Après Moi, Le Déluge: 'Writ Large'
Was use of “writ large” necessary to U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's news release regarding her motion to impeach U.S. Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas?
A politician, it seems, isn’t safe even with a cryptic idiom these days.
Thursday, the New York Law Journal reported on U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s July
10 news release heralding a campaign to correct malfeasance in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The introductory sentence of the release, although written in crisp cadence, is freighted with archaic phrasing: “The unchecked corruption crisis on the Supreme Court has now spiraled into a Constitutional crisis threatening American democracy writ large.”
In De Arnaud v. United States, 151 U.S. 483 (1894), the Supreme Court considered, without deciding, whether the then “new-fangled term ‘military expert’ was only ‘old spy’ writ large.” Put simply, whether in that case the job title “military expert” was just a glorified “spy”; put baroquely, spy writ large.
The Oxford English Dictionary credits John Milton as the originator of the phrase “writ large,” although the progeny of William Safire’s “Gotcha Squad” may protest that they recall coming across that phrase in their readings of Plato.
The last two lines of Milton’s “On the New Forces of Conscience Under the Long Parliament” are as follows:
“When they shall read this clearly in your charge New presbyter is but old priest writ large.”
A “presbyter” was then a new-fangled term for an elder or deacon. Milton was gently chiding the new presbyters for being just like the old priests. “Plus ça change ...”
Cambridge Online English Dictionary provides other examples of writ large in use where the phrase has a different meaning:
“Poverty was also writ large in crop theft.” Although both related, the first thing (poverty) is a more significant phenomenon than the second thing (theft of crops).
“While a novel interpretation, it is not really a study of a disease but a morality tale writ large.” The morality tale is more significant than the study of the disease.
In my example, après moi, le déluge—writ large (“after me, the flood,” attributed to King Louis XV of France, who was expressing to Madame de Pompadour that after his death there would be disaster, which eventually came to the aristocracy in the form of the French Revolution), the flood is more significant than the death of Louis.
(Is that actually why the French Revolution was born? Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.)
Circling back to the AOC news release: “The unchecked corruption crisis on the Supreme Court has now spiraled into a Constitutional crisis threatening American democracy writ large.” The meaning of “writ large” in the release is not used in the Miltonian sense. Here, it is the juxtaposition of three related phenomena: first, alleged corrupt activity perpetrated by two justices; second, constitutional crisis; and, third, the threat to American democracy. Here, “writ large,” a noun phrase, comes directly after the third facet, its antecedent, another noun phrase to classify “the threat to American democracy” as the most significant phenomenon of the three.
Was use of “writ large” necessary to AOC’s news release? AOC’s writing team is adept in rhetoric; it makes a point of contouring communication to the specific audience at hand. Usually. “Writ large” adds a little panache, and legal brio, if not meaning, to a foreboding news release.
And, finally, it invites the reader, not really clear on the phrase’s meaning and usage, to engage in some interesting etymological spelunking.
If I am the audience that was targeted to read the AOC news release, then the response to the question as the necessity of the placement of “writ large” is, yes; and well-placed. I think Safire and Milton would have agreed.
