In the first section, the author addresses the most theoretical criticism of private writing as a false or misleading concept—that writing is inherently or essentially social. The author distinguishes and explores the various forms or senses in which this claim is true; in doing so, the author explores the limitations of certain kinds of totalistic forms of argumentation. In the second section, the author also addresses criticisms that acknowledge the existence of private writing but asserts that it is misguided or harmful. In the final section, the author suggests possibilities for empirical research that might not only throw light on theoretical disputes about the nature of private writing but also provide some concrete help to teachers of writing.

Reviews Laurent Pemot ed., Eloges grecs de Rome: Discours traduits et commentés (Paris: Les Belles Lettres 1997) pp. 198. Carlos Lévy et Laurent Pemot eds, Dire l'évidence: Philosophie et rhétorique antiques (Paris: Ed. L'Harmattan, 1997) pp. 448. The first book contains in translation two epideictic orations: the famous speech To Rome, (Eis ‘Ρώμην, en l'honneur de Rome, Or. xxvi) delivered in 144 by the then still young and unknown sophist Aelius Aristides when sojourning in Rome, and an oration written by an unknown sophist about 247 in honour of Philippus Arabs and transmitted under Aristides' name, Praise of the Emperor, (Eis Βασιλέα, En l'honneur de l'empereur, Or.xxxv). Both speeches belong to the genre of encomium, concern the Roman empire, especially its centre, the city of Rome and its emperor. Hence the part éloges...de Rome in the title, whereas the word grecs refers to the source language but also, at the same time, to the fact that these praise-speeches are written from a Greek point of view. The two speeches are published here for the first time in a French translation. It is a pleasure to read this version but I must leave a verdict on its Frenchness to others. The strongest point of this book, I think, is its introduction. It shows Pemot as an accomplished critic of the scholarly discussions on these speeches as well as—and this is more important—as a master in analyzing and discussing them. Of course, much of what Pemot says here, is already known from his Rhétorique de l'éloge dans le monde grécoromain (Paris 1993), where one may also find detailed comparisons with other speeches by Aristides, something which would be out of place in an introduction meant for a larger public. But it is very pleasing to have a thorough discussion of these speeches by themselves. It was also a good idea for Pemot to take two orations both concerning Roman power which at the same time are different© The International Society for the History of Rhetoric, Rhetorica, Volume XVII, Number 2 (Spring 1999) 213 RHETORICA 214 from a rhetorical point of view: Aristides is, although (probably) about 26 years old, a talented speaker, who knows how to play with the rules of the genre, whereas the author of the second speech closely follows these rules. It has been suggested, therefore, that this oration is just a school exercise but Pemot finds many reasons not to accept this suggestion. So the author must have been a mediocre orator who was not able to transcend the rules of his art. Thus one can apply the scheme of the basilikos logos from the handbook of Menander Rhetor to explain almost every feature of this oration. Aristides, however, also knows the rules of the genre and Pemot duly annotates many occasions on which what Aristides says and the topoi he uses can be compared with the theory known from rhetorical handbooks and the practice of older orations. But, to take one example, whereas when praising a city it is almost obligatory to deal with its history, Aristides ignores this aspect. The second publication under discussion concerns 21 contributions to a 1995 colloquium organised by the French branch of our Society under the theme of Dire l'évidence. Already its subtitle, Philosophie et rhétorique antiques, shows that a part of this collection is of an immediate interest to readers of this journal but other articles also offer important insights. The volume contains four sections, évidence et argumentation, l'évidence, obstacle ou accès à la connaissance?, images, imagination^ and l'ineffable. The connotations of the word évidence are manifold and those of its Latin source, evidentia, also, or even more, because it is a Ciceronian translation of the Greek enargeia. In the very first paper Barbara Cassin discusses the differences between the philosophical use of enargeia as an notion "liée à la vision, critère de soi, index sui, liée au vrai et au nécessairement vrai", whereas "l'évidence des orateurs est ï'energeia comme...un effet de logos,..liée au 'comme si' de la vision, à la vision comme fiction". It will...

