ABSTRACT As Cicero details in his De Officiis (On Duties), Stoic ethical theory proceeds from a poetics of virtue according to which people act dutifully by performing the roles (personae) in which nature has cast them. Stoicism's dramatistic conception of duty fits within the theatrical dynamics of ancient rhetorical practice, theory, and pedagogy and is a noteworthy precursor to persona theory in contemporary rhetorical studies. Furthermore, the centrality of decorum to Stoic personae theory gives it a poignant rhetorical quality, especially given the circumstances during which Cicero introduced it to Roman readers.

ABSTRACT Traditional readings of Nietzsche's essay “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense” tend to emphasize the clash between philosophy and rhetoric in the form of two distinct personae—the intuitive, Sophistical artist who embraces the rhetorical power of language to create and destroy on the one hand, and the rational, Stoic philosopher who uses concepts to order the world into a block universe on the other. However, I argue that his essay presents us with not two characters but three—the Stoic philosopher, political rhêtôr, and the Dionysian artist. Furthermore, none of these three characters can be said to be representative of Nietzsche's attitude toward the Sophists. This article thus proposes a model of the Sophistical artist which combines aspects from each of these personae in a way that brings together the power of tragic suffering, persuasive word, and passionate music, respectively. This reading of Nietzsche's work discloses an ideal image of a “new” Sophist as an unfettered spirit for whom Dionysian music and philosophical word cooperate to produce a complex rhetorical discourse capable of overcoming the nihilism of the modern age in order to produce a higher culture. This attitude would therefore make the new Sophist capable of grand aspirations and opportune actions while always remaining cognizant of the sublime and terrible nature that underlies his fragile dreams of beauty.

ABSTRACTThis article examines the interplay between the Stoic concept of cosmopolis and Greek rhetorical discourses of the polis in the Roman imperial period. D. A. Russell's “Sophistopolis” (from Greek Declamation, 1983) and Doyne Dawson's work on utopian political theory (1992) serve as points of departure for developing a method of reading the political in Second Sophistic rhetoric. The text under examination is a major first-century oration: Dio Chrysostom's Euboean Discourse. Composed around 96 CE, after Dio's return from exile by Domitian, the Euboicus combines a castaway's rural fable with didactic commentary, forcing the utopian pastoral hard up against a lecture on economic and social distress in the imperial city. Dio creates disjunctive moods, city-visions, and speaking personae, performing a rhetorical tour de force while simultaneously constructing a political subject at the limit of creaturely need. A “cosmopolitical” analysis of Second Sophistic rhetoric finds the consummate artistry of the paideia addressed to imperial power and provincial realities, revealing civic breakdown and human suffering in the city-spaces of empire.

Abstract Although conventional views about late nineteenth-century rhetoric highlight a shift from oratory to composition and from classical rhetoric to a “new” rhetoric with origins in Scottish rhetoricians (with a loss of scholarship and quality), James M. Hoppin's Homiletics can be grouped with an increasing number of works that complicate such views. Hoppin focuses on oratory; reveals an especially broad and scholarly knowledge of classical, religious, and foreign rhetorics; uses a complex of ideas called “uniformitarianism” to justify his primary focus on classical rhetoric; and achieves high quality. His concept of invention has both classical and Christian roots in a complex relationship reflecting both scope and narrowness.

Abstract Ancient India formalized rhetorical debate in the Sanskrit Nyāya Sūtras. Still influential, they remain relatively unknown because India is thought more mystical than logical, because Nyāya has been misinterpreted through Greek logic and terminologies, and because of its epistemology and soteriology. Perrett's four Western “approaches” to India—“magisterial,” “exoticist,” “curatorial,” and “interlocutory”—provide perspective. Magisterial blindness and exoticist assumptions prohibit understanding of Nyāya and delay its inclusion in rhetorical studies. A curatorial/interlocutory approach (translation and elucidation) reveals Nyāya's nature, as well as its similarities with Aristotle's enthymeme and example, enriching our understanding of the history and nature of rhetoric.

