Sermocinatio

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The sermocinatio (from Latin sermo , 'speech') is a rhetorical figure in which a person who is not present is presented as present and a certain speech is placed in the mouth or a certain action is assumed. Depending on the understanding of the term, this also includes the prosopoly in the narrower sense, i.e. the speech of personified abstracts or objects.

Examples:

  • “What would your mother say if she were still alive? She would wash your head and say: 'Don't you think that ...' "
  • “This fatherland, Catiline, negotiates with you and speaks to you in secret, so to speak: 'For a number of years there has been no more crime that you did not commit, no more outrage will happen without you. [...] '"(Cicero, 1st speech against Catiline )

literature

  • H. Lausberg: Handbook of literary rhetoric . 2nd Edition. Max Huber Verlag, Munich 1973.
  • D. Burdorf [and a.] (Ed.): Metzler Lexikon der Literatur . 3. Edition. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2007.