Reviews La Rhétorique d'Aristote. Traditions et commentaires de l'antiquité au XVIIe siècle. Textes réunis par G. Dahan et I. Rosier-Catach. Paris. Vrin, 1998. Pp. 356. Il volume raccoglie i testi delle relaziom presentate nel corso di un colloquio dedicate alla Retorica di Aristotele (Centre de la Baume-lès-Aix, 915 luglio 1995). Nella premessa i due curatori da un lato ricordano la perenne centralità della R. di A., quale testa di riterimento di teoria e prassi retorica dall'Antichità ai nostri giorni e, proprio per questo, quasi un testo senza storia. Dall'altro puntualizzano che il colloquia ha voluto verificare questo status singolare della R. di A., sia sul piano della tradizione del trattato, sia su quello dei commenti ad esso relativi. Cosi gli studi raccolti nel volume, piuttosto che l'analisi del testo in sé, privilegiano la prospettiva storica secondo cui si sana variamente orientati i differenti usi pragmatici, della R. di A. Tali studi "env isagent d'une part la longue durée (de l'Antiquité au XVIIe siècle), d'autre part dans des traditions différentes (traditions grecques antique et byzantine, latines romaine et médiév ale, traditions arabe et juive médiév ales, traditions humanistes de la Renaissance et du début de l'age classique) et s'efforcent de mettre en lumière des éléments de continuité ou de divergence et surtout de faire apparaître les regards différents qui ont été portés sur le même texte'' (p. 7). Nelle diverse epoche e nei differenti ambiti culturali la conoscenza e il riuso della R. di A si sono realizzati in modo piuttosto articolato. Nota nella sua interezza o solo in parte, o ancora attraverso estratti e compendi, ha comunque esercitato un'influenza déterminante. La stessa circolazione del testa della R. è strettamente collegata al complesso problema delle traduzioni e "ritraduzioni" (traduzioni faite direttamente dal greco in arabo e poi "ritradotte " in latina o in ebraico: i pensatori arabi ebbero infatti a disposizione la traduzione della R. nella loro lingua molto tempo prima che fossero allestite le prime traduzioni latine) (p. 8). Per di più ricezione e interpretazione della R. di A. non solo hanno riguardato la storia interna del testa, la sua tradizione e trasmissione, ma hanno anche generato riflessioni sulia esatta collocazione della retorica (e della R. di A.) nel piu generale campo dei saperi intellettuali. Si è stabilito cosi un sofisticato dialogo intertestuale che, nel ricondurre alla R. di A. quale ipotesto, ha prodotto, dall'età ellenistica in poi, nuove interpretazioni, nuove riflessioni (p. 9). C The international Society for the History of Rhetoric, Rhetorica, Volume XXI, Number 1 (Winter 2003). Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center St, Ste 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223, USA 55 56 RHETORICA Il saggio di L. Calboli Montefusco ("La force probatoire des pistéis atekhnoi d'Aristote aux rhéteurs latins de la république et de l'empire") parte dal confronto fra due passi famosi che definiscono e distinguono i due tipi di pistéis, atekhnoi e entekhnoi (Quintiliano, Inst. Or. 5, 1, 1-2; Arist. Rhet. I 1355 b 35-39). Per meglio comprendere l'antitesi di Aristotele fra pistéis atekhnoi ed entekhnoi, resa da Quintiliano corne antitesi tra probationes inartificiales e artificiales, la Calboli Montefusco ricostruisce con ricchezza di dettagli la problemática nozione di pistis in Aristotele, in stretto nesso con la funzione che Aristotele stesso assegna alla tekhnê, e accoglie decisamente l'interpretazione tradizionale, che attribuisce ad entrambi i tipi di pistéis il valore di "strumenti di persuasione," utilizzabili anche insieme nel discorso, ma autonomi e indipendenti l'uno dall'altro, rafforzandola con l'analisi di vari passi della R. che aiutano non solo a comprendere meglio il senso di pistis in Aristotele, ma anche ad osservare il recupero che Aristotele opera di questa nozione nell'ambito della dottrina del pathos. Cicerone (De orat. 2.116) apporta importanti modifiche alio schema di Aristotele, unitamente ad alcune innovazioni in sede teórica (Inv. 2.48), che egli applica a più riprese nella prassi oratoria, dalla difesa...

Jan Miernowski Les limites de la rhétorique L 'empire rhétorique connaît-il des limites? Aron Kibédi Varga a récemment posé cette question dans son article "Universalité et limites de la rhétorique".1 II est symp­ tomatique que la seconde partie du titre soit discutée seulement dans les trois dernières pages du texte, et cela surtout sur un mode interro­ gatif. Dans le présent numéro de la revue, nous reprenons le débat en le concentrant sur un moment historique précis: la Renaissance, et particulièrement la Renaissance française. Existe-t-il un au-delà de la rhétorique pour les humanistes français qui viennent de redécouvrir le riche héritage de l'art ora­ toire classique et qui ambitionnent de fonder leur propre éloquence dans la poésie et les sciences, la politique et la prédication? A n'en pas douter, l'au-delà rhétorique est lui-même une figure oratoire (Rigolot). Est-ce à dire que les limites de la rhétorique à la Renais­ sance ne sont que les frontières internes d'un empire fatalement uni­ versel? Ou bien inversement: la culture renaissante conçoit-elle des phénomènes discursifs qui échappent à l'emprise de l'art du bien dire? Telle la poésie, province en apparence pacifiée et soumise, mais qui rêve d'être la nouvelle métropole (Cornilliat). Ou bien le signe esthétique en tant que tel, dont la fulgurante évidence n'a que faire des stratégies argumentatives étriquées (Demonet). Autrement dit, vouloir tracer les limites de la rhétorique à la Renaissance revient à interroger des théories sémiotiques, des gestuelles pathétiques et des valeurs éthiques qui font obstacle—que ce soit ouvertement ou non—à l'expansion de l'art de l'éloquence: Theméneutique occultiste du hiéroglyphe, à écarter si Ton projette la mise en ordre oratoire des mathématiques (Pantin); la haine, qui, au lieu de convaincre les } Rhetorica 18, (2000) pp. 1-28.© The International Society for the History of Rhetoric, Rhetorica, Volume XX, Number 4 (Autumn 2002). Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center St, Ste 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223, USA - 318 RHETORICA volontés libres s'adonne au rituel de l'anathème (Miernowski); la grâce, ce point de mire obligé mais inévitablement hors d'atteinte pour la persuasion prédicante (Fragonard). On l'a bien compris: sonder les limites de la rhétorique à la Renaissance ne signifie pas seulement explorer les frontières d'une culture, objet de l'investigation. C'est aussi tester l'outillage mental mobilisé par l'investigateur, c'est mettre en question ses paradigmes intellectuels: dans quelle mesure la rhétorique est-elle un objet de l'histoire parmi d'autres et jusqu'à quel point est-elle son moule formateur? L'expérience esthétique est-elle le produit du discours ou plutôt le surplus de sa signification? Le sacré d'une culture est-il le reflet ou bien le revers du débat politique et social? Autant de questions de méthode suscitées par la recherche historique sur la rhétorique renaissante. Cette recherche a été puissamment stimulée par les conseils et par les doutes de mes amis seiziémistes, tout particulièrement Fran­ cis Goyet, Ullrich Langer et David Quint. Le débat, dont le produit collectif est ici présenté au lecteur, a eu lieu pendant les sessions des congrès de la Renaissance Society of America et de l'International Society for the History of Rhetoric, à Chicago et à Varsovie en 2001. Je voudrais remercier très chaleureusement son Excellence Monsieur Benoît d'Aboville, Ambassadeur de France en Pologne, pour l'intérêt qu'il a bien voulu manifester pour nos discussions. La rencontre de Varsovie n'aurait pas pu être réalisée sans l'aide du Centre de Civili­ sation Française, de l'Institut de Philologie Romane, ainsi que du Cen­ tre des Études sur la Tradition Classique de l'Université de Varsovie, dirigés respectivement par MM...

304 RHETORICA by being overly literal. He also inserts sub-titles to what the Rhet. Al. deals with next, which aid the reader immensely There are 761 notes at the bottom of each page of translation and in almost one hundred pages (pp. 117-201) of "Notes Complémentaires". These contain an abundance of cross-references to other ancient sources (especially identifying relevant passages in other rhetorical works which are very helpful), while references to modern liter­ ature (mostly French at that) are kept to a minimum. This is hardly the place for a detailed critique, so let me give just one example of a topic in which I have my own scholarly interest: Rhet. Al. 29 on the exordium. Chiron gives us almost fifty detailed notes, though curiously little mention is made of the Demosthenic exordia or the Budé text of the exordia edited by R. Clavaud (1974). The edition also has an index of proper names (pp. 203-205), a lengthy index of Greek terms (pp. 207-258), and a concordance of previous major texts with differing divisions: Erasmus (1539 and 1550), Bekker in the Berlin Aristotle (1881), Hammer's revision of Spengel in the Teubner (1894), and Fuhrmann's recent Teubner (pp. 259-268). Chiron cites the works of other scholars on the Rhet. Al., works that are mostly articles, of which some are lengthy and others only notes. None can compare to what Chiron gives us in his Budé edition, an edition that is also testimony to the general quality and trustworthiness of the Budé series. Chiron's detailed assessment and critique of the Rhet. Al. will make his edition useful for anyone working on Greek rhetoric, oratory, or indeed interested in Greek literature. It is an important addition to scholarship, and for that he should be commended. Ian Worthington University ofMissouri-Columbia Pierre Chiron, Un rhéteur méconnu: Démétrios (Ps.-Démétrios de Phalère). Essai sur les mutations de la théorie du style à l'époque hellénistique (Paris: Vrin, 2001) 448pp. Dopo vari anni dalla sua pubblicazione del PH di Demetrio per la collana "Les Belles Lettres" (Démétrios, Du Style, Parigi 1993) Pierre Chiron ci offre adesso un'analisi molto approfondita di questo trattato nel tentativo, argomentato sempre con grande cura, di contribuire a risolvere alcune delle difficoltà che hanno tormentato da secoli gli studiosi di questo testo. Oltre alla prefazione di M. Patillon una introduzione ed una conclusione fanno da cornice a ben nove lunghi capitoli nei quali l'autore non solo fa il punto sullo status quaestionis ed affronta problemi di datazione e di attribuzione, ma anche esamina in modo capillare la dottrina esposta da Demetrio. Non soddisfatto dei criteri adottati dai suoi predecessori, Chiron pensa infatti che sia opportuno cambiare metodo e "passer à une étude axée sur le texte Reviews 305 lui-même, ses tensions internes, ses présupposés et les diverses sources dont il laisse entrevoir l'utilisation" (p. 32). Questo spiega dunque perché il discorso sull attribuzione del trattato e sulla sua datazione, iniziato nel primo capitolo con la presentazione delle varie, a suo parère insoddisfacenti, soluzioni, riprenda solo alla fine, nel nono. Qui Chiron si sofferma su quattro question! principali (1. Le PH peut-il avoir été écrit par Démétrios de Phalère? 2. Quels sont les arguments en faveur d'une datation "haute"? 3. Une datation "basse" est-elle soutenable? 4. Dans quelle mesure peut-on préciser une datation intermédiaire?) aile quali, dopo una minuziosa analisi dei dati a disposizione e delle ipotesi già fatte da altri studiosi, dà risposte che, per quanto mai categoriche, lasciano comunque chiaramente intravedere la sua posizione: il PH sarebbe opéra di un retore di nome Demetrio attivo alla fine del II o all'inizio del I sec. a.C. La sua formazione peripatetica sarebbe dovuta all'utilizzo diretto delle opéré di Aristotele e di Teofrasto che Apellicone di Teo aveva reso nuovamente accessibili ad Atene dopo il loro sotterramento da parte di Neleo di Scepsi e dei suoi eredi. Giunto a Roma forse nell'86, dopo la vittoria di Silla, insieme alla biblioteca di...

314 RHETORICA Jean Nienkamp, Internal Rhetorics: Toward a History and Theory of SelfPersuasion (Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 2001), xiv + 170 pp. In her deceptively slim volume, Internal Rhetorics, Jean Nienkamp pro­ vides historical precedents and theoretical arguments for opening up the self as a site for rhetorical study. She examines several key texts from the Classical, Enlightenment, and Modern periods to develop a theory of inter­ nal rhetoric, the concept of thinking as verbal interaction and the self as a socially constituted collection of internalized discourses. Since neither traditional nor expansive understandings of rhetoric theo­ retically preclude the extension of their studies to the self, Nienkamp sur­ mises that this aspect of rhetoric has been "eclipsed by various political, educational, and philosophical factors that have shaped thinking about lan­ guage use" (p. x). Traditional rhetoric's historical emphasis as an intentional practice for public address and the postmodern ban of vocabulary sugges­ tive of a unitary subject are two powerful predispositions against thinking of rhetoric as internal. Another, as Nienkamp emphasizes, is the Platonic division of philosophical and rhetorical reason and the long historical reign of thought over language. Nienkamp's history and theory of internal rhetoric clearly favors the epistemic rhetorics of Isocrates and the twentieth-century rhetoricians and psychologists she examines. Internal rhetoric, Nienkamp argues, unites the divisive disciplinary con­ cerns of traditional and expansive (interpretive) rhetorics by pointing to both the effects and intents of language and its use; it also reestablishes rhetoric's relations with psychology and philosophy by providing a complex rhetorical reading of the self and offering a model of moral agency in an antifoundationalist age. Central to these proposals is Nienkamp's distinction between cultivated and primary internal rhetoric. A deliberately cultivated moral rea­ soning is the form internal rhetoric takes in the Classical and Enlightenment texts examined in Part One. Associated with the intentionally crafted dis­ course of traditional rhetoric, cultivated internal rhetoric is the conscious use of a learned language to effect desired change in the self. Primary internal rhetoric is the form self-persuasion assumes in the post-Freudian Modern texts examined in Part Two. Associated with expansive rhetoric, primary internal rhetoric understands the powerful unconscious imperatives of mul­ tiple, often conflicting social discourses influencing internal rhetoric and constituting the rhetorical self. Because his representation of logos is both epistemic and ethical, Isocrates is Nienkamp's classical standard for internal rhetoric. The Socratic-PlatonicAristotelian treatments of self-persuasion, although identifying and address­ ing the divided psyche, depict the coercion of reason over the appetites rather than the linguistically interactive negotiation Nienkamp identifies as rhetor­ ical. Francis Bacon, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury and Richard Whately, Nienkamp's Enlightenment figures, emphasize the highly rhetorical nature of moral reasoning, the intense, concerted interactions with reason to move Reviews 315 the will away from the passions; but they use a faculty psychology whose discrete, innate parts are more acted upon than acting. Nienkamp wants an epistemic rhetoric to underwrite her theory of thought and the self, but she returns in her conclusion to the cultivated ethical reasoning associated with traditional rhetoric to propose a theory of moral agency. Nienkamp's historical depictions of rhetorical thought and the self should prove fascinating to anyone wondering or worrying about the fate of the self in rhetoric. Rhetorical representations of thought from Homer to Ken­ neth Burke portray a psyche whose constituent parts are innate. Along with Burke, Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca use the Freudian un­ conscious to unseat "the rationalist and theological ethics of earlier periods" (p. 81), but the Freudian psyche is also comprised of innate parts. Not until Nienkamp examines the psychologies of George Mead and Lev Vygotsky does her theory of internal rhetoric reflect the historicized nature of thought processes, consciousness, and the mind. Her social-constructionist rhetorical view of thought and the self is based on knowledge gained from the social sciences, an epistemological stance epistemic rhetoric refutes. The rhetori­ cal self as depicted by Nienkamp's rhetorics and philosophies is clearly a cultivated, not experiential, self. Although she proposes collaboration with psychology to redress this problem, rhetoric is incorrigibly aligned with phi­ losophy and never more so...