Research Article| January 01 2006 Teaching and Scholarship in Classical Rhetoric: a Classicist's View John T. Kirby John T. Kirby University of Miami Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Advances in the History of Rhetoric (2006) 9 (1): 151–160. https://doi.org/10.1080/15362426.2006.10557265 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation John T. Kirby; Teaching and Scholarship in Classical Rhetoric: a Classicist's View. Advances in the History of Rhetoric 1 January 2006; 9 (1): 151–160. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/15362426.2006.10557265 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressJournal for the History of Rhetoric Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2006 by the American Society for the History of Rhetoric2006the American Society for the History of Rhetoric Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Abstract This essay is an inquiry into Heraclitus' conception of logos and its importance for sophistic thought. Following G. S. Kirk, I argue that Heraclitus used logos to designate structure or ordered composition, both in language and in the physical world. Further, I propose that early sophists like Gorgias and Protagoras shared with Heraclitus a structural conception of logos. The essay proceeds by reviewing various understandings of Heraclitus and his philosophy, making the case that Heraclitus did use logos to signify structure or “ordered composition,” and by exploring the relationship between Heraclitus, read in this way, and the sophists.

Abstract At Pseudolus 41–73 Plautus represents the slave Pseudolus as reading a passionate letter from the courtesan Phoenicium to his master, Calidorus. Pseudolus and Calidorus offer strikingly different reactions to the letter. Calidorus praises its style and content, but Pseudolus ridicules both—with a string of sexual insults. In this essay I focus upon gender and class as factors in the literary reception of Phoenicium's writing in Plautus' comedy. My discussion compares the writing attributed to Phoenicium with several second century BCE texts by men. In light of these comparisons, I argue that Pseudolus unfairly holds Phoenicium's writing to standards different from those applied to males, and I suggest that social class—that of the critic as well as the writer—played a complex role in the public assessment of what Roman women said and how they said it.

Abstract The performative dimension of oral rhetoric has been a central concern of theorists throughout the history of the tradition. Awareness of the persuasive power of the human voice is especially conspicuous in the teachings of Gorgias of Leontini. When he claims that “speech is a powerful lord,” Gorgias articulates a profound insight into how the human mind and body respond to sounds produced by the voice. By examining Gorgias' views of the potency of speech in the context of the oral, poetic tradition of ancient Greece, we can appreciate more fully the sources of this insight. Moreover, contemporary research in psycho-physiology suggests that Gorgias grasped an important dimension of the human mind's fundamental nature.

Abstract Aristotle's Rhetoric leaves a number of unanswered questions, among them the nature of the relationship between verbal style and êthos, or character, as a means of persuasion. Statements throughout the Rhetoric suggest a connection between manner of expression and persuasive character, but Aristotle's ideas in this area are underdeveloped. Here we argue that Aristotle's stylistic theory, while not demonstrably inconsistent with the technical proof through character, cannot be made to conform neatly with it in most salient respects. Though Aristotle does not explicit y identify style as a means through which the speaker may convey the impression that he possesses positive intellectual or moral qualities, he does recognize a role for lexis in the expression of generic character traits and is aware that an inappropriate style will damage the speaker's credibility. Hence, attention to style is important for the presentation of a plausible êthos and, in this limited respect, style does contribute to the maintenance of persuasive character. This conclusion must be inferred from passing remarks in the Rhetoric. The absence of a more fully developed theory is curious in light of the availability of examples from the discourse of Attic logographers like Lysias, a speechwriter universally praised by later critics for his mastery of ethopoeia(character portrayal).

Abstract This paper has three goals: (1) to point out a characteristic of Isocrates' style of advice, (2) to use that characteristic to discuss the authenticity of To Demonicus, and (3) to place Isocrates' interest in style in its cultural context.

