The history of French translatology is supplemented by an examination of the views of various thinkers at the turn of the nineteenth century on the subject of figures of speech, especially metaphor. A rhetorical conception of translation is sketched, in which metaphor and translation are seen in similar terms. The use of rhetorical figures in argumentation about translation is explored in an analysis of different treatments of the relation between translation and the copying of art. The danger of overlooking changes in the values of images is emphasized in the confrontation of translation discourse of different periods. (Copyright 1993, Sociological Abstracts, Inc., all rights reserved.) (J. Hitchcock in LLBA 1993, vol. 27, n. 4)