The Netherlandish rhetoricians of the sixteenth century have, in the course of the last decades, shed their image of third-rate poets who, lacking all sense of true beauty, were capable only of pompous verbosity and a shallow manipulation of form. The new scholarly assessment has also shed light on the role they played in the cultural and literary life of their time, and it now appears that many of their dramas are well worth staging. Once the sixteenth century was freed from the stigma of being the "preparatory phase" for the Golden Age, the way was clear for thorough studies of the literature produced during the most turbulent period in the history of the Low Countries. This volume contains essays which deal with works written not only in Dutch, but also in French and in New Latin, with topics ranging from the effects of poetic principles on literary practice to the use of poetry as a means for improving society and developing the individual. The unifying thread in these studies is the pivotal importance of rhetoric in all forms of literary expression.

Back in print after 17 years, this is a concise history of rhetoric as it relates to structure, genre, and style, with special reference to English literature and literary criticism from Ancient Greece to the end of the 18th century. The core of the book is a quite original argument that the figures of rhetoric were not mere mechanical devices, were not, as many believed, a "nuisance, a quite sterile appendage to rhetoric to which (unaccountably) teachers, pupils, and writers all over the world devoted much labor for over 2,000 years." Rather, Vickers demonstrates, rhetoric was a stylized representation of language and human feelings. Vickers supplements his argument through analyses of the rhetorical and emotional structure of four Renaissance poems. He also defines 16 of the most common figures of rhetoric, citing examples from the classics, the Bible, and major English poets from Chaucer to Pope.

Offers a radical re-appraisal of rhetoric's relation to literature, with fresh insights into rhetorical sources and their reception in Roman poetry.

Alphabetically arranged entries on roughly 60 leading rhetoricians of antiquity detail their lives and writings and cite works for further reading.

Philosophy and rhetoric are both old enemies and old friends. In The Rhetorical Sense of Philosophy, Donald Phillip Verene sets out to shift our understanding of the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric from that of separation to one of close association. He outlines how ancient rhetors focused on the impact of language regardless of truth, ancient philosophers utilized language to test truth; and ultimately, this separation of right reasoning from rhetoric has remained intact throughout history. It is time, Verene argues, to reassess this ancient and misunderstood relationship. Verene traces his argument utilizing the writing of ancient and modern authors from Plato and Aristotle to Descartes and Kant; he also explores the quarrel between philosophy and poetry, as well as the nature of speculative philosophy. Verene's argument culminates in a unique analysis of the frontispiece as a rhetorical device in the works of Hobbes, Vico, and Rousseau. Verene bridges the stubborn gap between these two fields, arguing that rhetorical speech both brings philosophical speech into existence and allows it to endure and be understood. The Rhetorical Sense of Philosophy depicts the inevitable intersection between philosophy and rhetoric, powerfully illuminating how a rhetorical sense of philosophy is an attitude of mind that does not separate philosophy from its own use of language.

. The contributors are Stephen C. Behrendt, Don H. Bialostosky, Jerome Christensen, Richard W. Clancey, Klaus Dockhorn, James Engell, David Ginsberg, Bruce E. Graver, Scott Harshbarger, Theresa M. Kelley, J. Douglas Kneale, John R. Nabholtz, Lawrence D. Needham, Marie Secor, Nancy S. Struever, Leslie Tannenbaum, and Susan J. Wolfson.

Setting out the principles of rhetoric with a wide range of illustrative examples in the first chapter, the author then explores rhetoric at work in different genres, via a close reading of texts.

A central feature of English Renaissance humanism was its reverence for classical Latin as the one true form of eloquent expression. Yet sixteenth-century writers increasingly came to believe that England needed an equally distinguished vernacular language to serve its burgeoning national community. Thus, one of the main cultural projects of Renaissance rhetoricians was that of producing a "common" vernacular eloquence, mindful of its classical origins yet self-consciously English in character. The process of vernacularization began during Henry VIII’s reign and continued, with fits and starts, late into the seventeenth century. In Outlaw Rhetoric, Jenny C. Mann examines the substantial and largely unexplored archive of vernacular rhetorical guides produced in England between 1500 and 1700. Writers of these guides drew upon classical training as they translated Greek and Latin figures of speech into an everyday English that could serve the ends of literary and national invention. In the process, however, they confronted aspects of rhetoric that run counter to its civilizing impulse. For instance, Mann finds repeated references to Robin Hood, indicating an ongoing concern that vernacular rhetoric is "outlaw" to the classical tradition because it is common, popular, and ephemeral. As this book shows, however, such allusions hint at a growing acceptance of the nonclassical along with a new esteem for literary production that can be identified as native to England. Working across a range of genres, Mann demonstrates the effects of this tension between classical rhetoric and English outlawry in works by Spenser, Shakespeare, Sidney, Jonson, and Cavendish. In so doing she reveals the political stakes of the vernacular rhetorical project in the age of Shakespeare.

Sappho's prediction came true; fragments of work by the earliest woman writer in Western literate history have in fact survived into the 21st century. But not without peril. Sappho's writing remains only in fragments, partly due to the passage of time, but mostly as a result of systematic efforts to silence women's voices. Sappho's hopeful boast captures the mission of this anthology: to gather together women engaged in the art of persuasion - across differences of race, class, sexual orientation, historical and physical locations - in order to remember that the rhetorical tradition indeed includes them.

RHETORIC the counterpart of Dialectic. Both alike are concerned with such things as come more or less within the general ken of all men and belong to no definite science. Accordingly all men make use more or less of both; for to a certain extent all men attempt to discuss statements and to maintain them to defend themselves and to attack others. Ordinary people do this either at random or through practice and from acquired habit. Both ways being possible the subject can plainly be handled systematically for it is possible to inquire the reason why some speakers succeed through practice and others spontaneously; and every one will at once agree that such an inquiry is the function of an art.