Reviews 233 plutôt: parce que rhéteur) en musicien: les idées sont des thèmes, les sujets sont des instruments. Pierre-Louis Malosse Stephen D. O'Leary, Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994, ix + 314 pp. Endings, like beginnings, have always fascinated us; thus, speculative accounts of the world's beginning (etiologies) and its ending (eschatologies) have engendered controversial philosophies and gripping narratives. As we approach the end of a millenium, eschatological speculation can only be expected to increase; and thus, Arguing the Apocalypse is a timely contribution to rhetorical history and rhetorical theory. It is also broadly interdisciplinary, carefully researched, and intelligently written. The book's author, Stephen O'Leary, studied comparative religion at Harvard before going on to graduate work in Communication Studies at Northwestern; this book is a revision of his dissertation, and it is marked by the influence of both its director (argumentation theorist Tom Goodnight) and one of its readers (Bernard McGinn, a historian of medieval theology). With a few exceptions, the author has purged his book of the stylistic residues of the much despised "dissertation" genre. Nevertheless, as in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, the first ninety pages will test the readers' mettle; only if they are able to wade through the complexities of the theory will they earn their just reward: two rhetorical histories that are fascinating (and at times, even "page-turners"). Yet there are those first ninety pages. Chapter 1 begins by defining apocalypse—a subset of eschatological discourse that "makes manifest a vision of ultimate destiny, rendering immediate to human audiences the ultimate End of the cosmos in the Last Judgment" (pp. 5-6). Given the powerful appeal of such discourse through the ages, the author suspects that rhetorical theory will be useful in showing how it has shaped human 234 RHETORICA thought and action within particular cultural milieux. Chapter 2 sets out three important topoi of apocalyptic discourse: time, evil, and authority. These topoi are ripe for rhetorical analysis, since they involve not only the intellect but the whole person. O'Leary provides thumbnail sketches of the typical accounts of these three topoi, suggesting that apocalyptic discourse attempts to address certain aporiae that have been left by such accounts. In chapter 3, O'Leary develops the dramatic frames of comedy and tragedy, through which he will view various apocalyptic movements. Traditional Christian eschatology, he argues, accented the comic frame by emphasizing God's complete sovereignty in bringing about the end of time; the divine plan is inscrutible, and we can neither predict the end nor bring it about. But this view still acknowledged an identifiable end, in which evil and time would be no more; and this created the rhetorical space for a "tragic" apocalyptic eschatology, in which God brings the world to a catastrophic close (an event that will be survived only by those who know what to look for, and when to look). "Once an audience has accepted the eschatological argument that evil will be both eliminated and justified in the Last Judgment...their experience of evil will create a hope and expectation for this Judgment that still requires satisfaction" (p. 81). Thus, in apocalyptic rhetoric, "the evils of the present day are pyramided into a structure of cosmic significance" (p. 83). This arouses ever more eager anticipation of the consummation of history. Apocalyptic rhetoric thus tends to be enormously persuasive in the short term. While often blithely dismissed as the ranting of fanatics, it has mobilized thousands, indeed millions, of adherents—a claim that O'Leary will demonstrate in the historical sketches that fill most of the remainder of the book. The next four chapters examine two of the most important apocalyptic movements in the United States. Chapter 4 chronicles William Miller's rise from obscure farmer, to sought-after lecturer, to religious figurehead, to discredited prophet; the chapter also shows why Millerism should be analyzed as a rhetorical movement. In chapter 5, O'Leary examines the particular forms of Millerite argument, showing why they were found persuasive by certain auditors. Chapter 6 jumps ahead some more than a century, examining the more...

Rather than acting as training departments for students’ future employers (a mission reflected in most textbooks and journal scholarship), technical writing programs should be teaching skepticism, critical thinking, and paradigm‐breaking. They should be highlighting the agendas and “narratives” inherent in any text, rather than sustaining a positivist faith in neutrality and objectivity, because students who understand the power of language to shape the workplace (not simply to transmit information) turn out to be the most effective, most successful professionals. This article questions the widespread, largely uncritical importing of corporate paradigms into the technical writing classroom and calls for the university to remain separate from the corporation in its purpose. The article goes on to describe a recently developed senior seminar that challenges students’ assumptions about scientific and technical writing, including their own. Through courses like this, it is hoped that students will enter their professions as savvy, questioning thinkers rather than simply as efficient, problem‐solving doers.

