Description

In literature

In Literature, description constitutes a pause in the Récit, where it can form an autonomous unit, although generally it takes seat in the narration.

One recognizes it with the abundance of the verbs of perception, visual elements, space reference marks, qualifier and verbs of state. It generally follows an order, for example of the head to the feet or a general plan in a close-up.

In its work the texts , Jean-Michel Adam distinguishes three parts in the formation of a descriptive text:

the operation of anchoring (which gives the topic),
the operation of aspectualisation (which operates a cutting in parts)
the qualification . The latter is based on " être" (“the shop was most important of the district”), on " avoir" (“there was a narrow alley encumbered by the salt and rice bags”) or on a verb of action (“the child eats an apple”, “the mountain bars the sight”). According to Adam, one could add in the subcategory " être" " assimilations" (or Metaphor S): “the white people of the villas seem deadened in the sun” (Maupassant), which can be transcribed in “the villas are as white people which are deadened with the sun”.

Then the characteristics come from the contents of a descriptive text:

the Connotation S : they have is a function of Redondance (the hero is happy thus there is a positive description; the hero is unhappy thus description is negative), that is to say a function of anticipation (a sinister landscape announces a negative event for the hero and conversely);
plane of texts which bring space and temporal indications:

* the four seasons,

* the five directions,

* frontal space plans (from top to bottom),

* side space plans (left right-hand side on the left/on the right),

* reducing space plans (before behind/back ahead).

Forms of description

The various kinds of descriptions are:

the Topography : description of a place.
the Chronographie : one period description when an event proceeds.
the Prosopographie : purely physical description of a being or description external of an object.
the Portrait : at the same time physical and moral description.
the éthopée (nf): purely moral description (defects, talents, character…).
the Ekphrasis (nf): description within a literary text of a table, an objet d'art, a drawing… It is said that the first ekphrasis literature is the description of the shield of Achille by Homère.
the parallel : they are two descriptions in parallel or frays by which one brings closer or one opposes two characters.
the Hypotypose : consistent stylistic device in a realistic, animated description and striking scene of which one wants to give a picturesque representation. Synonym: table. It can take the form of an enumeration of concrete details.

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