Abstract The tradition of Western stylistics, initiated by Aristotle, is impregnated with the dialectics between established and unconventional usage. In the twentieth century, Bakhtin acknowledged this dynamic through his conception of the dialectical nature of language. Concepts of the plain style, many of them emanating from the United States, deviated from this dynamic. Prestigious style handbooks such as The Elements of Style and Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace, which championed a form of the plain style based on empiricism, offered advice that undermined the dialectical, dynamic nature of language. At the same time, calls for cavalier self-expression, e.g., experimentation in Baudrillard and experimentalism in Lloyd, could not account for the great achievements of Western stylistics. A paucity of stylistic diversity led Foucault to promote “heterotopias.” Cixous proposed a three-stage model for linguistic development designed to heighten dialectical interplay between tradition and novelty. Attuned to the crisis in written expression, Kristeva stressed the need for enhancing the role of aesthetic products in contemporary life.

Abstract In eleventh century Italy, Anselm de Besate claimed rhetoric had become too technical and difficult to use. He wrote the Rhetorimachia as a controversia, applying declamatory form to a written composition, in order to illustrate rhetoric's usefulness. Nonetheless, Anselm complained that critics failed to understand this intent. Contemporary readers, unfamiliar with the declamatory tradition, have also misunderstood the intent of his controversia. Here, I compare Anselm's controversia with those found in Seneca the Elder and with the declamatory pedagogy of Quintilian, showing that Anselm was imitating a well-established tradition of educational practice as well as displaying his rhetorical artistry.

(2003). On the Trail of Ancient Rhetoric: Fieldwork of a Wandering Rhetoricin. Advances in the History of Rhetoric: Vol. 6, A Collection of Selected Papers Presented at ASHR Conferences in 2001, pp. 43-51.

(2001). Recognizing a Rhetorical Theory of Figures: What Aristotle Tells us About the Relationship Between Metaphor and Other Figures of Speech. Advances in the History of Rhetoric: Vol. 4, A Collection of Selected Papers Presented at ASHR Conferences in 1999, pp. 13-23.

Research Article| January 01 2001 Contemporary Pedagogy for Classical Rhetoric: Averting the Reductionism of Classical Opposition David Timmerman David Timmerman Wabash College Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Advances in the History of Rhetoric (2001) 4 (1): 47–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/15362426.1999.10500525 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation David Timmerman; Contemporary Pedagogy for Classical Rhetoric: Averting the Reductionism of Classical Opposition. Advances in the History of Rhetoric 1 January 2001; 4 (1): 47–56. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/15362426.1999.10500525 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressJournal for the History of Rhetoric Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC2001Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Abstract Little attention has been paid to the often profound differences between artes praedicandi written in the Europe of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. While the sermon theorists loyal to Rome often employed classical rhetoric without any sense of disjunction, the Reformers' dedication to Scripture as a model of discourse impelled them to ratify any use of classical rhetoric in terms of Scripture and Christian commentary. In Bartholomew Keckermann's De rhetoricae ecclesiasticae utilitate, for instance, the author makes use of Aristotle's Rhetoric, but not without heavy reference to similar concerns in Augustine's De docfrina christiana and the epistles of St. Paul. Keckermann's procedures parallel those of other reformers such as Philip Melanchthon and Gerhard Andreas Hyperius, and stand in sharp contrast to the works of Erasmus and the Milanese cardinal Saint Charles Borromeo.

Abstract In this paper I develop a speculative reading of Gorgias's Encomium on Helen that begins from several common assumptions about the work—especially its status as a “pretext” for Gorgias's hidden purposes and its character as a sort of advertisement. Beginning from these common assumptions I propose that the Encomium is appropriately read as an allegorical representation of Athenian political life. By way of this allegory Gorgias was able to advertise his conception of persuasion despite its highly controversial political implications. I refer to Gorgias as a “barbarian” due to the fundamental incompatibility of the model of political persuasion implicit in the Encomium with democratic Athenian political culture.