Reviews 311 Rita Copeland, Pedagogy, Intellectuals, and Dissent in the Later Middle Ages: Lollardy and Ideas of Learning, (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer­ sity Press, 2001), xii + 243 pp. Rita Copeland's subjects—the pedagogical strategies of the Lollard heresy and the rhetoric of dissent and repression in late medieval England— might seem remote from the concerns of contemporary rhetoric and peda­ gogy That apparent gap between past and present is one Copeland labors to close. "What this book offers," she announces, "is a study of issues that were of profound importance for the Middle Ages and that will disappear from our historiographical map if we do not recognize them as being im­ portant to ourselves" (p. 1). In a fifty-page general introduction, "Pedagogy and Intellectuals," Copeland views late medieval struggles over lay access to religious knowledge through the lenses of postmodern pedagogical theory, postcolonial studies, and liberationist pedagogy. That "pedagogy is the most political and politicized of discourses" (p. 18) is for her as true of the Middle Ages as it is today; understanding the relation of pedagogy and dissent in medieval England helps illuminate "what most insistently links past with present" (p. 20). Later chapters connect the prison narratives of the Lollard intellectuals Richard Wyche and William Thorpe to the writings of Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Ken Saro Wiwa, and Nelson Mandela (p. 151) and find the blur­ ring of pedagogical and inquisitorial methods in Thorpe's 1407 interrogation "poignantly resonant with modern literatures of political detention" (p. 210). Readers may find some of Copeland's parallels forced; however, few medievalists will dispute the value of her contribution to the burgeoning study of Lollardy, which has transformed our understanding of medieval English culture and has provoked radical reinterpretations of authors from Geoffrey Chaucer to Margery Kempe. Beginning in the 1380s, Copeland argues, a university-trained elite, eventually to be hereticized as Lollards, developed and implemented a sys­ tematic pedagogy that sought to disestablish hierarchies separating aca­ demics and laypeople, teachers and students, leaders and followers. Cen­ tral to that pedagogy was the promotion of "literal" reading to instate "an independent and conscientious knowledge of Scripture among the laity" (p. 123-124). (Copeland is careful to distinguish the Scriptural literalism of present-day fundamentalism from that of Lollardy, which retained "the interpretive flexibilities of traditional multi-layered exegesis [p. 127].) In advancing this pedagogy, Lollard intellectuals repudiated a long-standing association of the literal sense with childishness, an association whose history Copeland painstakingly traces to a split in late Antiquity between pedagogy and hermeneutics. The English Church hierarchy responded with a counter-pedagogy that, among other things, reasserted the association of the literal with the childish and deployed a rhetoric of infantilization to attempt a broad intellectual disenfranchisement of lay adults. The Church's crackdown on heterodoxy met with limited success, however; although it did staunch the flow of 312 RHETORICA dissident intellectuals from the universities to lay communities through censorship, imprisonment, and capital punishment, it could not undo the damage wrought by dissident academics such as Wyche and Thorpe, for "the products of intellectual labor, the pedagogical apparatuses that are exportable from one milieu to another, once set in motion, can long outlast the power of the individual teacher to teach" (p. 219). Pedagogies, Intellectuals, and Dissent evinces the meticulous scholarship and nuanced treatment of abstruse rhetorical issues that one would expect from the author of Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1991). Copeland's analyses of intellectual labor, pedagogies, the "literal sense," and the politics of childhood illuminate the story of dissent and repression well known to scholars of Lollardy. Her study is a must for specialists in late medieval England. Though non-medievalists may struggle with Copeland's dense analyses of politico-religious issues, I expect that scholars of contemporary pedagogy and rhetoric—particularly oppositional pedagogies and rhetorics of resistance and coercion—will find this book well worth the effort. Karen A. Winstead The Ohio State University Luigi Spina, L'oratore scriteriato. Per una storia letteraria e política di Tersite, Napoli : Loffredo, 2001, pp. 124. Luigi Spina's short essay brilliantly shows how rich (and sometimes contradictory) can be the rhetorical reuse of...

312 RHETORICA dissident intellectuals from the universities to lay communities through censorship, imprisonment, and capital punishment, it could not undo the damage wrought by dissident academics such as Wyche and Thorpe, for "the products of intellectual labor, the pedagogical apparatuses that are exportable from one milieu to another, once set in motion, can long outlast the power of the individual teacher to teach" (p. 219). Pedagogies, Intellectuals, and Dissent evinces the meticulous scholarship and nuanced treatment of abstruse rhetorical issues that one would expect from the author of Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1991). Copeland's analyses of intellectual labor, pedagogies, the "literal sense," and the politics of childhood illuminate the story of dissent and repression well known to scholars of Lollardy. Her study is a must for specialists in late medieval England. Though non-medievalists may struggle with Copeland's dense analyses of politico-religious issues, I expect that scholars of contemporary pedagogy and rhetoric—particularly oppositional pedagogies and rhetorics of resistance and coercion—will find this book well worth the effort. Karen A. Winstead The Ohio State University Luigi Spina, L'oratore scriteriato. Per una storia letteraria e política di Tersite, Napoli : Loffredo, 2001, pp. 124. Luigi Spina's short essay brilliantly shows how rich (and sometimes contradictory) can be the rhetorical reuse of a mythical character. He starts, in fact, from a recent episode in Italian political debate about liberalism, in which the category of "tersitismo" appeared as a clearly negative label, as a synonym of populism. With an interesting ambivalence this topical image is sometimes reverted, so that the ugly and misshapen Thersites becomes the symbol of an alternative vision, of a true popular polemic against war and power. The rehabilitation of a scapegoat is in fact a widespread operation. In the longue durée of Thersites it leads to some stimulating parallels with various characters of myth and history: Hephaistos, Aesopus, Socrates, Demosthenes ... Till to the most paradoxical issue: the latent identification of Thersites with his most powerful enemy, Odysseus, which starts from a significant passage of Sophocles' Philoctetes, and comes from Thersites' effective rhetorical strategy (the paradigm of cynical rhetoric). Spina's critical path follows Thersites' ambivalence through some an­ cient and modern significant versions. First of all, of course, Homer's 67 verses, and their impressive use of characterization, intentional ellypis, and accurate mixture of mimesis and dieghesis. Secondly, Quintus of Smyrne's epic continuation, that for the first time puts Thersithes in connection with a fe­ male figure, Penthesilea. A very important moment in the modem reception Reviews 313 is certainly the Elisabethan stage: first of all William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida (1602), "an Iliad retold by Thersites" according to Gérard Genette. In this extremely polyphonic play the hero embodies in fact the radical demys­ tification of the epic tradition. From a stylistic point of view it is remarkable the anthrozoomorphic imagery frequently connected with Thersites. The Iron Age (1612) concludes Thomas Heywood's complex mythological fresco; its first part ends with Thersites' metaliterary monologue. He plays the role of the "rayling rogue", who came to Troy "to laugh at mad men" and finds a "meeting soul" in the famous Trojan spy, responsible of the fall of Troy: Sinon. Finally, Dryden's classicistic rewriting of Shakespeare's drama is focussed on Thersites' anticlericalism, and on his skeptical neutrality. Even in this important moment of modern reception Thersites' image wavers between the negative Homeric topic and the positive liberating force of comicality. The XXth century presents the culminating point of Thersites' rehabil­ itation. Moreover, its tendency to experimentation enlarges the spectrum of rewritings. The Italian latinist Concetto Marchiesi adopts a very specific mix­ ture of autobiography and fiction. In his II libro di Tersite (1920) the hero stands for the isolation of the protesting intellectual, full of Horatian irony and completely lacking Homeric aggressivity. Stefan Zweig's drama Tersites (sic) (1907) offers a completely new tragic version, that shows the Freudian hidden side of the Homeric text. We face here a common feature of XXth century poet­ ics: the exaltation of defeat as a productive force and the consequent devalua­ tion of victory as a sterile...

The rhetorical ideas inherited from the Greeks have established the notion that skilled use of language is always indicated by eloquent expression, and that silence is either an aberration or a lack of skill. As we penetrate the silence that has surrounded one of the great civilizations of the earth, however, and look at Egyptian rhetoric, we find alternative views on what makes a skilled speaker. While the Egyptians esteemed eloquent speaking, a skill that in fact had a very high value in their society, Egyptian rules of rhetoric also clearly specify that knowing when not to speak is essential, and very respected, rhetorical knowledge. The Egyptian approach to rhetoric is thus a balance between eloquence and wise silence. Egyptian rules of speech also strongly emphasize adherence to social behaviors that support a conservative status quo. For the Egyptians, much more than for the Greeks, skilled speech should support, not question, society. The few studies of Egyptian rhetoric which have previously been done discuss some of the moral components of that rhetoric and the importance of silence. The current study looks at Egyptian attitudes toward language as both a magical and a practical element of life, and in addition this study places the rules of Egyptian rhetoric solidly within the Egyptian social system.

Reviews Scott Consigny, Gorgias: Sophist and Artist (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001). 296pp. Why the Sophists? Why Gorgias? Why now? W. K. C. Guthrie points to a rupture in the history of sophistic studies that leads to some preliminary answers: "It is true that the powerful impetus of this movement [i.e., the revival of sophistry since the 1930s] was given by the rise of totalitarian gov­ ernments in Europe and the second world war, and it was indeed disturbing to learn that the aim of the German Nazi Party, as described in its official programme, was the production of 'guardians in the highest Platonic sense'" (The Sophists, Cambridge University Press, 1971, p. 10). Among classicists, historians, and philosophers, the interest in sophistic studies that emerged out of this historical rupture was defined by a negative impulse: If Plato's ideas support immoral ideologies, then we must turn instead to the ideas of his most bitter rivals, the Sophists. Yet the revival of sophistry specifically within rhetorical studies took on a different character. Instead of being defined by a negative impulse, studies of sophistic rhetoric were defined by the positive search for affinities between ancient and modern theories of persuasion. Robert Scott and Michael Leff, for example, found precedents for epistemic rhetoric among the sophistic fragments, and John Poulakos invoked sophistic notions of propriety and the opportune moment in his universal definition of rhetoric. Scott Consigny's Gorgias: Sophist and Artist represents a new phase in studies of sophistic rhetoric. In this complex and well-written book, Consigny avoids making problematic generalizations about "the Sophists," who were, in reality, a thoroughly disparate group of traveling teachers; he does not rely excessively on Plato's dialogues as source materials for Gorgias's art of rhetoric; and he resists the neosophistic impulse to appropriate ancient doctrines for modern purposes. In his introduction, Consigny discusses prior scholarship on the Sophists and the method of historiography that informs his analysis. Here Consigny contends that the fragmentary nature of Gorgias's texts, their questionable authenticity, and the ambiguous language in which Gorgias wrote create a "hermeneutic aporia," an interpretive impasse. Some "objectivist" scholars attempt to escape this aporia by suggesting that there is a single, correct interpretation of Gorgianic rhetoric, and it is the function of historical schol­ arship to discover it. Other "rhapsodic" scholars argue that the meaning© The International Society for the History of Rhetoric, Rhetorica, Volume XX, Number 3 (Summer 2002). Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center St, Ste 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223, USA 299 300 RHETORICA Gorgias intended in his writings is now lost forever, and they use subjective interpretations of Gorgianic rhetoric to construct neosophistic theories that have modern relevance. Consigny, on the other hand, draws from Stanley Fish's notion of interpretive communities, arguing that pure truth is inacces­ sible and pure subjectivity is insufficient. Scholarly conventions established in academic discourse communities should guide our interpretations of Gor­ gianic rhetoric. While much prior scholarship identifies Gorgias as either a subjectivist or an empiricist, Consigny favors a newly emerging third school of criticism that identifies Gorgias as an antifoundationalist. Consigny begins his antifoundationalist reading of Gorgianic rhetoric with an interpretation of On Not-Being as an attack against both philosophical truth and empirical realism. In other texts (Epitaphios, Helen, and Palamedes), Gorgias articulates a more positive antifoundationalist theory of language based on the ancient notion of the contest or agon. Here language is defined by context, by the play of interaction among participants in a linguistic game that is governed by communal rules, and words derive meaning from their role in this interaction. Within such a framework, foundational truth is impossible since each context brings with it a different set of constraints, and radical subjectivity is also impossible since these very same constraints prevent chaos. Next Consigny argues that Gorgias articulates a nascent social con­ structionist view of knowledge in which established social conventions (or "tropes") condition individuals to act in communally authorized ways. Yet Gorgias is not in favor of a micro-social theory of conventions that separate communities by focusing on their foundational...

Reviews 301 tions, and its clear articulation of the antifoundationalist position, will make this book a valuable resource for scholars and students alike. Bruce McComiskey The University ofAlabama at Birmingham Bruce McComiskey, Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric, (Carbon­ dale:, Southern Illinois University Press, 2002), xiii + 156 pp. Contributing to the conversation about rereading/rewriting the his­ tory of rhetoric, Bruce McComiskey's Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric clearly summarizes the raging and wide-ranging debates regarding the use value of revisiting the Sophists; compellingly argues for a historiographical methodology, which he terms "neosophistic appropriation"; re-reads Gor­ gias on his own terms, rather than Plato's; and, finally, attempts to realize his own methodology by rethinking Gorgias's (potential) contribution to "contemporary pedagogical and political ends" (p. 1). Recapping the seminal arguments of the past several decades regarding scholarly attempts to redeem the Sophists from their Platonic condemna­ tion and to reclaim their practices and theories, McComiskey's summary will surely find an appropriate home in graduate seminars on the history of rhetoric. Working with and against Edward Schiappa's criticism of particu­ lar neosophistic research (but curiously neglecting John Poulakos's response to same), McComiskey offers "neosophistic appropriation" as a corrective to Schiappa's (via Richard Rorty) methodological taxonomy of "histori­ cal reconstruction" and "rational reconstruction." Although McComiskey agrees with Schiappa that we "must maintain a clear distinction between the goals and methods of historical scholarship that interprets ancient doc­ trines and 'neo'historical scholarship that appropriates ancient doctrines for contemporary purposes" (p. 8), he argues, in contrast, that "neosophistic appropriation" is methodologically distinct from rational reconstructive ap­ proaches insofar as "neosophistic appropriation" writers "search the past for contributions to modern theoretical problems and problematics" (p. 10). "Although," McComiskey further argues, "all neosophists engage in the critical act of appropriation, not all neosophists appropriate ancient doctrines in the same way" (p. 11). Identifying three different approaches, McComiskey ultimately values and identifies with the third. The first approach "appropriate [s] Plato's characterization...either valuing Plato's misrepresentations or disparaging them" (p. 11). The second approach "put[s] aside Plato's mis­ representations of sophistic doctrines, appropriating doctrines instead from actual sophistic texts and historical interpretations of them in order to find common threads among the 'older sophists' and contemporary composition and rhetorical theorists" (p. 11). And the third approach, although similar to the second in purpose, attempts to "understand the unique contributions 302 RHETORICA of individual sophists...to contemporary rhetorical theory and composition, (p. 11, emphasis added). Claiming that the "more specific the appropria­ tion, the stronger the resulting neosophistic rhetoric," McComiskey turns his attention to a reappropriation of the Sophist Gorgias. Part One of Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric provides a provoca­ tive rereading of Gorgias's On Non-Existence, the Encomium ofHelen, and the Defense of Palamedes, arguing that, read together, they constitute a "holis­ tic statement about communal and ethical uses of logos, a statement that runs counter to Plato's (mis)representation of it in his dialogue the Gor­ gias" (p. 12). Chapter 1, then, argues compellingly that Plato misrepresents Gorgias's theory of rhetoric as foundational, specifically as based on a foun­ dational epistemology. For example, as McComiskey points out, Gorgias, in the Palemedes, uses a form of the Greek eido to express the concept of knowl­ edge, which "implies an understanding that is derived empirically from a situation"; whereas Plato's use of episteme "implies an understanding that exists prior to any given situation in which it might be applied" (pp. 24-5). Hence, McComiskey's rereading of the specific Sophist, Gorgias, and the specific sophistic text, exemplifies a "strong," neosophistic approach. This rereading allows us to see how Plato's misappropriation of Gorgias serves to make "Gorgias's rhetorical method based on kairos, or the right moment, seem absurd" (p. 12). McComiskey's similar approaches to the Helen and the Palemedes "provide the epistemological, rather than foundational, grounding for a nascent theory of rhetoric, complete with its negative and positive uses" (p. 12). That is, we, appropriating Gorgias, do not need an epistemological foundation to practice rhetoric. We can read/reappropriate, he argues, the Helen to see where rhetoric...

