Literary topos
In classical Greek rhetoric, topos, pl. topoi,, in Latin locus, refers to a method for developing arguments.
Meaning and history
Topos is translated variously as "topic", "themes", "line of argument", or "commonplace". Ernst Robert Curtius studied topoi as "commonplaces", themes common to orators and writers who re-worked them according to occasion, e.g., in classical antiquity the observation that "all must die" was a topos in consolatory oratory, for in facing death the knowledge that death comes even to great men brings comfort. Curtius also discussed the topoi in the invocation of nature for various rhetorical purposes, such as witnessing to an oath, rejoicing or praising God, or mourning with the speaker.Lists of themes
Some examples of topoi are the following:- the locus amoenus and the locus horridus ;
- the idyll
- cemetery poetry ;
- love and death, love as disease and love as death, ;
- warlike love, love as homage, painful love;
- the world upside down;
- the dangerous night;
- the infernal hunt ;
- aphasia, for example in the presence of the beloved woman ;
- the descensus ad inferos, or catàbasis in Greek ;
- the desperate search for something, or quête in French;
- the golden age;
- The nostos: the return trip to the homeland
- the paraclausithyron, lament before the closed door of the lover;
- the commutatio loci;
- elixir of eternal youth;
- the Fountain of Youth;
- the topos modestiæ;
- pretending that the work is inspired or translated by a pseudobiblion.
- Hybris