Since classical times, rhetorical education has been concerned with training in the civic functions of discourse-with young people to talk about public issues responsibly and articulately. And unsurprisingly, those who study and teach rhetoric have often faced public scrutiny and have been compelled to defend their pedagogical and philosophical views. One current battle over the public function of rhetorical education centers on the politically charged writing pedagogies that emerged in our discipline during the early 1990s. These approaches, commonly dubbed radical teaching or teaching, and whose most prominent advocates include James Berlin (Rhetoric), Patricia Bizzell (Academic), Susan Jarratt (Feminism), and Mary Louise Pratt (Arts), reject the notion that college writing courses should be ideologically neutral spaces dedicated to nurturing students' individual expression. Rather, these scholars hold, rhetorical instruction should prepare to deal critically with the arguments they encounter in the dominant culture and empower them to produce texts that resist those values. And thus, they argue, writing instructors have an obligation to cultivate in an appreciation for progressive political values, a sensitivity to injustice, and an ability to debate divisive issues-skills best developed through confrontational classroom exchanges. The range of practices these scholars advocate includes asking to engage with texts written from perspectives vastly different from their own (Bizzell, Academic 283-84), to debate heated questions in class (Jarratt 118-19), and to adopt a critical stanceoften the teacher's own-toward mainstream ideologies (Berlin, Rhetoric 3637). Yet despite its lofty goals, critical has faced criticism on multiple grounds. Opponents like Maxine Hairston decry the very goals of such pedagogy, charging that it puts dogma before diversity, politics before craft, ideology before critical thinking, and the social goals of the teacher before the educational needs of the students (Diversity 180). More recently, Stephen

Examines the debate over creation and evolution in Wilmington, North Carolina’s principal newspapers in order to consider the ways in which this debate exemplifies patterns of public discussion among academics and non academics, including conflicting attitudes about education, authority, and persuasion. Proposes ways to read and intervene in such debates.

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Marjorie Roemer, Lucille M. Schultz, Russel K. Durst, Reframing the Great Debate on First-Year Writing, College Composition and Communication, Vol. 50, No. 3, A Usable Past: CCC at 50: Part 1 (Feb., 1999), pp. 377-392

RHETORICA 102 While several of the articles in the volume do address the extended influence of the Scottish tradition in countries formerly dominated by Britain, conspicuously absent from the collection is any discussion of English Studies on the Indian subcontinent. Taken as a whole, however, the volume presents an expanded account of the historical origins of English Studies and illustrates the degree to which we owe the institutionalization of university English to Scottish culture. DANA HARRINGTON Syracuse University Richard Morris, Sinners, Lovers and Heroes: An Essay on Memorializing in Three American Cultures (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997) xxi + 237 pp. A modest but noteworthy contribution to research by rhetoric scholars on public memorials, this book focuses on symbolic responses to Abraham Lincoln's death during the nineteenth century in the United States. Morris asserts, "I know of no other event that so exactly marks the dramatic rupture of the social structure of a nation and that so clearly lays cultural transformation open to observation than the death of Abraham Lincoln" (p. 2). Written in a clear and accessible style, Sinners, Lovers and Heroes argues "the thesis that memorials are fundamentally rhetorical and cultural forms of expression, that a careful examination of American memorializing discloses the contours of at least three distinct American cultures, and that shifting visual and discursive memorial patterns across time reveal the ascendancy and subordination of these three cultures and their cultural memories" (p. xii). The organization of Sinners, Lovers and Heroes is straightforward. An introductory chapter articulates an orientation to the rhetoric and culture of public memorials. In the three following chapters, each of the "three cultures" is the central focus of one chapter, corresponding to the three key terms in the Reviews 103 title, Sinners, Lovers and Heroes. Specifically, Morris considers patterns of response to Lincoln's death, as it was represented by members of cultures that Morris names "religionists", "romanticists", and "heroists" (p. 42). The conclusion synthesizes Morris's claims that "Different people memorialize, embrace, and seek to codify through public memory their different images of the memorable not merely because of temporal or spatial or physiological divergences, but because different cultures with different worldviews and ethoi require different images of and from their members" (p. 153). One strength of Sinners, Lovers and Heroes is the extensive use of published primary materials from various nineteenth century figures who commented on Abraham Lincoln's death. Morris claims, "what we see in the transformation of Lincoln's image, then, is not a single people creating and later transforming an element of the symbolic code of collective memory, but the rise and fall of different cultures, each of which positions Lincoln within a different world view and ethos" (p. 27). Another strength of this book is the attention to accumulating details that Morris synthesizes into an encompassing perspective in his conclusion. Unfortunately, however, the book makes little explicit use of contemporary rhetoric scholars' research on public memorials, public memory, or visual rhetoric, even though the book seems to be arguing, at times, with some key figures in these areas of research. Although the introduction and the conclusion stress "differences" among the U.S. people, there is little explicit attention to either race or economic class in the body of the volume (for his comments on race, pp. x, 111; on economic class, pp. 127, 142-43, 147-49). The discussion of the "religionists" depends heavily upon a Christian conception of spirituality. As one consequence, perhaps, the speech by a Jewish leader, Max Lilienthal, is discussed under the "heroists" (pp. 125-35). In the chapter on "heroists," one abiding oxymoron is the manifestation of leveling styles reflecting an egalitarian politics, because placing some people above most others is ordinarily a requirement for having "heroes". Morris writes, "True to the mandates of the first Heroist gravescape, however, cemeterial rules and regulations in lawn cemeteries require markers to be small and, in the vast majority of instances...flush with the ground" (p. 149). 104 RHETORICA Some key concepts would perhaps have benefited from explicit, technical explanation. For example, the use of "hegemony" in Morris's book is disconnected from Antonio Gramsci's use of the same term...

