Aproximación a la doctrina y la terminología retórica de las figuras de dicción en la tratadística latina tardía

Abstract

As early as the first century A.D. we can already find the first examples of what would be a long tradition of monographic works dedicated to figures: the authors of this group of treatises considered style as the most important aspect within the different disciplines of rhetoric. The works are especially common in the latter centuries of Latinity. Rutilius Lupus, rhetor of the first century A. D., composed the first of these treatises devoted exclusively to the figures; Schemata Dianoeas et Lexeos ex Graecis Gorgiae Versa. Due to the fragmentary condition of the manuscripts, important parts of this work have been lost, in which the theoretical justification for the studies of the figures by this author were most likely developed. Fortunately, the De figuris sententiarum et elocutionis by Aquila Romanus provides more information. Aquila Romanus probably lived at the end of the third century A.D. or the beginning of the fourth century A.D., and his work is based on the treatise of Alexander Numenius, a Greek author from the second century A.D. Aquila Romanus and Rutilius Lupus are the most important writers of treatises on figures in the Latin language, although many more treatises of these characteristics would be composed after them, works which were considered “minor”. One of these treatises is the De figuris Sententiarum et elocutionis by Julius Rufinianus, author from the fourth century A.D. Medieval manuscripts assign two other manuals to Julius Rufinianus : De schematis lexeos and De schematis dianoeas but this attribution is doubtlessly false. They are two small manuals of figures illustrated with numerous Virgilian examples. The next treatise of note is the anonymous Carmen de figuris vel schematibus, the most unusual treatise of figurative language. And finally, a brief figurist manual entitled Schemata dianoeas quae ad rhetores pertinent probably written in the fourth century A.D., shortly after Carmen de figuris...