Toward a Definition of Topos

Allegories, rhetoric, imagery, commonplaces, cliches and archetypes are discussed in connection with the literary work of authors such as Montaigne, Shakespeare, Jules Verne, Emile Zola and James Joyce.

The word 'topos' means place, either physical, natural, logical or rhetorical. This collections of essays covers a wide range of mostly English literature from Chaucer and Spenser, via Fielding, to Joyce, with one or two incursions into French writing, in the form of essays on Montaigne and Verne, seeking to apply a rhetorical understanding of 'topos' or commonplaces to the criticism of literature. -- Book jacket.