Dear List,
I was wondering whether VN’s striking use of two short, clarifying images within a set of parentheses (forming a miniature oval canvas) was his own invention or if it had a precursor in literature.  Has anyone coined a term for such a literary device?  I have in mind the kind of designation that VN used when he described in his Lectures on Literature the features of Tolstoy’s style: eg, “the functional ethical comparison.”  How about “the parenthetical oval portrait”? (Though I guess that label would misleadingly conjure up the Edgar Allan Poe story in the reader’s mind). 

Thanks.

Best,

Jacob Wilkenfeld 

“Then came a small square (four benches, a bed of pansies) round which the trolley steered with rasping disapproval.” –from ‘The Aurelian’