A gradation (or climax) is a figure of speech that is in the category of thought figure. It occurs through a hierarchy of terms that make up the sentence.
Gradation is used through the enumeration of phrasal elements. It is intended to emphasize the ideas in a sentence of increasing rhythm, until reaching the climax (maximum degree).
That is, it offers greater expressiveness to the text using a sequence of words that gradually intensify an idea, and that is why it receives this name.
This figure of style is used in artistic language, whether in poetic or musical texts.
In addition to gradation, other figures of thought are: personification (or prosopopeia), euphemism, hyperbole (or auxesis), littor, antithesis, paradox (or oxymoron), irony and apostrophe.
Classification
In gradation, this hierarchy can occur in ascending or descending form. When it occurs increasingly, it is called climax or ascending gradation.
In turn, if it occurs in a decreasing manner, it is called anticlimax or descending gradation. To better understand, check out the examples below:
- In the restaurant, I sat, ordered, ate, paid. (climax)
- Ana was around the world and arrived in the country, in the state, in the city, in the neighborhood. (anticlimax)
Gradation Examples
See below for examples of gradation in literature and music:
- “No matter how much you look for me, before everything was done, / I was love. That's all I find./path, navigation, flight,/- always love.” (Cecília Meireles)
- “ten more,plus a hundred plus a thousand plus a billion, some surrounded by light, others bloody (...).” (Machado de Assis)
- “At each door a frequented lookout, / that the neighbor's life, and the neighbor's /search, listen, stalk, and scan,/to take her to the Square, and to the Terreiro.” (Gregory of Matos)
- “Oh, don't wait, that ripe old age / Convert you into a flower, this beauty /On earth, in ash, in dust, in leftovers, in nothing.” (Gregory of Matos)
- “The wheat... was born, grew up, sprouted, matured, harvested.” (Father Antônio Vieira)
- “No one should approach the cage, the feline will be able to rage, break the bars, tear half the world apart.” (Murilo Mendes)
- “I was poor. Was subaltern. Was nothing.” (Monteiro Lobato)
- “Carrying flowers / And to fall apart / And they went turning fish/Turning shells/Turning pebbles/Turning sand.” (Music “Mar e Lua” by Chico Buarque)
- “And my garden of life/dried out, died/From the foot that sprouted Mary/Not even daisy was born.” (Music “Flor de Lis by Djavan)
Learn more about the topic by reading the articles:
- Figures of Language
- Syntax figures
- Thought Figures
- Word Pictures
- Sound Figures