Metonymy and tropological virtue in Institutionis Oratoriae

Abstract

Even though the importance that metonymy has in contemporary studies on linguistic and literature, the definition of this trope still being hard to determine. This essay proposes an insight to Quintilian’s Institutionis Oratoriae in order to illuminate principles from which define metonymy. In that definition, the idea of virtue is crucial to understand general tropes and metonymy, as well.