Abstract
The domain of the topos and of related notions such as ‘commonplace’ and ‘cliché’ is marked by a lack of definitional precision. This can in part be explained in terms of the centuries-old tradition of rhetoric; the successive periods of its history mean that it is now perceived as a ‘vast synchrony’ (Barthes). Within that synchrony we find, however, that ‘topos’ and ‘place’ are used in very disparate acceptations.
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Notes
H. Lausberg, Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik (Munich, 1960), p. 373.
R. Barthes, ‘L’Ancienne Rhétorique’, Communications, 16 (1970), p. 206.
R. Barthes, ‘L’Ancienne Rhétorique’, Communications, 16 (1970), p. 207.
H.F. Plett, Einführung in die rhetorische Textanalyse (Hamburg, 1973), p. 14.
P. Jehn (ed.), Toposforschung. Eine Dokumentation (Frankfurt, 1972).
R. Amossy and E. Rosen, Les Discours du cliché (Paris, 1982 ), pp. 143, 140.
R. Amossy and E. Rosen, Les Discours du cliché (Paris, 1982 ), p. 140.
R. Barthes, ‘L’Ancienne Rhétorique’, Communications, 16 (1970), p. 179.
J.P. Richard, Paysages et Figures. In: Critique, no. 374, May 1978, p. 441.
A. Grange, ‘La Dialectique récit/discours dans la stratégie de la persuasion’, in Stratégies discursives (Lyon, 1978), p. 253.
Hence the great interest of Compagnon’s (1979) study of quotation. See A. Compagnon, La Seconde Main, ou le travail de la citation (Paris, 1979) and Nous, Michel de Montaigne (Paris, 1980).
M. Meyer, Logique, langage et argumentation (Paris, 1982), p. 112.
B. Gelas, ‘La Fiction manipulatrice’, in L’Argumentation (Lyon, 1981), p. 77.
M.A. Screech, The Rabelaisian Marriage (London, 1958 ).
See G. Bennington’s study, Sententiousness and the Novel (Cambridge, 1985 ).
L. Wierenga, ‘“Ses jambes d’insecte” Aspects rhétoriques d’un mécanisme de généralisation’, CRIN (1988), p. 36–64.
C. Bremond, ‘Le Rôle d’influenceur’, Communications 16, 60–9 (1970), p. 60 ff.
J. Sutton, ‘The Death of Rhetoric’, Rhetorica, vol. 4, no. 3. (1986), p. 224.
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© 1991 Lambert Wierenga
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Wierenga, L. (1991). The Rhetoric of the Commonplace: Argumentation and Ideology (Jules Verne and Emile Zola). In: Hunter, L. (eds) Towards A Definition of Topos. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11502-0_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11502-0_7
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