104 RHETORICA Some key concepts would perhaps have benefited from explicit, technical explanation. For example, the use of "hegemony" in Morris's book is disconnected from Antonio Gramsci's use of the same term. Another instance is "culture", which resonates with Lionel Trilling's meanings for this term, but, at times, seems like a synonym for ideology. In addition to references to "collective memory", Morris distinguishes "cultural memory" from "public memory", by remarking, "whereas cultural memory reflects the particularized world view and ethos of the members of a particular culture, public memory is perhaps best conceived as an amalgam of the current hegemonic bloc's cultural memory and bits and pieces of cultural memory that members of other cultures are able to preserve and protect" (p. 26). Sinners, Lovers and Heroes will be useful to scholars interested in the rhetoric, public argument, public memory, American studies, and, especially, the legacy of Abraham Lincoln's public image. LESTER C. OLSON University of Pittsburgh Walter Jost and Michael J. Hyde, eds., Rhetoric and Hermeneutics in Our Time: A Reader (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997) xxiii + 406 pp. Like the recent Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition by Kathy Eden, Rhetoric and Hermeneutics in Our Time marks another attempt at a rhetorical Anschluss, annexing rhetoric . to hermeneutics in an apparent attempt to make rhetoric look more philosophical, for instance, by pointing to Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. In fact, two of Gadamer's own essays on rhetoric appear in the Jost and Hyde collection. While the writers within the collection draw many analogies between rhetoric and hermeneutics, hardly anyone obtains any definitional precision about the pairing. Reviews 105 On the other hand, the Jost and Hyde volume seeks to be what Eden's book avoids—concerned with the present, as conveyed by the prepositional phrase in the title, "in our time", and explicitly with politics: "Our very being-in-the-world is inseparably hermeneutical and rhetorical in complex ways and...a multi-faceted speaking as well as listening constitutes our situation. Our own time is an epoch of corporate capitalism and technologism, of vulgarization and breakdown. But it is also a time of deep reflection on linguistic interpretation: on persuasion, 'conversion' across paradigms or worldviews, propaganda, and more invidious forms of deception and power, as well as on forms of the electronic word and the new multimedia. It is, accordingly, a time in which we need both to listen to and to discuss what Gadamer calls the 'deep inner convergence' between rhetoric and hermeneutics" (p. xvi). First, "our" turns out to be some amorphous, underdetermined "everyone", and despite the implicit "critique" of "corporate capitalism" in the passage above, Jost and Hyde never get near the topic again, except to get away from it. The slide happens but a page later: "The task at hand now includes identifying hermeneutics (in its modern forms) as a further counterpart to rhetoric and rhetoric to hermeneutics and seeing both as features or dimensions of all thought and language, not only as the special methods or abilities of political praxis" (p. xvii). Before dealing with any concrete issues of political praxis, they widen the aperture of their project to "all thought and language", and thus sidestep the part of the "all" that might have brought them in contact with any logical definition of "politics", or with concrete historical events in North American party politics, for instance. The rhetoric that goes on in the streets, the deception—what the Greeks called the pseudos—the advertising, the propaganda, the double-talk, the exercises of political esotericism, the kind of interpretive practice that produces The Bible Code, all the "ugly" manifestations of rhetoric that are its life blood, hold almost no interest in the context of the book under review. (For the importance, even primacy, of the "ugly", see Slavo Zizek, in Slavo Zizek / F. W. J. von Schelling, The Abyss of Freedom / Ages of the World [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997] pp. 21-25). Jost and Hyde promote the lemony fresh side of rhetoric, the side most often seen in contemporary RHETORICA 106 accounts of what rhetoric accomplishes or can accomplish: "Rhetoric...helps promote civic engagement and...

