questions - Rhetorical device - listing rejected answers


Is there a name for the rhetorical device whereby you ask a question and then list the rejected answers? For example:



"What was it then? It wasn't x, nor y, nor z. No, in fact it was . . .."



The Cicero De Imperio passage is as follows:


How was it, do you suppose, that he was able to display that excessive rapidity, and to perform that incredible voyage? For it was no unexampled number of rowers, no hitherto unknown skill in navigation, no new winds, which bore him so swiftly to the most distant lands; but those circumstances which are wont to delay other men did not delay him. No avarice turned him aside from his intended route in pursuit of some plunder or other; no lust led him away in pursuit of pleasure; no luxury allured him to seek its delights; the illustrious reputation of no city tempted him to make its acquaintance;



Answer



From rhetoric.byu, apophasis means “The rejection of several reasons why a thing should or should not be done and affirming a single one, considered most valid”. Of rhetorical terms I've seen, this term is closest in sense to what the question asks for.


Note, however, that rhetoric.byu's definition conflicts (or, at least, gives a different sense) with wikipedia's Apophasis article, which says “Apophasis ... is a rhetorical device wherein the speaker or writer brings up a subject by either denying it, or denying that it should be brought up.”


The terms paradiastole and auxesis (and also epiploce) seem less relevant, as they don't indicate rejection of several alternatives followed by acceptance of another.


However, prolepsis (“a rhetorical device by which objections are anticipated and answered in advance”, Collins) and synchoresis (“(rhetoric) A concession made for the purpose of retorting with greater force”, wiktionary) seem relevant. Also see procatalepsis (“Refuting anticipated objections”, rhetoric.byu), anthypophora (“A figure of reasoning in which one asks and then immediately answers one's own questions (or raises and then settles imaginary objections)”), and expeditio (“After enumerating all possibilities by which something could have occurred, the speaker eliminates all but one (=apophasis)”, rhetoric.byu).


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