Serpens torquens: um tipo especial de hipérbato em latim

Abstract

After a survey of the ways in which the figure of hyperbaton has been dealt with from Antiquity to present times, it can be noticed that the commentators that have approached the subject have based their considerations on three criteria, namely rhetorical, morphological-syntactic and stylistic. Whereas the first two allow, to a certain extent, a closed classification of the distinct figure types, it is obvious that the third can only have descriptive value when applied to the stylistic effects achieved by each single occurrence, only allowing an open classification. By adopting this criterion and taking into account some considerations made by Renaissance poeticians on the dispositio, we can conjecture about the existence of a specialised type of hyperbaton, following the onomatopoeia-alliteration pattern, that is allowing the material representation of content through form. A few examples taken from the Culex of the Appendix Vergiliana and from Lucan’s Pharsalia prove that this type of hyperbaton really exists in Latin literature.