book: Sentence Openers.
To read my book reviews of the Classics visit my blog: Writing To Live
Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Writing Articles Via RSS!