Reviews 303 in achieving his neosophistic goal to put ancient, sophistic rhetoric on the road to journey toward contemporary concerns (p. 58). Michelle Baliff The University of Georgia Pierre Chiron (ed.), Pseudo-Aristote, Rhétorique à Alexandre (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, Collection des Universités de France, 2002) CLXXIV + 269pp. The Rhetorica ad Alexandrian (hereafter Rhet. Ah) is one of the two major classical Greek rhetorical handbooks, the other being Aristotle's Rhetoric, and is commonly viewed as the poorer of the two works. It takes its name from the dedication at the start of the work: "Aristotle to Alexander [the Great]: Greetings". Scholars and students who have had to use Loeb edition of the Rhet. Ah, edited by H. Rackham (Aristotle Vol. XVI), published in 1937 (reprinted in 1987), or the Teubner edition of M. Fuhrmann, published in 1966, will welcome with great delight Chiron's edition. Chiron's long introduction and copious, detailed notes, in addition to text and translation, make this book a valuable scholarly resource (though anyone without a reading knowledge of French will still have to use the Loeb of course). The very long Introduction (pp. VII-CLXXIV) is practically a book in itself. Chiron covers in great detail the structure of the Rhet. Al. (pp. VII-XL), its date and authorship (pp. XL-CVII), its relationship to ancient rhetoric and the influence of ancient rhetoricians on it (pp. CVII-CLV), the manuscript tradition (CLV-CLXVII), and finally the various manuscripts of the work and editions (pp. CLXIX-CLXXIV). The date and authorship of the Rhet. Al. are controversial issues; seldom has a dedication caused so much trouble. Chiron assigns the Rhet. Al. to the period 340-300, and for stylistic and philosophical reasons rejects, rightly, the attribution to Aristotle. Chiron seems content to follow Quintilian (3.4.9), who ascribes the authorship to another of Alexander's teachers, Anaximenes of Lampsacus. This is the generally accepted author of the Rhet. Al., but even so Chiron urges caution, given that the text may well have been altered from its original composition, and is even a composite. This conclusion, not novel to be sure, comes from a very detailed analysis of the "source tradition" on the Rhet. Al. and a comparison of it with Aristotle's Rhetoric. So too does Chiron's view on the influence of the Rhetoric on the Rhet. Al. The text and translation are on pp. 2-116; Chiron follows for the most part the divisions of Bekker's text of 1881, and the apparatus criticus contains the variant readings pertinent to Chiron's text. The Rhet. Al. is not an easy work to read; it is full of technical Greek terms, descriptions of the various functions of speeches, types of examples to give, and so on. Chiron's transla­ tion is good, faithfully reproducing the Greek while not causing confusion 304 RHETORICA by being overly literal. He also inserts sub-titles to what the Rhet. Al. deals with next, which aid the reader immensely There are 761 notes at the bottom of each page of translation and in almost one hundred pages (pp. 117-201) of "Notes Complémentaires". These contain an abundance of cross-references to other ancient sources (especially identifying relevant passages in other rhetorical works which are very helpful), while references to modern liter­ ature (mostly French at that) are kept to a minimum. This is hardly the place for a detailed critique, so let me give just one example of a topic in which I have my own scholarly interest: Rhet. Al. 29 on the exordium. Chiron gives us almost fifty detailed notes, though curiously little mention is made of the Demosthenic exordia or the Budé text of the exordia edited by R. Clavaud (1974). The edition also has an index of proper names (pp. 203-205), a lengthy index of Greek terms (pp. 207-258), and a concordance of previous major texts with differing divisions: Erasmus (1539 and 1550), Bekker in the Berlin Aristotle (1881), Hammer's revision of Spengel in the Teubner (1894), and Fuhrmann's recent Teubner (pp. 259-268). Chiron cites the works of other scholars on the Rhet. Al., works that are mostly...

George Mackenzie’s “What Eloquence is fit for the Bar” (1672), perhaps unique in the early modern literature of Scots law, provides access to the state of judicial rhetoric in post-Restoration Scotland. This essay summarizes the contents of the essay and briefly relates it to his career and other writings. It shows that Mackenzie conceived of eloquence as a site of struggle for personal, professional, and international status.

In De inventione Cicero defends rhetoric by presenting a myth of the progress of the human species from asocial brutes to rational and social creatures. However, as Cicero explains the corruption of rhetoric by cunning individuals moved only by private interest, his myth reveals the present situation to be every bit as divided and contentious as the mythic state of nature. His myth discovers that rhetoric cannot escape corruption. Stasis theory, however, offers the possibility of an ethical rhetorical practice. By formalizing the agonistic clash of interests as a method of invention, stasis theory transforms a source of social instability into a resource for on-going social reinvention.

The following thirteen theses expose the anthropology of the homo rhetoricus and attempt to outline a new design of philosophy for the 21st century: I. Man is a rhetorical being. - II. The general power of speech exists as a fundamental and universal phenomenon in human life world and is the necessary foundation of all artificial rhetoric. - III. Man as homo rhetoricus is the main object of a fundamental, rhetorical anthropology. - IV. The categories of classical rhetoric have a heuristic function with respect to the anthropology of the homo rhetoricus. - V. The five basic faculties of invention, disposition, elocution, memory and performance form a heuristic pattern for a fundamental, rhetorical conception of spirit (Geist). - VI. The (post-)modern existence of homo rhetoricus is dominated by the figure of irony. - VII. Ironic alterity also designates the culture in the beginning of the 21st century. - VIII. The danger of an unlimited postmodern irony consists of an infinite ironical regress. - IX. Philosophy in general is also a creation of the homo rhetoricus. - X. The rhetorical metacritique of philosophy is directed against classical metaphysics as well as against its antagonist - postmodern deconstruction. - XI. Both—the supposed evidence of dogmatic metaphysics and the neosophistical evidence of non-evidence are contingent. - XII. The rhetorical enlightenment does not aim at a pure postmodern deconstruction of philosophy but consequently reaches forward to its fundamental, rhetorical reconstruction. - XIII. A rhetorically well-informed and enlightened metaphysics represents a new and positive mode of existence of the homo rhetoricus.

During the last thirty years, a growing scholarly attention has been paid to Spanish rhetoric. This paper gives an overview of the main studies on the subject and, with detailed bibliographical reference, draws a picture which presents the main features of Spanish rhetorical theory in the sixteenth century. Thus, references are made to the Council of Trent and its encouraging of sacred rhetoric, to the weight of Ciceronianism among Spanish rhetoricians -albeit some exceptions-, to the rigid detachment between rhetoric and poetics, to the relatively high production on the subject and to the limited influence of rhetoric and classical learning in the teaching of the time.

The aim of this paper is to explore the Montaigne’s use of enargeia in three essays: “Des Cannibales,” “Des Coches” and “De Texercitation.” During the French Renaissance, enargeia remained a central means by which writers transferred living experience into language. The elaborate visual possibilities offered by enargeia, encapsulated in the writings of Quintilian, were popularised in France through the diffusion of Erasmus’s rhetorical handbook De diuplici copia verborum ac reruin. However, the sense of graphic presence and truth conveyed by Erasmus’s handbook came to be challenged through the increasing awareness of the disparity between living experience and verbal language. In his Essais, Montaigne’s awareness of the deceptive properties of visual representation allows him to explore, often playfully, the pleasures and instabilities of linguistic expression, and to gain a heightened insight into the perceptual inadequacy which characterize much human behaviour. In this way, Montaigne poignantly demonstrates the instructive nature of rhetorical theories on which he draws to illustrate his understanding of human experience.

This essay examines Montaigne’s admiration for ancient Sparta from a rhetorical and an ideological standpoint. The praise of Sparta in the Essais takes the form of a paradoxical encomium which allows Montaigne to challenge the received opinions of his time and to define his own values against the prevailing discourse of humanism. In the process the Essais also confront the problem of comparing the past to the present and of reconciling ancient and modern institutions. In this way the praise of Sparta emerges not only as a rhetorical exercise but also as an essay of self-definition and an inquiry into historical relativism.

In The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare draws on several aspects of the classical rhetorical tradition so widely studied in Renaissance England. The main characters have distinctive rhetorical styles: Launcelot and the would-be witty courtiers are rhetorically characterized by vices of language, Shylock by rhetorical questions and figures of repetition, and Portia by figures of thought. A close examination of the characters’ rhetorical traits reveals significant similarities between Shylock’s language and that of Declamation 95 in Sylvain’s The Orator, and between Portia’s forensic strategy and the classical theory of status. Written in the mid-1590s, The Merchant of Venice illustrates the very uses and abuses of rhetoric described in Henry Peacham’s revised version of The Garden of Eloquence (1593).

Reviews 101 Brian Vickers ed., English Renaissance Literary Criticism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999) xvi + 655pp. Brian Vickers's anthology collects modern spelling selections from the most important critical statements in English between Sir Thomas Elyot's Boke named the Governonr (1531) and Thomas Hobbes's 1675 preface to his translation of Homer's Odyssey. Dryden's critical prose, much of it published before 1675, is justifiably treated as beyond the scope of a renaissance anthology. The dominant figures are Sir Thomas Wilson, George Puttenham, Sir Philip Sidney, whose Defence ofPoetry is included complete, John Hoskyns, Thomas Heywood and Ben Jonson. In comparison to the two volumes of G. Gregory Smith's Elizabethan Critical Essays (1904), which it replaces, Vickers's book includes more poetry (notably Baldwin's "Collingbourne", from the Mirrorfor Magistrates, Spenser's "October" from The Shepheardes Calendar, a scene attributed to Shakespeare in which Lodowick and Edward III discuss the writing of love poetry, and John Ford's "Elegy on John Fletcher", here printed for the first time) and more rhetoric. Vickers gives less space to Gabriel Harvey and Thomas Campion and omits Thomas Lodge, William Webbe and Thomas Nashe. Vickers's introduction insists that since literature was a form of rhetoric, English renaissance literary criticism was largely prescriptive, aiming to provide the kind of help which would be useful to writers (pp. 1-6). This enables him to put rhetoric at the centre of renaissance literary criticism and justifies his extensive selections from Wilson, Puttenham and Hoskyns (the latter two particularly illustrating the figures of speech). Vickers's excellent notes show the reliance of these English rhetorics on classical sources and also on Susenbrotus's continental Latin compilation Epitome troporum ac schematorum. He might have pointed out that both Wilson's rhetoric and Angel Day's account of the figures (15 editions between them) offer a wider diffusion for the "Englished Susenbrotus" than Puttenham, whose Arte of English Poesie, was printed only once. Vickers quotes Jonson and Wilson on the importance of ethics for lit­ erature (pp. 12-13) which he links with the fashion for epideictic (excellently illustrated among the texts he includes). Perhaps Vickers ought to acknowl­ edge that the ethical teaching of the Arcadia, whose heroes have faults which run from deceit to intended rape (and against whose impulses humanist ethical education is strikingly ineffectual), is more problematic than can be summed up as a concern to embody fully-realized images of virtue and vice (p. 13). Vickers notes the way rhetoricians took examples of the figures and tropes from Arcadia, giving examples from Puttenham and Hoskyns. He had no space for Abraham Fraunce or for Fulke Greville's ethical reading ofArca­ dia. Given his rhetorical focus, Vickers might have said more about copia and amplification, or perhaps have found space for some of the English examples of dialectical analyses of texts. Part of William Temple's analysis of Sidney's Defence would have suited his selection well. On the other hand the argu­ ment that Erasmus's encomium on marriage is the source for Shakespeare's first seventeen sonnets (pp. 32-39), which justifies the inclusion of Wilson's 102 RHETORICA translation of that declamation (pp. 93-115) is not wholly convincing. The bibliography of secondary literature (pp. 627-28) needs to be extended in a revised edition. But such cavilling is hardly to the point. Vickers's introduction is lucid, wide-ranging and masterly. His notes are superb and properly acknowledge the contributions of earlier scholars. His selection of texts is enterprising, including much that is new, as well as a judicious choice of the best that is well-known. He provides a helpful glossary and user-friendly indexes to the material. This book is as useful as Russell and Winterbottom's famous selection of Ancient Literary Criticism and when it appears in paperback teachers and students of renaissance literature will find it indispensable. Peter Mack University of Warwick Manuel López Muñoz, Fray Luis de Granada y la retórica (Almería: Universidad de Almería, 2000) 222pp. Este libro es sin duda una rigurosa y documentada monografía so­ bre la aportación de Fray Luis de Granada a la...

