Between Classical Rhetoric and Grammar

Some recent books (see References) opened again a problem which concerns both rhetorical elocutio and grammar from the point of view of modern linguistics and the history of rhetoric: a group of figures refers to linguistic change in word order and rhetorical interpretation of the texts. They are the figures of the 'alloiosis' group which includes hysteron proteron, hyperbaton, hypallagé, enallagé, metonymia and the unspecified figure of the 'alloiosis' Latin rhetoricians called in a generic way figura. This figura corresponded in poetry to the soloecismus as the metaplasmus corresponded to the barbarismus. However this straightforward correspondence is far from presenting all uses of these figures which occurred in the authors and were theorised by grammarians and rhetoricians. In my paper I will consider this group of figures from two points of view, that of the connection between grammarians and rhetoricians, recently investigated by Ilaria Torzi (2000), and that of the dialectic, pointed out by Marc Baratin (1989). While rhetoricians were more interested in the centre of this group of figures and missed some differences, the grammarians tried sometimes with the help of the dialectic to introduce every figure into a scheme with precise boundaries. The matter to apply such theories was rather the poetry, classical poetry and in particular Virgil. In this way through the application to Virgil this doctrine not only passed from the Late to the Medieval Latin, but contributed to develop an allegoric interpretation of classical poetry which was very expanded in the Middle Ages.