The usefulness of prosopography depends on the genre and the author.
Prosopography is the description made of the external characteristics of an individual . The term is usually used in the field of rhetoric .
physical appearance
Prosopography is focused on the physical aspect . It can detail issues related to appearance, such as eye and hair color, height, and body build. The etopeia , on the other hand, is oriented towards the character and psychological traits of the person.
It is common for prosopography to be combined with etopeia when developing a portrait of a subject. Thus the act of describing includes both the physical and the mental or abstract.
An example of prosopography is the following: “The seller was a bald, plump man. His eyes were two tiny black dots that were lost in the immensity of his face full of folds and wrinkles. Every time he spoke, he barely moved his thick, pale lips .
As we said above , prosopography can be combined with etopeia to build a portrait: “When I saw the owner of the company, I was surprised by her youth. She was a tall and attractive girl, with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. The girl radiated confidence: it was clear that she was a person with high self-esteem, aware of her charm. “She was also very nice and had a pleasant conversation.”
Uses of prosopography
It should be noted that prosopography is used very frequently in the field of literature . But it also appears in chronicles and other types of journalistic articles and texts in general. This is because both authors and readers find it attractive and necessary to know the material aspect of people and things, in order to form a more defined idea in our minds.
Of course, in fiction there are infinite ways to approach the creation and description of a character: roughly speaking, we can point out one extreme in which writers point out every physical detail, both of the body and clothing , and another in which the focus It is more subjective, so that the reader completes the information with their own imagination. None is better, but rather they are different ways of conceiving literary creation.
In the field of journalism, on the other hand, imagination has no place since the data must be objective and concrete. An article about a child molester who has been released after a questionable trial should describe the criminal in great detail so that people can recognize him and prevent him from harming his family. The character of his appearance is not as important as his physical appearance and the despicable acts he actually committed.
Prosopography can add depth to a text.
Beyond rhetoric
Rhetorical figures are those resources that are applied in literary creation to enrich it, to give greater depth and variety to a work. Thanks to them we can articulate writing with less predictable, more complex elements and, ultimately, more attractive to the reader. However, both prosopography and other literary figures appear spontaneously in everyday life, although with a lower degree of complexity and correctness.
We cannot deny how common physical descriptions are in informal conversations: when we talk about a person unknown to our interlocutor, for example, we usually mention their most outstanding features to give them an idea of their physical appearance . Something similar happens with comparison, metaphor and prosopopoeia : we do not create beautiful poems or brilliant stories when chatting with our neighbors, but we surely make use of these and other figures without realizing it.