Reviews Carla Castelli, Meter sophiston: la tragedia nei trattati greci di retorica (Milano, Led 2000) II Filarete: Pubblicazioni della Facoltá di Lettere e Filosofía dell'Universitá degli studi di Milano, CLXXVIII, pp. 188. Grazie ad un accurato esame delle opere tecniche dei retori antichi, da Anassimene ai corpora scoliastici bizantini, Carla Castelli mette in rilievo in codesto volume la permanenza nella prassi didattica delle scuole di retorica di stilemi e strutture logico-argomentative della tragedia. Nel primo capitolo, "Retorica e tragedia: una difficile integrazione", Fautrice indaga i motivi per i quali un genere poético come la tragedia è ritenuto utile all'oratoria. Il punto di incontro tra tragedia e retorica è il pubblico destinatario dei discorsi politici o giudiziarii. L'oratore deve commisurare sia il suo atteggiamento esteriore sia la struttura interna del discorso alie esigenze communicative. Equesto un insegnamento che i retori antichi hanno lasciato ai moderni; la strumentazione della parola a finí persuasivi avviene anche attraverso una attenta scelta della materia didattica. La selezione delle tragédie operata dai retori greci consegno ai posteri di tutti i tempi ed alia loro imitazione un patrimonio poético che diversamente non avrebbe avuto la giusta rilevanza metodológica. La "Nuova Retorica" con la sua capacité di manipolare la parola ai fini della comunicazione, del dibattito politico e giudiziario si serve ancora oggi degli insegnamenti e della teoria técnica degli antichi retori per dettare le proprie leggi: una declamazione pacata vicina alia recitazione, uno stile solenne ma di una moderata teatralitá, un lessico naturale ma capace di impressionare ed emozionare il destinatario. Nei capitoli secondo, terzo e quarto Fautrice esamina con attenzione e precisa documentazione i giudizi critici sui tre tragici, Futilizzazione técnica e le citazioni delle tragédie nei trattati. Nelle loro valutazioni sulF utilité della tragedia per Foratoria i retori mostrano una preferenza per Euripide, nel quale individuano "il superamento dell'alteritá tra espressione poética ed espressione prosastica teorizzata da Aristotele" (p.61). Questi (Retorica 1404b25) aveva individuato nel poética colui che per primo aveva orientato il suo linguaggio verso il quotidiano . Ed è proprio questa caratteristica a rendere prezioso Finsegnamento di Euripide per l'oratore, il quale deve possedere un linguaggio chiaro ed immediatamente comprensibile. Ció non significa una caduta dell'eloquio nella rozzezza espressiva, al contrario esso deve essere il frutto di una notevole padronanza lessicale e di una significativa capacité espressiva. Euripide© The International Society for the History of Rhetoric, Rhetorica, Volume XX, Number 1 (Winter 2002). Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center St, Ste 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223, USA 97 98 RHETORICA è vero maestro di retorica non solo per il linguaggio ma anche per la capacité dialettica ed argomentativa, per l'espressione dei caratteri e dei sentimenti. Riguardo alie esemplificazioni tratte dai tragici e occorrenti nei trattati di retorica, all'occasionalité dell'uso técnico di Eschilo risponde un buon impiego di citazioni sofoclee ed una quantité notevole di esempi tratti da Euripide. Gli esempi attinti dalle opere sofoclee, in particolare YElettra, ricorrono in tutte le fasi della strutturazione del discorso: inventio, dispositio ed elocutio. Le tragédie euripidee si rivelano invece particolarmente utili non solo nella fase di strutturazione del discorso ma anche in quella di elaborazione dell'argomentazione e nelLepilogo. I trattati di retorica portano un contributo limitato alia nostra conoscenza delle tragédie greche. Le scuole di retorica tendevano ad operare scelte fondate generalmente su opere giunteci integre, frutto di una selezione in qualche modo giá effettuata. L'autrice dimostra anche che i retori si servivano spesso di citazioni di seconda mano delle tragédie o si affidavano alia memoria. Per quanto riguarda Euripide poi una notevole influenza sulla quantité di citazioni di brevi versi dovette esercitare il précoce patrimonio proverbiale gnómico. II volume è completato dai "Riferimenti bibliografici,,/ i quali offrono non solo le indicazioni delle edizioni canoniche dei singoli autori citati ma anche una ampia e ragionata selezione della principale bibliografía sull'argomento; da un "Indice dei passi retorici citati"; da uno delle citazioni dei tragici e da un altro selettivo delle "Locuzioni tecniche". L'indagine della Castelli si segnala per la...

98 RHETORICA è vero maestro di retorica non solo per il linguaggio ma anche per la capacité dialettica ed argomentativa, per l'espressione dei caratteri e dei sentimenti. Riguardo alie esemplificazioni tratte dai tragici e occorrenti nei trattati di retorica, all'occasionalité dell'uso técnico di Eschilo risponde un buon impiego di citazioni sofoclee ed una quantité notevole di esempi tratti da Euripide. Gli esempi attinti dalle opere sofoclee, in particolare YElettra, ricorrono in tutte le fasi della strutturazione del discorso: inventio, dispositio ed elocutio. Le tragédie euripidee si rivelano invece particolarmente utili non solo nella fase di strutturazione del discorso ma anche in quella di elaborazione dell'argomentazione e nelLepilogo. I trattati di retorica portano un contributo limitato alia nostra conoscenza delle tragédie greche. Le scuole di retorica tendevano ad operare scelte fondate generalmente su opere giunteci integre, frutto di una selezione in qualche modo giá effettuata. L'autrice dimostra anche che i retori si servivano spesso di citazioni di seconda mano delle tragédie o si affidavano alia memoria. Per quanto riguarda Euripide poi una notevole influenza sulla quantité di citazioni di brevi versi dovette esercitare il précoce patrimonio proverbiale gnómico. II volume è completato dai "Riferimenti bibliografici,,/ i quali offrono non solo le indicazioni delle edizioni canoniche dei singoli autori citati ma anche una ampia e ragionata selezione della principale bibliografía sull'argomento; da un "Indice dei passi retorici citati"; da uno delle citazioni dei tragici e da un altro selettivo delle "Locuzioni tecniche". L'indagine della Castelli si segnala per la prospettiva nuova nella quale vengono esaminati i rapporti tra retorica e tragedia. Viene messo in evidenza il ruolo dei poeti tragici nella prassi didattica e la loro presenza effettiva nei trattati di retorica.. L'opera, al di lé del contributo scientifico che offre, suscita grande interesse anche nel lettore non técnico; da essa egli trae il giusto apprezzamento dell'apporto della poesía alla realtà della comunicazione. Non vuoto esercizio letterario ma strumento efficace di persuasione, la retorica trova i suoi strumenti persuasivi anche attraverso la poesía. Una buona segnalazione per i maestri della comunicazione del terzo Millennio. Giuseppina Matino Università Federico II, Napoli Richard Rex ed., A Reformation Rhetoric: Thomas Swynnerton's The Tropes and Figures of Scripture Edited by Richard Rex; Renaissance Texts from Manuscript, no. 1 (RTM Publications, PO Box 221, Cam­ bridge CB1 2XD, 1999) ix + 190 pp. It is a pleasure to welcome this new series, "Renaissance Texts from Manuscript , the brainchild of Jeremy Maule. He conceived it, brought Reviews 99 together a lively team of younger scholars, each with a text to edit, and spent much time discussing textual and other problems. His absurdlv premature death robbed us of one of the leading manuscript scholars of his generation, and it is a small consolation to have this series outlive him, produced to the high standards of palaeographical accuracy and typographical elegance that he would have striven for. It is a special pleasure to welcome the first volume, an edition of a hith­ erto unknown English rhetoric text. Such discoveries do not occur more than once or twice a century. This text, which exists in one manuscript only in the Public Record Office, Rew, was virtuallv unknown until Joseph Block cited it in an essay on "Thomas CromwelEs Patronage of Preaching" (Six­ teenth Century Journal, 8, 1977: 37-50). It is now edited by Richard Rex, of Queens' College Cambridge, a Reformation historian who has already pub­ lished some important work (The Theologx/ of John Fisher (Cambridge, 1991); Henry VIII and the English Reformation (Basingstoke, 1993); and several sub­ stantial essays). Dr. Rex is following in the footsteps of other historians who have made substantial contributions to the history of rhetoric, such as John O. Ward, John Monfasani, and Quentin Skinner. He provides a remarkably thorough and well-documented introduction, which is as long as the text itself, and in some respects more stimulating. He summarizes the little that is known about Swvnnerton, who got into trouble with the ecclesiastical authorities on several occasions, wrote a number of other works which have disappeared, and died in 1554. One of the most striking facts about...

In the Rhetoric, Aristotle identifies “bringing-before-the-eyes” as a capacity that is crucial to metaphors because it allows rhetors to actualize actions immediately before audiences, leading those audiences to insight. Because this description suggests that metaphors activate cognitive mechanisms on the part of their listeners, “bringing-before-the-eyes” has been considered a key element within Aristotle’s theory and the nexus of that approach to metaphor and contemporary conceptual ones. Yet, no study has probed these claims to any degree. Accordingly, this paper examines Aristotle’s references to “bringing-before-the-eyes” as well as to two associated concerns, energeia / actualization and sense perception. This examination demonstrates that “bringing-before-the-eyes” is not explicitly cognitive but instead a perceptive capacity. In this, Aristotle’s theory anticipates recent approaches to language because it allows the audience to participate in the persuasive process at a level that extends its role beyond the traditional Aristotelian understanding that it is the target of emotional appeals.

422 RHETORICA auf die âufiere Einwirkung auf die Menschen im Sinne der Vorfeldaufgabe beschrânkt. In diesem Kontext gelingt der Verfasserin eine für die allgemeine "Geschichte des Willensbegriffes" (p. 160) tatsâchlich wichtige und intéressante Entdeckung. Bei der Beschreibung des inneren Wirkens Gottes setzt Augustinus das delectare mit dem movere nahezu gleich. Aus dem Dreierschema der officia oratoris wird so ein Zweierschema, das die affektiv-voluntative Seite des Menschen im Kontrast zum kognitiven Bereich starker betont. So wird am Ende der nicht unerhebliche Anteil rhetorischer Terminologie bei der Herausbildung des Willensbegriffes bei Augustinus sichtbar. Um so mehr verwundert es, dass der Verfasserin bei ihrer Interpreta­ tion von De doctrina Christiana die ebenfalls stark akzentuierte Bedeutung des movere bzw.flectere und damit die affektiv-voluntative Seite der christlichen Rhetorik des Augustinus entgeht: Im Unterschied zu Cicero stehe für Au­ gustinus auch hier "das docere im Vordergrund" (p. 38). Die Stellen, in denen Augustinus das commovere des stilus grandis (De doct. chr. IV.27) herausstellt oder mit ausdrücklichem Verweis auf Cicero die entscheidende Bedeutung des flectere für den Redesieg (victoria) betont (De doct. chr. IV.28), werden dabei anscheinend überlesen. Kann es sein, daB die Verfasserin unter dem Eindruck der vermeintlichen "Genialitât" (p. 159) des Kirchenvaters den gravierenden Anteil der klassischen antiken Rhetorik an seiner Theoriebildung zu gering einschàtzt? Dieser Kritikpunkt gefâhrdet aber nicht den positiven Gesamteindruck der ansonsten akribischen Studie, die den Variantenreichtum der Prâsenz des rhetorischen Schemas der officia oratoris im Gesamtwerk des Augustinus eindrucksvoll erschliefit und so ein unverzichtbares Hilfsmittel für die zukünftige Augustinusforschung darstellt. Peter L. Oesterreich Augustana-Hochschule, Neuendettelsau Jean-Yves Tilliette, Des mots a la parole: Une lecture de la "Poetria Nova" de Geoffroy de Vinsauf (Geneva: Droz, 2000) 199 pp. The extraordinary popularity of Geoffrey de Vinsauf's early thirteenthcentury Poetria Nova was due in no small part to its being at once de arte and ex arte, a textbook on how to write poetry that is itself a poem. Most of the Poetria Nova's modern readers and many of its medieval ones nonetheless have emphasized its doctrine over its poetry, thereby missing, according to Jean-Yves Tilliette, much of what was new about Geoffrey's "New Poetics". Only by approaching the poem as a homogeneous and coherent work of literature rather than as a collection of conventional rules that have been set in verse, Tilliette argues, can we properly understand its unique status Reviews 423 as both manifesto and exemplar of a "new poetry" that replaces the early medieval "aesthetic of iaiitatio" with verbal virtuosity, explicitly recognises the historical break with the classical tradition caused by the Incarnation of Christ, and conceives of the poet as creator rather than artisan (pp. 9-12). Before he supports this thesis with a close reading or "intrinsic analysis" of the Poetria Nova, Tilliette devotes three chapters of "extrinsic analysis" to the chief influences that define the "cultural environment" of Geoffrey's poem: classical rhetoric as it was taught in the late Middle Ages, Horace's Ars poética or the "Old Poetics", and the Latin allegories of cosmic order and knowledge by Bernardus Silvestris and other writers of the twelfthcentury "School of Chartres". With rhetoric Geoffrey's new poetry shares the function of argument and (moral) persuasion; from the Ars poética, as interpreted by medieval commentators, derives the key insight of the new poetics, that poetry is a specific mode of apprehending and appropriating the world, whose "proper" sense is (paradoxically) the "figurative" sense; and from the platonizing poets comes the conception of the poet as demiurge who reveals the hidden archetypes by recreating in his poetry other possible worlds beyond the sensible world. The remaining five chapters demonstrate how the text of the Poetria Nova simultaneously expounds and embodies what Geoffrey conceives to be the highest goal of poetry: to use figurative language to make "possi­ ble worlds" visible and thus, in effect, to "reinvent the universe" (p. 68). Each of these chapters analyzes a different section of the Poetria Nova, using questions raised by that section's divergence from traditional pedagogy to highlight Geoffrey's originality. Thus, chapter 4 attempts to explain...

Reviews Giulio Guidorizzi e Simone Beta, La metáfora, testi greci e latini tradotti e commentât! (Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2000), 243 pp. Un nuovo volume sulla metafora: non un nuovo saggio, né una nuova prospettiva ermeneutica di una fra le più complesse risorse dell'attività co­ municativa, paradigmática della duttilità del linguaggio. Più semplicemente, un'utile ed esauriente raccolta di testi antichi sulla metafora, per la precisione 54, greci e latini (pp. 37-123), accompagnati da un commento di pari estensione (pp. 125-220) e incorniciati da una breve introduzione (pp. 11-36) e da una bibliografía selettiva (pp. 221-230), cui segue un indice completo dei passi citati (pp. 231-242). L'introduzione puô essere valutata come una sorta di guida alla lettura e all· inquadramento dei testi, al di là del commento che li accompagna singolarmente . In essa vengono fissati alcuni punti chiave: 1) "inizio aristotélico" della riflessione sulla metafora; 2) "apparente paradosso" del ricchissimo impiego della metafora nella poesía greca prima della sua teorizzazione: il termine appare per la prima volta nell'Evagora di Isocrate; 3) tratti fondamentali del consolidamento della teoría retorica della metafora a partiré da Aristotele; 4) teorie moderne della metafora e messa in discussione della "marmórea solidità della retorica 'cosiddetta' classica"; 5) approfondimento critico della teoría aristotélica e delle sue contraddizioni. Lo scopo prevalentemente didattico del volume (Guidorizzi ricorda in premessa che il libro nasce come "sviluppo e completamento di un lavoro pubblicato in forma di dispensa universitaria") ne consentirá un'adeguata utilizzazione per chi vorrà verificare un'analisi diacronica della presenza della teoría della metafora nella trattatistica antica ed attrezzarsi, cosi, per una proficua valutazione delle continuità e discontinuità con le teorie moderne. Per quanto riguarda i testi, il criterio della loro scelta—con disposizione in sequenza cronológica—è consistito evidentemente nella presenza in essi del termine técnico o di una locuzione che lo designi. Da questo punto di vista, sembra costituire un'eccezione T9, Aristóteles, Rhetorica III 2.1 (1404 b 1-12)—p. 46, commento a p. 139 s.—, che riguarda in generale la chiarezza della lexis. Il terzo dei tre testi che aprono la raccolta, prima della consistente sequenza di testi aristotelici (ben 21 su 54), è unpasso dell'orazione di Eschine Contro Timarco 166 s. (p. 40, commento a p. 128 s.). Lo precedono due testi di Isocrate. Gli autori sottolineano che "il passo riportato, benché privo di© The International Society for the History of Rhetoric, Rhetorica, Volume XIX, Number 4 (Autumn 2001). Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center St, Ste 303, Berkeley' CA 94704-1223, USA 419 420 RHETORICA qualsiasi portata teórica, é utile per dimostrare come la parola metaphorá fosse giá sufficientemente diffusa anche al di fuori di un ámbito técnico, al punto di poter essere usata perfino davanti al vasto pubblico di una giuria popolare". La giusta osservazione potrebbe riguardare anche altri elementi della terminología lingüistica, che verranno poi fissati in modo univoco nella trattatistica retorica o grammaticale: si pensi, ad esempio a rhema, verbo, ma anche locuzione, espressione, enunciato, come é spesso testimoniato proprio nell' oratoria attica. In ogni caso, nel passo di Eschine la valenza del termine técnico é in realtá attenuata dalla presenza del suo "determinante" costitutivo, cioé onomato-n\ la metaphorá é sempre spostamento, trasferimento di nomi, anche se l'effetto della collocation, la risorsa lingüistica che permette di separare un sintagma forte dal punto di vista semántico e sintattico, anticipando uno dei due termini del nesso e contando sulla presunzione di reperibilitá dell'altro a breve distanza testuale, autorizza spesso a rendere autosufficiente proprio uno dei due termini, con conseguente eliminazione dell'altro. Ebbene, nel passo eschineo, l'osservazione dell'oratore concerne proprio la possibilitá che Demostene rovesci sul giovane Alessandro, figlio di Filippo, delle ben elabórate "metafore di nomi", rendendo ridicola la cittá di Atene. Si puó immaginare, dunque, che, proprio nel periodo in cui il termine si fissava técnicamente, il sintagma completo lo rendesse piú "popolare" e largamente comprensibile, potremmo dire paradossalmente, proprio per la visibilitá della sua valenza metaf...

