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Abstract
Some approaches to invention use a version of the classical topoi as a conceptual framework for rhetorical invention. Because of the close relationship that exists between the topoi and figurative language, this article theorizes that the four master tropes can provide a conceptual framework not only for rhetorical invention, but also as principles of selection for constructing entire discourses.
Notes
1 I thank RR reviewers Don Abbott and Hugh Burns for their helpful suggestions which resulted in at least three revisions of this article.
2 In an earlier article titled “The Four Master Tropes: Analogues of Development,” I discuss theories, the purpose of theories, and introduce a broader theory of tropes.
3 Kenneth Burke was probably the first scholar to label these four tropes the Master Tropes.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Frank J. D’Angelo
Frank J. D’Angelo is Emeritus Professor of English at Arizona State University. He is a former Chair of the CCCC, a former member of the Executive Committee of the NCTE, a former chair of the MLA Writing Division, and a former member of the Board of Directors of the Rhetoric Society of America. He is the author of three books and about seventy articles.