exaggerate to deflate

[rudi]

Does anyone know of the exact definition of the literary phrase: exaggerate to deflate or exaggeration to deflate. It was used when i studied Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock many years ago.

[rudi]

Don't quote me on this but i think that it has something to do with making a situation look larger that it is in reality so as to make someone or something seems smaller in comparison.

[Quizmonster]

Bathos - that is, the reduction from the elevated to the ordinary - was a speciality of Pope's.

"Great Anna, whom three realms obey

Does sometimes counsel take and sometimes tea."

(In Pope's day, 'tea' rhymed with 'obey'.) Above, he is referring to the monarch's activities...consulting with ministers and having a cuppa...as being more or less on a par with each other. Thus, the exaggeration of the one deflates the importance of the other.

[Trillipse]

i like to link it with meiosis - emphasis by negation of the opposite, with is more the use of deflation to exaggerate:

How are you?

not good...

(meaning very bad...)

emphasis by understatement. a lovely thing.

or should i say .." .not bad at all..."!