424 RHETORICA Tilliette's principal aim may be to (re)claim the Poetria Nova as literature and for literary studies, but his book will nonetheless interest historians of rhetoric. Not only does he show how Geoffrey's conception of poetry was fundamentally rhetorical, but he also discovers specific uses of classical rhetorical concepts in some of the passages he considers most central to Geoffrey's poetic project. For example, he maintains that the two central techniques of amplificatio (apostrophe and prosopopeia) are valued above the three techniques that precede and the three that follow them because, through their use of dialogue, they serve to move rather than to instruct and delight the hearer (p. 97). Still more interesting is Tilliette's detailed argument that the first of the two poems illustrating easy ornament is structured on the model of a lawyer's speech, which serves to underscore its debt to Anselm's legalistic theology of the Incarnation (pp. 139-52). Informed by the best contemporary scholarship, rich in critical insight, and provocative in its thesis, this is a book from which all students of the Poetria Nova can profit. Martin Camargo University ofMissouri Claudine Jomphe, Les théories de la dispositio et le Grand Oeuvre de Ron­ sard (Paris: H. Champion, 2000) Études et essais sur la Renaissance, 24. 416 pp. L'étude de Claudine Jomphe est une gageure. Son ambition est d'ana­ lyser, à l'aide des instruments offerts par la rhétorique et la poétique, un texte laissé inachevé par Pierre de Ronsard, prince des poètes à l'époque de la Renaissance. On sait qu'à la mort du roi Charles ix (1574) pour lequel il avait une réelle affection, Ronsard a abandonné son projet d'écrire une épopée nationale digne à la fois de la France et de sa propre stature. Projet caressé dès le début de sa carrière et encouragé par ses amis poètes et poéticiens. Dans le manifeste de la Pléiade, Joachim du Bellay incite les écrivains à "employer cette grande éloquence" pour "bâtir le corps entier d'une belle histoire" en dépouillant ce qui nous reste des "vieilles chroniques françaises" (Défense et illustration, 1549, ii, 5). Jacques Peletier du Mans, de son côté, commence son chapitre sur l'épopée en affirmant que "l'Oeuvre Héroïque est celui qui donne le prix, et le vrai titre de Poète" (Art Poétique, 1555, ii, 8). Avec sa ténacité coutumière, Ronsard a tenté de mener à bien une entreprise d'une importance capitale pour l'émancipation de la langue et de la civilisation françaises; fidèle au principe fondamental des "nouveaux poètes , il a construit son Grand Oeuvre en imitant les modèles classiques, ainsi Homère, les Argonautiques d'Apollonios de Rhodes (3e s. avant J.C .) et bien sûr 1 Enéide. Poète érudit, il connaissait également les épopées Reviews 425 de 1 Antiquité tardive ainsi que celles de la Renaissance italienne, en latin comme en volgare. Il estimait que YOrlando Furioso de l'Arioste est un "mon­ stre aux belles parties , c est-à-dire un texte dont certains "membres" ne manquent pas de beauté, mais dont le "corps" dans son ensemble est dif­ forme (Épître en tête de la Franciade, 1572). Malgré son intention déclarée à créer une oeuvre aux proportions har­ monieuses, destinée à devenir "classique" à son tour, Ronsard n'a pas réussi à achever 1 épopée de ses rêves. Les manuels d'histoire littéraire sont en général sévères à l'égard de la Franciade: ils la traitent d' "épopée manquée" et soulignent que les tentatives réitérées de l'auteur se soldent par un "échec complet". Dans son étude à la fois solide et élégante, Claudine Jomphe analyse longuement chacun des quatre chants de la Franciade et essaie de mettre en évidence les problèmes de construction auxquels le poète se voyait confronté. Elle nous montre ainsi un Ronsard qui reste tenté par son passé: au coeur du chant épique se dessine un chansonnier d'amour...

Although Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623–1673), did not belong to the scientific community which after 1660 formed itself around the Royal Society, several of the philosophical issues discussed there are reflected in her writings. Lengthy reflections on language and style which run through her philosophical works provide evidence that the linguistic and rhetorical debates of the early Royal Society also left their mark. The isolation which Cavendish faced as a woman writer obliged her to discuss problems of terminology and style even more intensively, thereby adhering to the rhetorical principle of perspicuity which Thomas Sprat demanded in his proposal for a scientific plain style. The influence of the New Science on Cavendish’s work becomes obvious when her later writings are compared to her earlier ones where traces of a courtly and more elitist understanding of style can still be found. In this paper the development of Cavendish’s stylistic attitudes is traced in several of her works, including her Utopian narrative The Blazing World (1666).

On enigma as a rhetorical figure: a brief history in the rhetoricians, encyclopedists, and patristic commentators from Aristotle to Dante’s time, with a rhetorical analysis of the figure. Special attention is given to Augustine in the De trinitate XV on St. Paul’s well-known “in aenigmate” (I Cor. 13:12). Some implications of Augustine’s linking of the figurative and the figural (typological, historical) are considered, with a re-examination of Auerbach’s “Figura” on this question. The importance for our own reading of rhetoric in relation to history and poetry is stressed.

Reviews Thomas A. Szlezak, Reading Plato, trans. Graham Zanker (New York: Routledge, 1999), xii + 137 pp. This short book will be interesting to all readers of Plato and all those who have pondered the relationship of oral and written discourse. It consists of twenty-seven short sections (2-6 pages each) the totality of which makes the following argument: Plato's philosophy can best be understood when read in the light of his critique of writing in the Phaedrus. According to Szlezak, nineteenth and twentieth-century readers have misunderstood and misinterpreted Plato's dialogues. This is so, he explains, because they have paid insufficient attention to Plato's critical comments on writing, because they have tended "to align the great thinkers of the past with the attitudes of [their] own times" (p. Ill), and because thy have confused Plato's esotericism, which is directed to a cause, with the notion of secrecy, which is directed to power (p. 115). Szlezak observes that starting with Schleiermacher "the modern devo­ tees of the god Theuth" (p. 41) have missed the intent of Plato's critique of writing. Consequently, they have supplemented the text of the Phaedrus in in­ admissible ways. Their graphocentric orientation and anachronistic readings have kept them from seeing Plato's repeated point that written philosophy itself can only go so far; to go further, it needs support, the kind that only the dialectician's oral logos can provide. Szlezak applies Plato's critique of writing to most Platonic dialogues, and shows that most of the recent interpretations have little, if any, merit. This is so, he argues, because the internal evidence of several dialogues points not to what is written but to what remains to be spoken about the texts at hand. Rather than read each dialogue separately, Szlezak reads across several dialogues, and identifies seven structural features they all share: 1) they typically depict conversations, with only occasional monologues within the conversational framework; 2) the conversations are place- and time-bound, happen between true-to-life participants most of whom are historically verifi­ able; 3) they all have a discussion leader, generally Socrates; 4) the discussion leader converses with one partner at a time, and in some cases he replaces the real partner with an imaginary one; 5) the discussion leader answers all objections, introduces all elements helpful to the conversation, refutes all other participants but is never himself refuted; 6) the conversation is raised to a higher level in the course of warding off an attack; and 7) none of the© The International Society for the History of Rhetoric, Rhetorica, Volume XIX, Number 3 (Summer 2001). Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center St, Ste 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223, USA 341 342 RHETORICA dialogues comes to a definite conclusion, they all point to the need for further investigation and reflection, and they all have one or more "deliberate gaps" (pp. 18-19; 103-108). Szlezak does not argue for the general superiority of oral discourse over its written counterpart. Rather, he shows that oral discourse has a higher status but only for those capable of playing the role of a philosopher, more specifically a dialectician in the Platonic tradition. To play such a role requires that one identify significant topics for discussion (it is simply not the case that any one topic is as good as any other), expedite the discussion through poignant questions, refute objections, and defend doctrines committed to writing. Effectively, a Platonic dialectician possesses something of higher value (ta timiotera) than his philosophical writings (p. 49). This something consists of doctrines whose articulation happens orally and whose function is to support, defend, or extend written doctrines. Reading Plato is a good piece of scholarship, it guides the reader through Plato's dialogues carefully and thoughtfully. And it raises questions that expose the limitations of the disciples of Derridolatry. At the same time, however, it brings attention to several theoretical issues that Szlezak does not address. For example, how is a contemporary reader to "adapt himself to the perspective of the author, against all kinds of prejudices and resistance which are specific to...

344 RHETORICA in which he worked out his dramatistic poetics" (p. 105). As a set, the four chapters of Part One are the strongest of the collection in their consistent presentation and elaboration of Burke's later concept of aesthetics. Part Two collects three essays that consider Burke's work in the context of reader-response criticism, critical theory, and philosophy. Greig Hender­ son's "A Rhetoric of Form: The Early Burke and Reader-Response Criticism" considers Burke's concept of the formal relation between texts and audi­ ence expectations in the light of Wolfgang Iser's and Stanley Fish's readerresponse theories. Thomas Carmichael's "Screening Symbolicity: Kenneth Burke and Contemporary Theory" similarly examines Burke's theories in comparison with contemporary critical theory, suggesting ways in which Burke prefigured theorists like deMan and Lyotard vis a vis dramatism's antifoundationalist principles. Finally, Robert Wess's essay "Pentadic Terms and Master Tropes" examines A Grammar ofMotives's concluding chapter, "Four Master Tropes", in terms of its philosophical implications for dramatism. Part Three returns to more biographical material, but with the added emphasis of Burke's relation to religion. Wayne C. Booth's retrospective ac­ count of his correspondence with Burke emphasizes prominent religious undertones in the numerous "voices" Burke's letters often assumed. Burke's essay "Sensation, Memory, Imitation/and Story" represents Burke's strug­ gles towards the completion of the dramatistic model and, furthermore, is indicative of the religious undertones in Burke's theories. The final essay is Michael Feehan's discussion of Mary Baker Eddy, a prominent Christian Scientist, and her influence on Burke's Permanence and Change. Like Kenneth Burke in Greenwich Village, the editors of Unending Con­ versations see their collection as invoking and pluralizing "Burke's topos of the conversation" in contexts previously unvisited by Burke scholarship. As early attempts at expanding the range of application of dramatism, both texts offer useful and engaging starting points for further research. Paulo Campos The Ohio State University Peter L. Oesterreich and Thomas O. Sloane eds, Rhetorica Movet. Studies in Historical and Modern Rhetoric in Honour of Heinrich F. Plett (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 545. After yielding so many scholars the chance to discuss rhetoric, Prof. Plett s dedication to the subject is gracefully acknowledged in this collection of essays, published on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. In institutional terms his work has benefited all readers of Rhetorica: he was one of the founders of the ISHR in 1977 and served as its first Secretary General; he established the Centre for Rhetoric and Renaissance Studies at the Universitv Reviews 345 of Essen in 1989, and is an associate editor of this journal. In his own writing, such as the much-cited Rhetorik der Affekte, in the words of Thomas O. Sloane he "has welded a strong link between literary criticism and insights from the history of rhetoric". Written in English and German, Rhetorica Movet engages with the sub­ jects of three international conferences Prof. Plett organized at Essen: twothirds of it studies early modern rhetoric and poetics, with a subsidiary section on modern oratory. Some of the former contributions guide a rhetor­ ical technique smartly through an exercise programme, readying it at its classical antecedents then watching it bend and twist in a period's usage. Bernhard F. Scholz distinguishes Quintilian's view of ekphrasis as a report on the effect that a scene (not a work of art) has on the speaker's inner eye, such that the listener seems to see it too. Andrea and Peter Oesterreich examine Luther's comments on the relationship between rhetoric and dialectic. For Luther, dialectic produced faith while hope was aroused by rhetoric. Two authors take up Shakespeare's rhetoric: Wolfgang G. Muller, on the comic and persuasive uses of the enthymeme, and Peter Mack, on variants of antithesis which connect opposites structuring the last scene of The Winter's Tale. Two stylistic essays use frequency analysis on Dryden's versification (Hermann Bluhme) and mirroring structures in Spanish golden age verse (Jose Antonio Mayoral). Heiner Peters describes Sterne's explo­ ration of analogies between rhetoric and the art of fortification in Tristram Shandy. Other essays defend rhetoric. Judith Rice...

346 RHETORICA Roman notions of politics and ethics. Marijke Spies studies the claims made by an Amsterdam chamber of rhetoric, the Eglantine, that its writings on the art of rhetoric - which focused on natural human reason, took its examples from the vernacular and familiar, and gave instances of negotiation - were part of a process of reconciliation after the city left the Spanish crown to join the Dutch Republic in 1578. Several articles use ideas from classical rhetoric to interrogate modern German literature. Helmut Schanze discusses the relationship between the­ atrical speech and political oratory by examining the use of the metaphors of theatre and forum in Goethe, Jean Paul and recent studies of television and digital media. Gert Otto examines modern funeral orations by Max Frisch, Heinrich Boll and Christa Wolf in the light of the classical (Thucydides) and romantic (Grillparzer, Borne) traditions of consolatory oratory. Theodor Verweyen discusses the use of metonymy in Bertolt Brecht and Gottfried Benn in the light of modern analyses of classical theories this trope. Several of the modern pieces focus on the speech act and its context Rainer Schulze describes how studies of rhetoric have interacted with cognitive linguistics in the analysis of metaphors as constituents of understanding. Thomas O. Sloane mischievously argues that playing with words engenders a famil­ iarity and therefore a competence in playing with ideas—within defined playgrounds. As this brief notice has shown, the volume should be read as an un­ usually generous number of Rhetorica rather than a exploration of different aspects of a single topic (the editors wisely steer clear of an introduction). The wide range of the essays, literary critical, historical and theoretical, is a just tribute to the dedicatee's scholarship. Ceri Sullivan University of Wales, Bangor Georgia Clarke and Paul Crossley eds, Architecture and Language: Con­ structing Identity in European Architecture c. 1000—c. 1650 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). This volume of collected papers is noteworthy as containing the first extensive studies by art historians to acknowledge and explore the influence of teaching and theory of rhetoric on writings about architecture and on architectural practice in the Renaissance and early modern period. We have had a number of good books and articles on the influence of rhetoric on painting and on music in the Renaissance, and many works on architecture discuss political and social meanings of buildings without actually using the word rhetoric or employing rhetorical terminology, but until now we have lacked good assessments of the indebtedness of architectural treatises to Reviews 347 rhetorical invention, arrangement, and style, including viewing the classical orders of architecture in terms of rhetorical commonplaces, all of which is done in chapters of this book. The first four chapters discuss the language used by medieval writers to describe features of architectures in England, France, Italy, and Germany. It was only with Leon Battista Alberti, writing in the mid-fifteenth century, that the concepts and vocabulary of classical rhetoric entered architectural treatises. In "Architecture, Language, and Rhetoric in Alberti's De Re Aedificatoria ", Caroline van Eck shows that Alberti's source for theory and termi­ nology was not so much Vitruvius's De Architecture, as usually believed, but classical works on rhetoric by Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, and others. (There is an English translation of Alberti's treatise by J. Rykwert et al., published by the Harvard University Press, 1988.) Cammy Brothers then continues the subject with a chapter entitled 'Architectural Texts and Imitation in Late-Fifteenth- and Early-SixteenthCentury Rome". Debates ox er imitetio and eemuletio among Renaissance rhetoricians are echoed in architectural writing, and Brothers concludes that "the desire for authoritative models emerges from architectural treatises with increasing clarity over the course of the sixteenth century and parallels the development of an increasingly strict Ciceronianism" (p. 100). Subsequent chapters that will especially interest students of the history of rhetoric include "Sanmichelli's Architecture anti Literary Theory", by Paul Davies and David Hemsoll; "Architects and Academies: Architectural Theories of Imitetio and Literary Debates on Language and Style", by Alina A. Payne; and "The Rhetorical Model in the Formation of French Architectural Language in the Sixteenth Century: The Triumphal Arch as a Commonplace", by Yves Pauwels. Important rhetorical terms...

