El tópico literario como forma de tropo: definición y aplicación

Abstract

In a recent paper (2000) I proposed a definition of the concept of literary topos by paying attention to some of its essential aspects, and I tried to show the importance of one of its more authentic or defining characteristics: a literary topos has essentially, as the content of a rhetorical argument— the possibility of inversion, that is, it is opposed to one or more «anti-topics» which have a contrary meaning and a lower frequency of occurrence. From a linguistic point of view, the topos should be viewed as a kind of trope, as a verbal sequence («topical unity») which can be identified in a given context as a «deviation» and which —by reason of a particular kind of similarity— works on a similar way to metaphor. I further develop some of my earlier reflections on the issue by considering some exemples of Latin literature, and I propose some possible methodological directions in their general application to literary theory and scholarship.