Periergia (pe-ri-er’-gi-a): Overuse of words or figures of speech. As such, it may simply be considered synonymous with macrologia. However, as Puttenham’s term suggests, periergia may differ from simple superfluity in that the language appears over-labored.
“The sun was a ball of sizzling butter preparing evening to fry the dusk in oils of darkness, seasoned by stars shaken across the sky by God, the chef of all existing things, and their practiced waiter, serving His heavens at the feast of beginnings and endings.” This line from Apocalypto Razzuti’s “Eat the Night,” takes us beyond any measure of literary excellence so that we may nearly remain silent at its reading—awe struck and transported to providence’s mystic ether.
Razzuti’s use of what he called “spewing images” allows the reader to ascend a staircase of meaning, at each step, each comma, each preposition to wonder when the words will start to make sense. This habit of reading, of needing to have what you’re reading make sense, immerses almost all of Razutti’s readers in an ocean of doubts, anger and angst. “Eat the Night” has been hurled to the floor or into a trash bin, or even burned, many times.
But recently, a letter Razzuti wrote to his sister, Maybeleen, has surfaced, found in a box consitant with what may have been her most prized treasures. Along with the letter, there’s a pair of toenail clippers, a heart-shaped locket with no picture, a 12 inch stiletto switchblade knife, a pair of rubber gloves, a jar of pickled eggs, and an ivory toothpick.
Ironically, this was the effect Razutti was looking for—to replace affection for a text with hostility toward it: to induce dislike as a healthy aim of great literature. He believed that attachment to a book, or a poem, was perverse. So, he produced writings that were repulsive by standard literary criteria. His works make no sense, holding stalwart readers in suspense, where at the end they may say “That was shit,” and get drunk and light “Eat the Night” on fire.
The letter explains how Razzuti had hired a cadre of college freshmen literature majors to produce his writings. Knowing they would be mediocre at best, they fit his criteria of excellence and would be worthy of publication under his name. But, there is another trace. One of Razutti’s poems ends with: “In eternal shame, like snail slime across her face, my sister sits in a tub of steaming excrement, farting out her stench-laden lies. I Never wrote a letter.” So, now we have to go back to square one, to being transported, despite the likely fictitious ethic of hatred that can’t be attributed to Apocalypto Razzuti with certainty.
So, “Eat the Night!”
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.
The Daily Trope 