The panegyrics of twelfth-century Byzantium have long been regarded as second-rate rhetoric. This paper, however, attempts to show that the panegyrics of one author at least, Eustathios of Thessaloniki, were not in the eyes of the Byzantines second-rate, and in fact conform to ideals which were in operation in his time. The so-called “Theory of Ideas” of Hermogenes is first considered, then the operation of the ideals of Atticism, variety and (although this is particularly alien to us) obscurity in Byzantine rhetoric. The way in which the different types of style which Hermogenic theory recognizes varies according to the dictates of the subject-matter is considered in the case of Eustathios’s 1174 and 1176 Epiphany orations for the Emperor. A particularly florid passage from the 1176 speech is presented as an example of the way in which Hermogenic “Theory” can be used to analyse rhetoric, and the three principles of Atticism, variety and obscurity are shown also to be operating in the text.

342 RHETORICA dialogues comes to a definite conclusion, they all point to the need for further investigation and reflection, and they all have one or more "deliberate gaps" (pp. 18-19; 103-108). Szlezak does not argue for the general superiority of oral discourse over its written counterpart. Rather, he shows that oral discourse has a higher status but only for those capable of playing the role of a philosopher, more specifically a dialectician in the Platonic tradition. To play such a role requires that one identify significant topics for discussion (it is simply not the case that any one topic is as good as any other), expedite the discussion through poignant questions, refute objections, and defend doctrines committed to writing. Effectively, a Platonic dialectician possesses something of higher value (ta timiotera) than his philosophical writings (p. 49). This something consists of doctrines whose articulation happens orally and whose function is to support, defend, or extend written doctrines. Reading Plato is a good piece of scholarship, it guides the reader through Plato's dialogues carefully and thoughtfully. And it raises questions that expose the limitations of the disciples of Derridolatry. At the same time, however, it brings attention to several theoretical issues that Szlezak does not address. For example, how is a contemporary reader to "adapt himself to the perspective of the author, against all kinds of prejudices and resistance which are specific to modern times"? How can one identify the author's intention? Granted, "Plato's own devaluation of writing" (p. xii) has been devalued or inverted; but how are we to locate his oral or unwritten philosophy? What processes are involved in the move from the written to the spoken? Had Szlezak engaged these questions, his book would hav e been more interesting. Despite his silence on these matters, Szlezak renews the incentive for reading Plato and enjoying "the artistic perfection of his philosophical dra­ mas" (p. 1). Likewise, he tacitly reaffirms the notion that reading and inter­ preting Plato silently are only two steps of a three-step process; the third step involves participating in oral discussions of the written doctrines Plato left behind. John Poulakos University of Pittsburgli Greig Henderson and David Cratis Williams eds, Unending Conversa­ tions: New Writings by and about Kenneth Burke (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001), xviii + 233 pp. Jack Selzer, Kenneth Burke in Greenwich Village: Conversing with the Moderns, 1915-31 (Madison: Wisconsin University Press, 1996), xx + 284 pp. These recent studies of Kenneth Burke make significant strides towards a reappraisal of Burke s theories by situating their arguments within a variety Reviews 343 of academic discourses. However, neither text does so at the expense of Burke's relevance to rhetoric. Selzer's study skillfully demonstrates Burke's wider literary relevance. Likewise, Unending Conversations publishes for the first time selections from Burke's unfinished aesthetic theory and compiles essays considering his inter-disciplinary relevance. Adopting current notions of a modernist period "less a coherent and lin­ ear movement today.. .and more a controversy or conversation" (p. 4) Selzer demonstrates his familiarity with current trends in modernist scholarship at the same time as he employs Burke's famous metaphor of life as an "unend­ ing conversation". Primarily using Burke's extensive correspondence, Selzer tracks his intellectual development throughout the 1920s. The text's first two chapters describe Burke's integration into a number of Greenwich Village's artistic cliques and present the text's thesis: Burke "shaped and was shaped by modernist ideas during the first fifteen years of his career" (p. 6) of his participation in the modernist "conversation". Chapter 3 contextualizes Burke's early "classroom" attempts at symbol­ ist poetry within its overall influence on modernist art and his sometimes contentious relationship with his friend William Carlos Williams. The chap­ ter continues to suggest that Burke's early interest in symbolist poets led to his first pieces of analytical criticism (p. 84). Chapters 4 and 7 examine Burke's short fiction and only novel respec­ tively. Among the most interesting aspects of the book are these chapters' description and analysis of his work, both in terms of their aesthetics and as a means of suggesting their theoretical anticipation of...

Reviews 271 Tersite (p. 251): L. Spina analyse, dans le cadre des rapports entre l'orateur et le contenu de son discours, condamnations et réhabilitations de Thersite (Iliade, II, 211-277), de Libanios à La Stampa. Dans La testimonianza diAtanasio sul Péri hupokriseôs di Teofrasto (177,368 Rabe = 712 FHS & G) (p. 271), M. Vallozza examine un texte d'Athanasios dans les Prolégomènes au Péri staseôn d'Hermogène comme témoignage sur le Péri hupokriseôs de Théophraste et justifie la correction par Rabe de ton tonon tes psukhês en ton tonon tês phones. On se réjouit que chaque article soit accompagné d'une bibliographie judicieusement sélective et parfaitement à jour. Cela contribue à faire de ce livre une mise au point sur la recherche dans le champ de a rhétorique et une invitation à s'engager sur les pistes tracées, qu'il s'agisse d'auteurs, de thèmes ou d'approches nouvelles. Michel Nouhaud Université de Limoges Michel Patillon, Hermogène, l'Art rhétorique. Traduction française inté­ grale, traduction et notes, Préface de Pierre Laurens (Paris, L'Age d'homme, 1997), 640pp. In his Lives of the Sophists Philostratos tells of the rise and fall of the adolescent prodigy Hermogenes (577K). By the age of fifteen his reputation was such that Marcus Aurelius came to hear him declaim and left amazed by his talent for improvisation. But, says Philostratos, his powers suddenly and inexplicably deserted him, leaving him to live out the rest of his life in obscurity, far from the glittering prizes of the sophistic performance circuit. The rhetorical textbooks attributed to him, however, became the standard rhetorical curriculum throughout the Byzantine middle ages, before being introduced to Reniassance Europe through the work of Greek émigrés like George of Trebizond. Only two of the treatises, On Issues (Peri Staseôn) and On Types of Style (Peri Ideon Logou) are now accepted as second-century works, the others having been added in the 5th or 6th century. But the corpus as edited by Rabe and as translated here in its entirety for the first time, does show us the full range of the rhetorical curriculum of the later Empire. Starting from Progymnasmata, the collection progresses to the complexities of stasis theory — the systematic analysis of the types of question arising in declamation — in On Issues. The treatises Peri Heureseôs (On Invention) and On Types of Style treat the art of composing a speech, and the choice of style. Finally, the curious treatise on the method of "forcefulness (or simply skillfulness as in Patillon's choice of the French term "habileté"), Peri methodou deinotêtos, provides a collection of advice on a variety of problems likely to face the declaimer such as "how to praise oneself". 272 RHETORICA The two treatises generally accepted as works of Hermogenes have been translated separately into English (On Types of Style by C. Wooten, On Issues notably by M. Heath) and into Russian. But, with the exception of the Progymnasmata, the others have never before been available in a modern language, nor has the corpus been accessible as a whole. Patillon's elegant and clear translation is accompanied by copious notes elucidating the mean­ ing of Greek terms, unpacking the unspoken assumptions about language and communication which inform the texts, opening up questions which the rhetoricians themselves took for granted. He also pinpoints the relevant passages of the Late Antique and Byzantine treatises and commentaries preserved in the largely uncharted waters of Walz's Rhetores Graeci. The sub­ stantial introduction (over 100 pages) provides a concise characterisation of the literary and rhetorical culture from which the Hermogenean corpus emerged, discussion of questions of authorship, and an invaluable overview of each of the constituent parts of the corpus. A preface by Pierre Laurens traces the reception of the corpus, particularly the treatise On Types of Style, in the Renaissance and Early Modern periods. The bibliography and indices are full and extremely useful (though the index of Greek words does not always give every occurrence of a term). The publication date did not allow for the inclusion of Patillon's...

Renaissance humanists modified rather than rejected the medieval adaptation of classical rhetoric to letter writing, but they came to scorn the “barbaric” grammar of the ars dictaminis. This development followed the widespread dissemination through printing, beginning in 1471, of the Elegantiae of Lorenzo Valla and its imitators. Niccolo Perotti incorporated Valla’s approach to language in a section on epistolography of his Rudimenta grammatices, and soon letter writing and elegantiae became closely associated in textbooks. By about 1500, not only medieval writers but even humanist pioneers of an earlier generation and contemporary professionals who dared to defend established epistolary etiquette were under attack. By 1522, when Erasmus published his De conscribendis epistolis, medieval formulas had become merely comic.

Reviews L. Calboli Montefusco ed., Papers on Rhetoric III (Bologna: CLUEB, 2000), 281pp. On doit savoir gré à Lucia Calboli Montefusco d'avoir assuré la pub­ lication si rapide de ce recueil d'articles issus de communications présentées au XIL Congrès de la Société Internationale d'Histoire de la Rhétorique (Amsterdam, juillet 1999). Ces articles recouvrent une très longue période, allant d'Homère à l'époque médiévale, ce qui et peut-être justifié un classe­ ment chronologique. Leur diversité, leur originalité témoignent du regain de faveur que connaissent les recherches actuelles dans le domaine de la rhétorique et font de ce livre un ouvrage particulièrement stimulant. Dans The S. C. de Cn. Pisone pâtre: Asianisam and Juridical Language (p. 1), G. Calboli étudie les particularités linguistiques de ce Senatus Con­ sultant et y distingue une influence de l'éloquence rhodienne et des traits d'asianisme (grand nombre des relatives). Il met en lumière le rôle joué par Tibère dans la rédaction de ce texte, qui apparaît comme un document sur l'école de rhétorique de Théodore de Gadara. Dans Aristóteles' Benutzung des homoion in argumentatio und elecutio (p. 27), L. Calboli Montefusco con­ sidère la catégorie philosophique de Yhomoion comme le fondement de la rhétorique elle-même. Elle analyse son utilisation à l'intérieur de la preuve logique sur des exemples empruntés à la Rhétorique et aux Topiques ainsi que sa fonction stylistique dans l'élaboration des métaphores. Avec II sesto libro delT Institutio oratoria de Quintilian: la trasmissione del sapere, Tattualita storica, Tesperienza autobiográfica (p. 61), M. S. Celentano souligne la transfor­ mation du maître de rhétorique, qui devient un éducateur, un formateur de la jeunesse, par l'introduction dans son oeuvre, à côté des procédés tech­ niques, de son expérience personnelle et d'une réflexion autobiographique à valeur pédagogique. Quelques observations sur la théorie du discours figuré dans la Tekhnê du Ps.-Denys d'Halicarnasse (p. 75) nous sont données par P. Chiron, qui s'intéresse essentiellement au chapitre 9 de ce texte: l'auteur y décrit le discours figuré, qui consiste à "feindre de dire une chose et à en dire une autre". Ce chapitre prend ses distances vis-à-vis de la déclamation, comme de l'analyse linguistique, pour s'ouvrir sur un réel à charactère poli­ tique dans lequel les situations sont diversifiées. Dans Meeting the People: the Orator and the Republican Contio at Rome (p. 95), E. Fantham analyse les exigences rhétoriques de ces assemblées informelles que sont les contiones en faisant appel au témoignage de Cicéron, qui a vu, au cours de sa carrière, le caractère de ces réunions passer du meilleur au pire. Ethos and 269 270 RHETORICA Argument: The Ethos of the Speaker and the Ethos of the Audience (p. 113), tel est le rapport qu'E. Garver cherche à déterminer à partir de la remarque d'Aristote (Rhét. 1356al3) faisant de Yêthos le moyen de prouver le plus efficace. L'orateur ne peut viser à Yêthos sans en faire une fonction de lo­ gos, sa rhétorique devenant un art de l'apparence et de la manipulation. Ainsi Yêthos de l'orateur émerge-t-il de Yêthos de son public. Dans Cicéron critique de l'éloquence stoïcienne (p. 127), C. Lévy commence par présenter quelques personnages que l'orateur "considère comme emblématiques de l'éloquence stoïcienne romaine". Puis il envisage la critique de la rhétorique stoïicienne dans une perspective philosophique (accusation d'obscurité con­ tre les Stoïciens), avant d'étudier la relation entre cette critique et celle que suscitent les Néoattiques et que est d'ordre essentiellement stylistique. La rhétorique de Cicéron s'affirme par contraste avec ces deux conceptions. Avec Sull'uso retorico délia fabula esopica: un esempio nel De virtute di Dione de Prusa (p. 145), A. M. Milazzo étudie l'utilisation de la fable ésopique...

This paper examines the links between Classical (Ciceronian) rhetorical theory and the teaching of medieval Latin prose composition and epistolography between the eleventh century and the renaissance, mainly in Italy Classical rhetorical theory was not replaced by dictamen, nor was it the “research dimension” of everyday dictaminal activity. Rather Classical rhetorical theory, prose composition and epistolography responded to distinct market niches which appeared from time to time in different places as a consequence of social and political changes. Boncompagno’s apparent setting aside of Ciceronian rhetorical theory in favour of stricter notarial and dictaminal procedures was in turn superseded by his successors who chose to enrich their notarial theory with studies of classical rhetoric. Classical rhetorical theory proved influential on dictaminal theory and practice. Dictamen was not ousted by classical rhetoric. It only really declined when growing lay literacy and the use of the vernacular combined with the autonomous professionalism of the legal training institutions to erode the privileged position occupied in medieval times by the dictatores.

