McLuhan, Quintiliano e le strategie retoriche della classicità: a proposito dell'oratore che improvvisa (Inst. 10, 7, 15)

Abstract

The paper analyses a significant page of Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria, in which the Author addresses the nodal issue of improvisation. The rhetorician, in fact, believes that only those who know how to deal with an unforeseen cause can truly claim to be masters of the art of eloquence. On the other hand, the chapter appears characterised by a dense series of references to the literary tradition, especially from Cicero, and by an insistent recourse to metaphors and similes that testify to Quintilian’s interest in the subject.