Enargia

Enargia:

Definition: A general term referring to the “energy” or vigor of an expression, or a clear, lucid, vivid description.

Explanation

A lot of poets use this rhetorical device; it is when the author describes someone or something in great detail. When they describe the object, they describe it so well that the reader can almost see what they are describing; they get a vivid and clear picture of what the author is describing. The poet Edgar Allan Poe used Enargia a lot in his poems, some would say even too much because he would describe everything to clear detail, everything he described you could picture.


Examples

1- A kickball, a round red rubber ball of joy. About the size of a small dog, it is checkered and covered in dirt. Rugged in feel, it is launched across the field toward an oncoming foot. Elastic and rubber like in feel, it bounces with ease across the field avoiding the oncoming players as the gather around it.

2- At a first glance it looked gloomy and dark. With red rugged bricks, and vivid green window panes, it wasn’t a new house but the owners were trying. The door was large and green, cracked down the side as if it was struck repeatedly. It wasn’t a very large house, but big enough for a family to live comfortable. It hade an almost cone shaped roof with torn shingles, and vines creeping all along the sides, twisting and weaving till they touched and covered the ground.



Example from the public

Author and editor Charles Frederick Briggs describes Poe in even greater detail and in a vein of animosity:
Mr. Poe is about 39.... In height he is about 5 feet 1 or two inches, perhaps 2 inches and a half [actually 5 ft. 8 in.]. His face is pale and rather thin; eyes gray, watery, and always dull; nose rather prominent, pointed and sharp; nostrils wide; hair thin and cropped short; mouth not very well chiselled, nor very sweet; his tongue shows itself unpleasantly when he speaks earnestly, and seems too large for his mouth; teeth indifferent; forehead rather broad, and in the region of ideality [above the temples where Poe had a large protuberance on each side of his head] decidedly large, but low, and in that part where phrenology places conscientiousness and the group of moral sentiments [the top of the head] it is quite flat; chin narrow and pointed, which gives his head, upon the whole, a balloonish appearance....
(Thomas 643; see also 693)