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Literary topos
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==Meaning and history== Topos is translated variously as "topic", "themes", "line of argument", or "commonplace". [[Ernst Robert Curtius]] studied topoi as "commonplaces", themes common to orators and writers who re-worked them according to occasion, e.g., in classical antiquity the observation that "all must die" was a topos in consolatory oratory, for in facing death the knowledge that death comes even to great men brings comfort.<ref>Ernst Robert Curtius, ''European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages'', trans. from German by Willard R. Trask (New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1953), 80.</ref> Curtius also discussed the topoi in the invocation of nature (sky, seas, animals, etc.) for various rhetorical purposes, such as witnessing to an oath, rejoicing or praising God, or mourning with the speaker.<ref>Curtius, ''European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages'', 92β94.</ref>
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