litotes

   From the Greek litos, meaning “small,” litotes is a figure of speech that uses a specific kind of understatement for ironic purposes. In litotes a thing is indirectly affirmed by negating its contrary. In everyday language one might say,“He’s not my favorite instructor,” to indicate that in fact you do not like the instructor at all. Often litotes is expressed as a double negative, as when one says, “I’m not unsympathetic to your cause,” to mean “I sympathize with your cause.”

   Litotes figures prominently in OLD ENGLISH poetry, where it is a favorite rhetorical device. In BEOWULF, for example, the poet introduces a grim irony into many scenes with the use of litotes. Late in the poem, as Beowulf leads his Geatish warriors to the lair of the dragon, the poet comments:

   Næs loæt y´?e ceap

   to gegangennegumena ænigum!

   (Heaney 2000, 162, ll. 2415–2416)

   No easy bargain

   Would be made in that place by any man.

   (Heaney 2000, 163)

   Typical of the Beowulf poet, the irony here borders on humor, as if anyone could conceive of fighting a fire-breathing dragon as an “easy bargain.” Such is the effect of litotes in Old English poetry.

   Bibliography

   Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.