From Sonnino, 156:
Cicero: a neat and elegant return to the main theme after a digression
Wilson: When we have made a digression, we may declare our return... we will now keep us within our bounds.
In Chaucer:
"There as I left I will again begin" in line 35 of Knight's Tale
Another example in John Knox:
"Now to your argument...." and "but omitting..."
The antecedent to the digression would be, according to Quintilian (9.2.55-57), the aposiopesis which in some instances could be used as a transitional device to introduce a digressio or announce an impromptu change in the line of argument. (See The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics: 4th Ed., p. 61).
Other candidates to announce a digressio are (from Sonnino, 247-248):
- Metabasis (Transitio): See the nice entry with examples from Peacham's The Garden of Eloquence here.
- Apostrophe
- Prosodiasaphesis
- Interjectio
- Improvisum
Sonnino, L. (1968) A Handbook of Sixteenth Centrury Rhetoric. Barnes & Noble,
Holton, A. (2008) The Sources of Chaucer's Poetics. Ashgate. 74ff
Farrow, K. (1990) Humor, Logic, Imagery and Sources in the Prose Writings of John Knox. Studies in Scottish Literature. 25, 1, 154-175. here
Elliot, R. (1919) Transition in the Attic Orators. The Collegiate Press. here
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