International Studies in the History of Rhetoric – serie

Dedicated to the subject of literary rhetoric, this book is divided in three principal parts: I. An historical outline of the relationship of rhetoric and literature. II. An overview of the realm of rhetoric and its parts and functions, above all in the section of "elocutio" with its classes of figures, where a critical comparison of traditional and modern models of the rhetorical figures is followed by the design of a new one. III. The implementation of this new concept in seven classes of figures and their respective subdivisions: 1. phonological, 2. morphological, 3. syntactic, 4. semantic, 5. graphemic, 6. textological, and 7. intertextual figures. Each chapter is supplemented by analyses of literary texts conceived as a demonstration of the applicability of the theoretical concepts and structures presented before. An extensive bibliography of research literature and detailed indices of names and subjects conclude this treatise.

This volume gathers over forty papers by leading scholars in the field of the history of rhetoric. It illustrates the current trends in this new area of research and offers a great richness of insights. The contributors are from fourteen different countries in Europe, America and Asia ; the majority of the papers are in English and French, some others in German, Italian, and Spanish. The texts and subjects covered include the Bible, Classical Antiquity, Medieval and Modern Europe, Chinese and Korean civilization, and the contemporary world. Word, speech, language and institutions are addressed from several points of view. One major topic, among many others, is Rhetoric and Religion.

The specific laws of composition of biblical texts, which were first discovered from the mid-eighteenth century, are becoming increasingly well-known. This Treaty represents the sum of Biblical and Semitic rhetoric, in an abridged translation of the French original. The first chapter traces the history of the discovery of biblical rhetoric, the last chapter opens future prospects. The main text of the book is organized into three sections covering the three major fields of research: 1. Composition: The Levels of Composition, The Figures of Composition, Rewriting. 2. Context: Intratext, Intertext, The Center of concentric constructions. 3. Interpretation: Editing and translating, Composition and Interpretation, Intertext and Interpretation, The gift of interpretation. Numerous examples illustrate this methodical and rigorous exposition.

The present study provides an extensive treatment of the topic of enargeia on the basis of the classical and humanist sources of its theoretical foundation. These serve as the basis for detailed analyses of verbal and pictorial works of the Classical Antiquity and the Early Modern Age. Their theoretical basis is the tradition of classical rhetoric with its principal representatives (Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian) and their reception history. The ‘enargetic’ approach to the arts may be described as rhetoric of presence and display, or aesthetics of evidence and imagination. Visual imagination plays a major role in the concepts of effect in oratory, poetry, and drama of the Classical Antiquity and the Early Modern Age. Its implementations are manifested in the Second Sophistic and in the Early Modern Age, there above all in the works of William Shakespeare.

In The Genres of Rhetorical Speeches in Greek and Roman Antiquity, Cristina Pepe offers a complete overview of the concept of speech genre within ancient rhetoric. By analyzing sources dating from the 5th-4th century BC, the author proves that the well-known classification in three rhetorical genres (deliberative, judicial, epideictic), introduced by Aristotle, was rooted in the debate concerning the forms and functions of the art of persuasion in classical Athens. Genres play a leading role in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, and the analysis of considerable sections of the treatise shows profound links between the characterization of the rhetorical genres and Aristotelian philosophy as a whole. Finally, the volume explores the developments of the theory of genres in Hellenistic and Imperial rhetoric.

Sixteenth century Elizabethan treatises on rhetoric in the vernacular are relatively rare. Guillaume Coatalen offers annotated editions of Richard Reynolds’s The Foundacion of Rhetorike (1563), which has not been edited since the 1945 facsimile edition, and of William Medley’s unknown Brief Discourse on Rhetoricke which survives in a single manuscript dated 1575. While Reynolds’s work is an English adaptation of Aphthonius's Progymnasmata and a preparation for Thomas Wilson’s influential Arte of Rhetoricke (1560), Medley’s is broader in scope and contains the only full treatment of periodic prose in English in the period. Both works are essential to understand how Elizabethan rhetoric in the vernacular evolved, in particular in aristocratic circles, and its links with Continental developments, notably German.

Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: The Medieval Rhetors and Their Art 400-1300, with Manuscript Survey to 1500 CE is a completely updated version of John Ward’s much-used doctoral thesis of 1972, and is the definitive treatment of this fundamental aspect of medieval and rhetorical culture. It is commonly believed that medieval writers were interested only in Christian truth, not in Graeco-Roman methods of ‘persuasion’ to whatever viewpoint the speaker / writer wanted. Dr Ward, however, investigates the content of well over one thousand medieval manuscripts and shows that medieval writers were fully conscious of and much dependent upon Graeco-Roman rhetorical methods of persuasion. The volume then demonstrates why and to what purpose this use of classical rhetoric took place.

Persuasion has long been one of the major fields of interest for researchers across a wide range of disciplines. The present volume aims to establish a framework to enhance the understanding of the features, manifestations and purposes of persuasion across all Greek and Roman genres and in various institutional contexts. The volume considers the impact of persuasion techniques upon the audience, and how precisely they help speakers/authors achieve their goals. It also explores the convergences and divergences in deploying persuasion strategies in different genres, such as historiography and oratory, and in a variety of topics. This discussion contributes towards a more complete understanding of persuasion that will help to advance knowledge of decision-making processes in varied institutional contexts in antiquity.

Classical Rhetoric in English, 1650 - 1800 features English translations of the era’s most cherished Greek and Roman orators, rhetorical philosophers, and rhetorical critics. The publication history reveals how a distinctive British canon emerged from selected works by Plato, Isocrates, Demosthenes, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Cicero, Seneca, Quintilian, Tacitus and Longinus. Works by these ten authors, especially Cicero and Longinus, were widely disseminated, becoming key texts in the formation of British rhetorical culture. At the core of the volume, annotated selections offer the twenty-first century reader a sampling of these classical rhetorical works in translation. The glossary of rhetorical criticism elucidates the now archaic meanings of words that enabled citizens to communicate their moral and rhetorical taste.

Chaïm Perelman, alone, and in collaboration with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, developed the New Rhetoric Project (NRP), which is in use throughout the world. Sir Brian Vickers, in his historical survey of rhetoric and philosophy for the Oxford Encyclopaedia of Rhetoric, states that the NRP is “one of the most influential modern formulations of rhetorical theory.” This book provides the first deep contextualization of the project’s origins, offers seven original translations of the writings of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca from French into English, and details how their collaboration effectively addresses then philosophical problems of our age.