Reviews 273 A reading of the full Hermogenean corpus also reveals the sheer in­ tellectual demands of the art of declamation as practised by Philostratos's sophists, not to mention countless generations of Greek and Roman school­ boys. We are familiar with the sophist as virtuoso, as histrionic performer of the Greek past. These treatises take us behind the scenes to show the degree of training in analysis, argumentation, arrangement and verbal expression involved, particularly in an improvised performance like the one which im­ pressed Marcus Aurelius. The difficulty of the primary sources has been a great obstacle to the appreciation of late classical rhetoric, one can only hope for more translations like this, with commentaries of this depth. Ruth Webb Princeton University R. Meynet - L. Pouzet - N. Farouki - A. Sinno, Rhétorique sémitique. Texts de la Bible et de la Tradition musulmane (Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1998), 347pp. Cet ouvrage, rédigé à quatre mains par des chercheurs de l'Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth, a déjà été publié en 1993 en version arabe; rédigé originairement en français dès 1985, il est publié ici avec des remaniements et des améliorations substantiels. Son introduction (pp. 7-11) annonce un double but: (1) tenter de définir, à partir de la rhétorique hébraïque et biblique (cette dernière incluant, outre la Bible hébraïque (l'Ancien Tes­ tament), également le Nouveau Testament, rédigé en grec mais dont le substrat araméen est reconnu), le concept plus large, et par là plus diffi­ cile à cerner, de "rhétorique sémitique", incluant également la composante arabe; et (2) élaborer, ce faisant, une base de travail commune aux "études exégétiques bibliques et musulmanes", qui ne se situent pas actuallement au même stade de développement et qui dès lors nécessitent la convergence d'une "recherche menée en commun entre chrétiens et musulmans pour une meilleure connaissance mutelle" (p. 7). Il faut saluer ce projet généreux et ambitieux, sans oublier - car il date déjà par certains aspects théoriques (cf. infra) - qu'il a pris naissance dans des circonstances certainement difficiles, à Beyrouth dans les années 1980; comme dans les temps anciens, c est d une crise collective profonde que peut surgir la lumière! L'ouvrage est divisé en trois parties. La Ire partie situe "L'analyse rhétorique dans le champ de la critique" (pp.13-112), en présentant briève­ ment "L'histoire des critiques" et "L'analyse rhétorique", cette dernière étant une "opération exégétique" (pp. 105 ss.) qui constitue ici le concept opératoire de base. La IIe partie inclut 14 exemples d' "Analyse rhétorique des textes" (pp. 115-272), regroupés selon les deux structures majeures: "Textes parall èlles" (= Textes No 1-8: Siracide 8, 8-9 - Matthieu 25,31-46 - Luc 6,46-49 274 RHETORICA & Bukhâri, Sahih, 2, 33; 3, 20; 23, 93 bis; 24, 26) et "Textes concentriques" (= Textes No 9-14: Psaume 67 - Proverbes 9, 1-18 - Luc 11, 1-54 & Muslim, Sahih 18 - Bukhâri, Sahih, 1,1 & 1, 6). La IIIe partie, consacrée aux "Bilan et perspectives" (pp. 273-308), anal­ yse successivement : la "Validité de l'analyse rhétorique", ses "Situation et apports" et ses "Domaines". Des indices (réferences bibliques et textes musulmans: auteurs) et une bibliographie complètent cet important volume. Menée selon les principes de "l'analyse rhétorique" (cf. l'ouvrage théorique publié, sous ce titre, par R. Meynet en 1989), la mise en évidence des divers éléments structurels des textes choisis est riche d'enseignements et, par là, convaincante à bien des égards. Les tableaux qui "illustrent" les 14 cas-types constituent ainsi des outils pédagogiques de valeur. La dif­ ficulté majeure, ressentie par le recenseur, est l'absence, dans cet ouvrage approfondi (et rédigé par des auteurs qui sont de bons sémitisants), de toute référence au niveau des langues sémitiques elles-mêmes; en effet, les textes s. étudiés n'y sont présentés qu'en segments textuels rédigés en...

Martin Camargo The Waning of Medieval Ars Dictaminis T he five essays in this special issue grew out of papers presented at the Twelfth Biennial Conference of the Inter­ national Society for the History of Rhetoric (Amsterdam, July 1999), at the session entitled "What Killed the Ars Dictaminis? and When?" four of them ably chaired by Emil Polak. That session originated in a conversation I had with Malcolm Richardson inl997, at the previous ISHR conference, in Saskatoon. We had just discov­ ered that his research on practitioners of vernacular letter writing and mine on teachers of Latin letter writing in late-medieval Eng­ land independently suggested that in England the ars dictaminis had experienced something like what paleontologists call an "extinction event" around 1470. We wondered whether the suddenness of the demise was unique to England. Beyond that, we wondered why the most widely diffused and influential variety of practical rhetoric dur­ ing the later Middle Ages, an art that was highly teachable, adaptable to almost any institutional setting, aligned with key disciplines such as grammar and the law, should have disappeared at all. Having served the communication needs of a broad range of professionals throughout Europe since the late eleventh century, had the ars dic­ taminis simply worn itself out or had new needs arisen to which it could no longer respond? With good reason, more scholarship has focused on the origins of the ars dictaminis than on its demise. It is much simpler to identify the first medieval treatise that teaches how to compose letters than to decide which letter-writing treatise is the last in that tradition. Few of the surviving ancient treatises on rhetoric provide any explicit instruction on letters: in the Latin tradition, the brief chapter on letters that concludes the Ars rhetorica of Julius Victor (fourth century AD) is virtually unique.1 While some such pedagogy clearly existed in 5 Ed. Karl Halm, Rhetores Latini Minores (Leipzig, 1863), pp. 447-48.© The International Society for the History of Rhetoric, Rhetorica, Volume XIX, Number 2 (Spring 2001). Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center St, Ste 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223, USA 1 136 RHETORICA ancient times, as it did in the early Middle Ages, the transmission of that pedagogy in textbooks, at least in the Latin West, seems to have been an invention of the late-eleventh and early twelfth centuries. By contrast, letter-writing manuals continued to be produced in great numbers through the end of the Middle Ages, throughout the Renaissance, and up to the present day Thus, to locate the "end" of the medieval tradition is to engage with all the problems attendant on drawing a clear boundary between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Not surprisingly, scholars of medieval and Renaissance epistolography and rhetoric disagree on the sharpness with which such a boundary can be drawn. The most influential proponent of an overlap between medieval ars dictaminis and Renaissance humanism has been Paul O. Kristeller, who argued that a disproportionate number of the early humanists made their living as practitioners and even teachers of the ars dictaminis.2 Their humanistic interests were distinct from their professional duties, and they saw no conflict between writing letters that followed the rules of dictamen in their public capacity even as they imitated the familiar letters of Cicero when writing to their fellow humanists. In a series of important articles and a recent book, Ronald Witt has done more than anyone to develop and extend Kris­ teller's insight, documenting the gradual displacement of medieval dictamen at all levels of letter writing, a process that was not com­ pleted in Italy before the end of the fifteenth century.3 Most scholars agree that medieval practices coexisted with the new learning for a long time. If medieval ars dictaminis did eventually "die", it generally did not do so in the way implied by the title of the original conference session: hence I have adapted the title of Johann Huizinga's famous book in order to describe more accurately the picture that emerges from the papers published here. In attempting to trace and explain the...

Recent histories of early American rhetoric have not contextualized the rhetorics studied sufficiently, resulting particularly in an ahistorical portrait of Timothy Dwight as a “civic rhetor”. This essay situates Dwight’s rhetorical theory in the political, social, and economic environment of early America. Particularly, it argues that Dwight’s ideas about rhetoric, morality, politics, and theology were all tied together by his conception of “taste”, and in his career as a public minister, as a teacher at Yale, and as an active political figure in eighteenth-century Connecticut, Dwight pushed an ideology of taste that supported early American Federalism.

Subject to neglect and at times harsh criticism, the eighteenth-century British elocutionary movement merits reconsideration as a complex rhetorical episode within the history of rhetoric. Confirming the value of the rhetorical analysis of rhetorical texts, this essay examines the forms and functions of persuasion which two key treatises from the elocutionary movement enacted within their own socio-historical context. A rhetorical reading of Thomas Sheridan's A Course of Lectures on Elocution (1762) and John Walker's Elements of Elocution (1781)—informed by theories of ethos, logos, and pathos—illustrates the nuances of the different cases made for the scholarly and educational credibility of elocution as a new field of study within the context of late eighteenth-century British culture: Walker's text, while profiting from Sheridan's earlier promotional campaign for the value of elocutionary study, attempts to redress the excesses of his forerunner's "florid harangue[s]" and to fill in the gaps of his incomplete instructional method.

128 RHETORICA not place Isocrates neatly in his category of epideictic. Again, Walker's sub­ tle argument that the Ciceronian ideal eloquence draws on the "epideictic registers" (p. 83) ignores many of Cicero's own quite dismissive remarks concerning epideictic or demonstrative oratory Others may have reservations similar to these concerning Walker's reconstruction of the enthymeme, but will find it difficult not to admire his patience in testing the concept in his readings of the archaic poets. And these observations do not diminish the value of this very ambitious and challenging book. Walker's revitalization of "epideictic" should provoke greater scrutiny of the ancient understandings of that category. His blurring the traditional boundaries separating rhetoric from poetics is both innovative and cogent. The "rhetorical poetics" he proposes will no doubt be profitably applied in the study of lyric forms from many cultures subsequent to that of archaic Greece. Richard Graff University ofMinnesota Martin Camargo ed., Medieval Rhetorics of Prose Composition: Five English "Artes Dictandi" and their Tradition, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies 115, (Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1995), xiv + 257 pp. In studying the history of letter-writing in the medieval culture of Eng­ land, Martin Camargo has made a pioneering achievement, the first critical editions of five treatises on epistolary composition by writers in England. Al­ though four of these works can be identified as belonging to the Late Middle Ages, they nevertheless represent a significant part of England's contribution to epistolography. Camargo's introduction, a meticulously written summary of the history of letter-writing in England from the late twelfth century to the mid-fifteenth, is a model of craftsmanship and painstaking research. Descriptions of the manuscript copies, the text, the author, and the struc­ ture and contents of the work in outline form, where appropriate, precede each text. Massive compilations of variant readings comprising the apparatus criticus and large collections of references to sources and analogues along with comments related to meaning, syntax, and vocabulary follow each text. Rearranged as footnotes throughout each edited text, the variant readings and notes would have precluded an arduous task for the reader who must constantly be turning pages. The carefully edited texts presented in chronological sequence begin with Libellus de arte dictandi rhetorice by Peter of Blois, the earliest treatise on letter-writing produced in England and found only in Cambridge University Library MS. Dd 9 38. This study should contain the last reference to the Reviews 129 uncertainty of Peter's authorship, as it has recently been shown that Peter of Blois was the author of this work. An edition of the prologue in Migne, PL. 207, cols. 1127-1128 is not mentioned. The second text is Compilacio de arte dictandi by John of Briggis, probably written in the late fourteenth century at Oxford, which survives in one copy in Bodleian Library MS. Douce 52. The next text is Formula moderni et usitati dictaminis, written c. 1390 by Thomas Marke, of which the most preferred copy is in Lincoln Cathedral Library MS. 237. Although a copy found in Newberry Library MS. 55 is described, Paul Saenger's A Catalogue of the Pre-1500 Western Manuscript Books ...(Chicago and London, 1989) pp. 96-97 is not cited. The fourth text is Modus dictandiby Thomas Sampson, who taught at Oxford in the second half of the fourteenth century. One complete copy is found in British Library MS. Royal 17 B XLVII. An omitted study is J. I. Catto and T. A. R. Evans, The History ofthe University of Oxford, II, pp. 524-526. The final text is the anonymous Regina sedens Rhetorica, found in three manuscripts, the fullest text of which is in British Library MS. Royal 10 B IX. By way of suggestion and not criticism, a more complete survey of the history of letter-writing in England should include Gervase, Abbot of Premontre, Robert Elenryson, Thomas Hoccleve, Richard Emsay, Ralph of Fresburn, John Wethamstede, John of Latro, Richard Kendale, Joseph Meddus, John Mason, and references to anonymous treatises as found, for example, in Manchester, Chetham's Library MS. Mun. A 3 130 and Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. lat. misc. f 49. This study...

130 RHETORICA tion. Fascicule I incorrectly refers to Peter of Blois's dictaminal treatise as an abridgement of work by Bernard of Meting (p. xxxv). An appendix contains the edition of an allegorical letter from Simon O.'s Summa dictandi which concerns the authorship of Regina sedens Rhetorica . A useful Glossary of Medieval Words and Unusual Spellings with ref­ erences to standard Medieval Latin dictionaries is followed by a list of cited manuscripts, editions of primary texts, cited secondary sources, and a full and accurate index. A copy of this book should be found in the library of every student of the ars dictaminis. Emil J. Polak Queensborough Community College, The City University ofNew York Kathleen Welch, Electric Rhetoric: Classical Rhetoric, Oralism, and a New Literacy (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1999) xvii + 255 pp. The dust jacket of Electric Rhetoric sports a blurb from Andrea Lunsford which praises an author who "re-theorizes (and re-races, re-genders, and re­ performs) pre-Aristotelian rhetoric and then uses it to explore posthumanist literacy and rhetoric in a range of electronic spaces. In its insistent rejection of what Welch calls the 'worst' of Enlightenment, Modernist, and Postmod­ ernist values—and in its bold program for change—this book is going to make a lot of people nervous. A must read!" I open with Lunsford's remarks because they are as illuminating for what they say as for what they do not say. Welch's book is not a "program" but a polemic for change which, by the author's own avowal, seeks to "redirect inquiry" and raise more questions than it answers (p. 9). Welch does so handily in six chapters housed in two parts, "Classical Greek Literacy and the Spoken Word" and "Logos Perform­ ers, Screen Sophism, and the Rhetorical Turn", followed by an "Appendix: Excerpt from the Origin Myth ofAcoma and Other Records". In Chapter 1, "Introduction: Screen Literacy in Rhetoric and Composi­ tion Studies", she opens with the captivating image of the television screen which, for better or for worse, is ubiquitous in "locations of power as well as of powerlessness". In addition to contrasting it effectively with the com­ puter screen which "mostly appears in locations of power" (p. 4), Professor Welch vows to rouse humanities scholars from what she condemns through­ out as their utter refusal to acknowledge and rethink the massive cultural changes which attend the universal sign system of video. Of no surprise to those familiar with her prior excellent contributions to the history and theory of rhetoric and composition, she believes that that mission can best be accomplished by returning to (and revamping considerably) Isocratic rhetoric. Simply put, Electric Rhetoric proposes a holistic approach to three fundamental principles: (1) that literacy conditions "how people articulate Reviews 131 within and around their ideas, their cultures, and themselves, including their subject positions"; (2) that "any current definition of literacy must account for changes in consciousness or mentalité"; and (3) that literacy "depends on social constructions (including [sic] gender and racial constructions) that give value to some writing and speaking activities and that devalue others" (pp. 7-8). Chapter 2, "An Isocratic Literacy Theory: An Alternative Rhetoric of Oral/Aural Articulation", provides the forum for Welch's endeavor to re­ cover Isocrates. Praising his recognition of the dependence between articu­ lation and thought and his emphasis on aptitude vs. native ability (p. 51), she simultaneously vilifies his rhetoric, which "reveals for us strikingly one of the hideous aspects of classical rhetoric: it appears to erase women or to victimize us. This erasure works hand in hand with Isocrates's agenda of imperialism, an intolerance, a dehumanizing of Others, for which he must be held accountable" (p. 49). Our job, then, as readers of Electric Rhetoric, is to hold the past accountable. The main thrust of Chapter 3, "Disciplining Isocrates", is to dismantle "the Great Man theory of history writing, with some token women thrown in the same underlying theoretical structure" (pp. 82-83). It contains some fascinating readings of the Antidosis, notably the dancing bear episode and its link to learning ability. What is not clear, however, is why "Isocrates's biggest problem lies in his and...

