異議あり、一八世紀フランスのレトリックは転義法に「限定」されてはいない

抄録

Highly influenced by Dumarsais's treatise On Tropes (1730), French rhetoric in the 18th century was "restricted" to the study of models of signification or tropes. I shall propose here four historical counter-arguments to this thesis put forward by Gerard Genette in 1970. First, in the 18th century there is no relevant break in French rhetoric since it remained unrestricted from 1598 to 1885. Second, considered a grammar by its own author and a poetics by its contemporaries, the treatise On Tropes is not in fact significantly representative of the evolution of rhetoric. Third, even in the treatises of rhetoric influenced by Dumarsais, the part assigned to tropes remained unchanged throughout the 18th century. Fourth, some other aspects of rhetoric structure reveal a considerable amount of mobility in the 18th century: action, passions, design, models of construction and styles. In brief, though stimulating in 1970, this thesis of "restricted rhetoric" has nowadays become an epistemological obstacle to the understanding of the history of rhetoric in France.