Reviews Jeffrey Walker, Rhetoric and Poetics in Antiquity (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), xii + 396 pp. In this lengthy, densely argued volume, Jeffrey Walker engages two particularly contentious issues in the history of rhetoric, offering a novel reconstruction of rhetoric's origins and a revised account of the relation­ ship between rhetoric and poetics in Classical Greece and Rome. This dual focus is reflected in the organization of the study. Parts I and II (ch. 1-4) concentrate primarily on a reading of the rhetorical tradition originating in pre-Aristotelian sources and extending to the "second sophistic" of im­ perial Rome. In Parts III and IV (ch. 5-11), Walker uncovers the rhetorical dimensions of archaic Greek poetry and then traces the tension between grammatical and rhetorical elements in the major (and several minor) Greek and Latin poetic theories. In the first two chapters, Walker advances three claims that are defended at length in the remainder of the book: (1) that the distinction between rhetoric and poetics featured in the standard histories is illusory and has resulted in distorted characterizations of both arts; (2) that the fundamental or "primary" manifestation of rhetorical art is not deliberative or forensic oratory, but rather the various verse and prose forms of epideictic discourse; (3) that accounts of rhetoric's periodic decline in the face of restricted op­ portunities for "practical", political oratory neglect the vital socio-political significance assumed by epideictic eloquence in nearly all periods. Cen­ tral to Walker's argument, then, is an expanded conception of "epideictic". Developing an insight of Chaim Perelman, Walker rejects the traditional characterization of epideictic as a decorative genre, simple entertainment or "mere display", and attributes to it broad suasive and ideological functions: epideictic, for Walker, is "that which shapes and cultivates the basic codes of value and belief by which a society or culture lives" (p. 9). Thus conceived, the epideictic category cuts across the prose-poetry divide, as Walker would include much poetry—including archaic lyric poetry—within it. This enlarged conception of epideictic enables Walker to locate the ori­ gins of rhetoric in discourse practices that predate by centuries the theoretical conceptualization of the art of persuasive oratorical speech (this is the thrust of ch. 2). In this respect, Walker's study represents a healthy alternative to the recent work of scholars such as Thomas Cole and Edward Schiappa which identifies the "birth" of rhetoric with the fourth-century advent of a prop­ erly technical and theoretical vocabulary or "metalanguage". If Walker's 125 126 RHETORICA redescription of epideictic gives grounds for rejecting the narrow concep­ tion of rhetoric offered by Cole and Schiappa, it also confounds the wellknown distinction between "primary" and "secondary" rhetoric. In George Kennedy's formulation, primary rhetoric is associated with practical oratory, with speeches delivered orally in deliberative and forensic settings. This for­ mulation encourages epideictic's treatment as secondary, textual, literary and aesthetic. Walker reverses this narrative and the impoverished notion of epideictic it inscribes: "the epideiktikon is the rhetoric of belief and desire; the pragmatikon [dikanic and demegoric genres] the rhetoric of practical civic business...that necessarily depends on and appeals to the beliefs/desires that epideictic cultivates" (p. 10). Viewed in this frame, epideictic becomes "the 'primary' or central form of rhetoric" while deliberative and forensic speeches are derivative, applied forms of a more general logon techne (p. 41). In Part II (ch. 3-4), Walker considers the fortunes of rhetoric in the Hel­ lenistic and Roman imperial periods. Opposing the traditional characteriza­ tion of these periods as marking rhetoric's decadence and decline, Walker offers a more complicated narrative of a competition between two relatively distinct rhetorical traditions. The first version is that founded by the early sophists and given fullest expression in Isocrates' logdn paidea; it stresses the broad, culture-shaping function of poetic-epideictic eloquence. This tradi­ tion, Walker contends, is preserved in the fragments of Theophrastus and in later authors as diverse as Demetrius, Hermagoras, Dionysius, and Cicero (in De oratore). The second version of rhetoric is more narrow and technical, and by the late Hellenistic period focused almost exclusively on the practice of judicial oratory. This is...

In writing The Anatomy of Melancholy Robert Burton was working within the system of classical rhetoric as revived in the Renaissance, specifically the epideictic genus. A juxtaposition of the topics, arguments, and tripartite form employed by Burton with the treatment of epideictic in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, as well as with aspects of the Roman and Hellenistic rhetorical traditions, shows how Burton has playfully adapted Renaissance conceptions of epideictic rhetoric for encyclopaedic, satirical, and self-expressive purposes. The function of rhetoric in the Anatomy is both to ‘dissect’ the corpus of knowledge about melancholy and to ‘show forth’ the author’s own melancholic condition.

Reviews 467 Gilbert Collard, L'art de s'exprimer en toutes circonstances. Les secrets dévoilés des orateurs (Paris: Presses de la Renaissance, 1999), 204 pp. Maître Gilbert Collard, du barreau de Marseille, est un des plus grands avocats français, bien connu du public pour sa participation à des causes célèbres impliquant des personnalités du monde politique, artistique ou sportif. Auteur déjà de nombreux ouvrages, il publie ici un livre qui se définit comme "recueil de vingt-six ans de pratique oratoire" et somme de conseils, tant pour les futurs avocats que pour d'autres utilisateurs qui auront à s'exprimer en public. Or, sur la couverture de ce livre, l'auteur a tenu à faire figurer sa qualité de membre de l'International Society for the History of Rhetoric: démarche intéressante pour les lecteurs de Rhetorica. La première partie de l'ouvrage consiste dans un bref historique, qui commence par les œuvres d'Homère, qualifiées à juste titre de "poésie oratoire". G. Collard note que la rhétorique doit beaucoup aux sophistes, qui "méritaient mieux que la mauvaise réputation que Socrate leur fit". Se référant aux travaux de Marc Fumaroli, qui l'ont inspiré, il cite Aristote, Cicéron, Quintilien, et souligne l’importance de la tradition et des enseignements quelle dispense pour qui veut apprendre à parler aujourd'hui. La deuxième partie prolonge ce plaidoyer en faveur de la parole, en montrant, avec des raisonnements efficaces, comment l'art de parler a partie liée avec la formation de l'intelligence et du sens critique, avec la démocratie, avec l'humanité. L'auteur pose le problème moral de la rhétorique (comment distinguer persuasion et manipulation), présente les notions d'éthos et de pathos, puis énumère un certain nombre de défauts à éviter. Chemin faisant, des anecdotes illustrent l'actualité toujours renouvelée des problématiques rhétoriques, et l'avocat livre le fruit de ses expériences. Par exemple, Maître Collard estime que "ïe meilleur discours du monde ne devrait jamais dépasser une heure, l'idéal 468 RHETORICA étant le discours de quarante minutes" -au-delà, l'endormissement guette... La troisième partie brosse un panorama des principales notions techniques : les figures (notamment l'hyperbole, définie comme "la Marseillaise du répertoire"), les procédés d'argumentation (ici l'auteur s'appuie sur les travaux de Chaim Perelman), les principaux types de plan. Des conseils d'entraînement pratique sont donnés, et le livre se termine, dans une quatrième partie, par des analyses de discours fameux prononcés par des hommes politiques et des avocats, depuis Mirabeau jusqu'à Henri René Garaud. Comme l'auteur l'indique lui-même, son but n'est pas universitaire. Il n'entend pas proposer une recherche savante sur l'histoire de la rhétorique, mais offrir le témoignage d’un grand praticien de la parole. Le livre de G. Collard témoigne de l’intérêt de l'auteur pour la rhétorique et pour l'histoire de celle-ci, vue comme une source d'inspiration pour le présent. Il manifeste une approche du sujet, qui, sans être érudite, est profonde, parce qu'elle s'étend à l'histoire, à la morale, à la littérature. G. Collard est un orateur qui pense que la pratique oratoire doit être fondée sur le travail, la méthode, la culture, qui a des exordes prêts d'avance (comme Démosthène!), qui lit Montaigne et les poètes et qui veut réhabiliter la rhétorique dans des milieux (il y en a) où elle n'a pas bonne presse. Son témoignage est important. Laurent Pernot Université de Strasbourg II ...

This article reviews studies on Ramus amd Ramism published between 1987 and 2000 under the headings: Biographical and General Studies, Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Scientific, and Ramism, this latter subdivided by geographical areas. It finds that the study of Ramus is in a very healthy state, particularly through international collaboration, though there are still considerable problems for scholars in securing access to the different versions of his works. Ramus is now presented primarily as a teacher and educationalist. The debate about Ramus's "humanism" has produced new work on his classical commentaries. Attempts have been made to achieve better definitions of Ramism.

This article analyses “Rhetorical Incunabla: A Short-Title Catalogue”, published in Rhetorica 15 (1997) pp. 355–470 by category of publication. It supplements that catalogue with full entries for six additional items.

Review Article| August 01 2000 Short Reviews: The Beginnings of Rhetorical Theory in Classical Greece, by Edward Schiappa, Political Allegory in Late Medieval England, by Anne W. Astell, The Changing Tradition: Women in the History of Rhetoric, by Christine Mason Sutherland and Rebecca Sutcliffe and Rhetorical Figures in Science, by Jeanne Fahnestock Edward Schiappa,The Beginnings of Rhetorical Theory in Classical Greece (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), x + 230 pp.Anne W. Astell,Political Allegory in Late Medieval England (Ithaca: Comell University Press, 1999), xii + 218 pp.Christine Mason Sutherland and Rebecca Sutcliffe eds. The Changing Tradition: Women in the History of Rhetoric (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1999), vii + 279 pp.Jeanne Fahnestock,Rhetorical Figures in Science (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), xiv + 234 pp. Janet M. Atwill, Janet M. Atwill The University of Tennessee Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Sybil M. Jack, Sybil M. Jack University of Sydney Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Wendy Dasler Johnson, Wendy Dasler Johnson Washington State University Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Jean Dietz Moss Jean Dietz Moss The Catholic University of America Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2000) 18 (3): 343–354. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2000.18.3.343 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Janet M. Atwill, Sybil M. Jack, Wendy Dasler Johnson, Jean Dietz Moss; Short Reviews: The Beginnings of Rhetorical Theory in Classical Greece, by Edward Schiappa, Political Allegory in Late Medieval England, by Anne W. Astell, The Changing Tradition: Women in the History of Rhetoric, by Christine Mason Sutherland and Rebecca Sutcliffe and Rhetorical Figures in Science, by Jeanne Fahnestock. Rhetorica 1 August 2000; 18 (3): 343–354. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2000.18.3.343 Download citation file: Ris (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 ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 2000, The International Society for the History of Rhetoric2000 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

This article examines the ideological functions of seventeenth-century ceremonial oratory by distinguishing between two related rhetorical strategies: textual image and propaganda, defined as the promotion of a policy. This distinction helps characterize the particular nature of Louis XIV's régime, instead of anachronistically equating it with modern totalitarianism. If pursued in other contexts it can serve to illuminate the mechanisms of personality cult in general. Fashioning an image of the ruler with the help of an institutional apparatus which varies with the régime is a way to create public confidence in his/her ability. A well-established absolutist monarchy should not require propagandistic discourse; yet it was ubiquitous in Louis XIV's global design for government. This suggests a dialectical interpretation. When belief in the monarch's greatness fails to produce blind faith in his/her infallibility, propaganda may take over to bolster persuasion. When counter-propaganda, or facts, become insistently present, image may again appear as an expedient alternative.

Written over a twenty-five year period and presented as a “series of Essays” rather than a single sustained argument, the Philosophy of Rhetoric is characterized by a technical vocabulary that shifts in meaning as the work progresses. This essay focuses on the instability of “resemblance”, which has four distinct meanings in the Philosophy of Rhetoric, some deriving from the long tradition of ut pictura poesis and others from Hume’s epistemology. The analysis of “resemblance” has implications for our understanding of rhetorical vivacity and for the meaning of Book III. Attention to this key term enriches our appreciation for Campbell’s text as an attempt to weave into a single theory the varied threads of the eighteenth-century’s analysis of response to language.

Reviews 349 different levels of spiritual understanding may be debatable. Given the likelihood that an open text can serve to stimulate reflection on all these levels, too precise an attempt at political closure may be counterproductive. Sybil M. Jack University of Sydney Christine Mason Sutherland and Rebecca Sutcliffe eds, The Changing Tradition: Women in the History of Rhetoric (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1999), vii + 279 pp. This new collection brings back the excitement of the 1997 Saskatchewan conference of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric, where its essays were delivered. There scholars of women's issues from such countries as Canada, France, the Netherlands, Romania, Australia, England, and the U.S. sized up others' perspectives, questioned assumptions, and pushed for clarity, but came away assured of women's place in a field that has notoriously excluded them. Restive fractiousness was not much evident in discussions about women, like the productive dissension arising for instance at the first Rhetorics and Feminisms conference later that summer, when differentials of power, economic means, and race tensions came to the fore. Differences like these are mostly missing, too, from this volume; nevertheless, Mason Sutherland and Sutcliffe's volume encourages and supports an array of scholarship about women that today still lacks ready access to print. Mason Sutherland's own essay opens the collection, a place due it as a plenary address for the gathering of international scholars, and also as "overview of the field" from the editors' stance. "Women in the History of Rhetoric: the Past and the Future" asserts that far from a margin, women have been "a matrix" for rhetoric. "[O]ur part in it has been to feed it, to support it, to enable it", says Mason Sutherland. Referring to all women's work as "maternal" has lately rankled many, but situating it as "anterior" to the rhetorical tradition can strike a resonant note (p. 10). Yet the author worries that a "world view of our own time can come between us and a clear understanding of" past women (p. 350 RHETORICA 27), and she pleads for a complexly ambivalent, but "sympathetic listening to ...voices of the past" such as Mary Astell’s (p. 14). Mason Sutherland presents Astell (1666-1731) as a rationalist and high church monarchist who nevertheless vigorously defended women's education and capacity for public service. The goal of Mason Sutherland's address and of the co-edited collection, then, is "to promote good in our present without doing the past the injustice of misunderstanding and misrepresenting it" (p. 29). The book's sixteen essays (one in both French and English) are arranged as they address ways women were (or are) excluded from, alongside, participating in, emerging into, and engaging the rhetorical tradition, five locations the editors also suggest for future studies of women in rhetoric. The first section, on exclusion, offers C. Jan Swearingen's essay, "Plato's Women: Alternative Embodiments of Rhetoric", which questions the ethics of dismissing such figures as Aspasia and Diotima by claiming that evidence for them is literary and thus suspect. "Directing the announcement selectively at studies of women in antiquity", Swearingen concludes, "is an act of pseudo­ objectivity that should not go unremarked" (p. 44). A wonderfully weird counterpoint is Jody Enders's text, "Cutting Off the Memory of Women", testifying against medieval torture that was designed explicitly to undercut and erase what were codified by the fifteenth-century Malleus Maleficarum as the notoriously unruly memories of women. These essays represent both thoughtful and provocative scholarship, and yet I wonder, looking back at the conference program, why for example Mary Garrett’s "Women and the Chinese Rhetorical Tradition" is not here. The collection focuses, as scholarship about women has, on studies that recover in rhetorical terms the work of particular women: Catherine of Sienna, Hester Ann Rogers, Lady Mary Wroth, Flora MacDonald Denison, and Gertrude Buck to name some honored here. I must confine myself here to a very few essays from this useful volume that even more broadly open up studies about women in rhetoric. One of them, from the "alongside" section, is Helene Cazes's "Verbum inuisiblile palpabitur: The Sibyls in the Second Half of...