RHETORICA 108 from "the people", the tabloids, the dirty political infighting. Rhetoric awaits its Disraeli who can persuade the appropriate personages to bring rhetoric back to the life that damaged it in the first place, the life that is its life, for better or worse or otherwise. BRUCE KRAJEWSKI Laurentian University Craig Waddell, ed., Landmark Essays on Rhetoric and the Environment, Landmark Essays 12 (Mahwah, NJ: Hermagoras Press-Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998) xix + 239 pp. The eleven essays reprinted in this collection map the ecotone where rhetoric and environmental politics meet. Though individual essays resist easy classification, the collection reveals important focuses of work in this sub-field. Several essays trace and evaluate characteristic lines of argument in environmental policy debates. In the lead essay, for instance, Robert Cox glosses Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's account of the locus of the irreparable in The New Rhetoric, drawing out the strategic and ethical implications of, among other deployments of this locus, "forewarnings" of irreparable damage to the environment. Jonathan Lange analyzes five characteristics of the "logic of interaction" between the timber industry and environmentalists engaged in the debate over protecting Northern spotted owl habitat in old growth forests. Other essays study (mis)constructions of audience. Craig Waddell argues that Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb failed to "reconstitute" its audience because it did not articulate "a more comprehensive [ecocentric] framework" to replace egocentric and anthropocentric ethical frameworks (p. 68), while Tarla Rai Peterson and Cristi Choat Horton study ranchers' sense of stewardship for the land "to show how communication that responds attentively to an audience's perspective can assist in retrieving potential points of affiliation among diverse groups" (p 168). Reviews 109 Still other essays focus on the ethos of environmental advocates. M. Jimmie Killingsworth and Jacqueline S. Palmer consider the charge of hysteria lodged against Rachel Carson and other environmentalists, arguing that the "environmentalist and the nature writer, in becoming 'voices for the earth'...represent the return of the repressed, the coming into consciousness of that which, having been avoided for far too long, has created an illness within the mind-body system of earthly existence" (p. 37). However, they note that "like any political position, environmentalism seeks to restrict access to certain subject positions just as surely as it opens access to others" (p. 50), and like Peterson and Horton, they warn against this exclusionary tendency. Finally, some essays view environmental debates through wide cultural lenses. For instance, Christine Oravec argues that the debate over damming Hetch Hetchy valley in Yosemite National Park was settled not so much by the explicit arguments of the conservationists and preservationists engaged in the debate as by the alignment of conservationists' arguments with "prevailing presumptions concerning the nature of the 'public' and its relationship to the natural environment", presumptions characteristic of early twentieth-century Progressive politics (p. 17). All of these essays conceive of environmental rhetoric in deliberative terms, focusing on conflicts over public policy (individual essay titles bristle with terms such as "controversy", "confrontation", "conflict", "dispute", and "opposition" or evoke contentious deliberative situations). Accordingly, this collection provides an excellent introduction to rhetorical studies of environmental policy debates. But readers should keep in mind that there are more discourses on earth than can be studied from any one perspective. The disciplinary rhetoric of environmental sciences and the epideictic rhetoric of much American nature writing are just two of the landscapes that lie for the most part beyond the bounds of this particular map. H. Lewis Ulman The Ohio State University ...

A though there was a hiatus of several decades in the early part of the Twentieth Century in which little work was done on the rhetoric of the early Church, there has been a healthy revival of interest in the subject and the number of studies is growing rapidly. Robert Grant's Greek Apologists of the Second Century, Averil Cameron's Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire, Peter Brown's The Body and Society and Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity, Harry Gamble's Books and Readers in the Early Church, George Kennedy's Greek Rhetoric Under Christian Emperors, William Schoedel's Philosophy and Rhetoric in the Adversus Haereses of and Pheme Perkins' Ireneus and the Gnostics: Rhetoric and Composition in Adversus Haereses Book One represent only a very limited listing of recent work. Some of these works present studies of relatively long sweeps of time (Cameron, Brown, Gamble, Kennedy), while others focus on restricted time frames (Grant) or individuals (Schoedel, Perkins). I come to this body of scholarship not as an historian but as a rhetorical theorist interested in studying the rhetoric practiced by leaders within orthodoxies. The development of the early Church and the rhetoric used by those instrumental in its formation provide an excellent case study from which characteristics of such rhetoric can be gleaned and used to explain the formation of orthodoxies in our own day. A typical episode in the rhetoric of orthodoxy is to identify those who appear to be legitimate insiders, but are not, and to expose them as alien. In the last quarter of the Second Century C.E., Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, wrote an extended treatise, consisting of five books, titled Adversus Haereses, commonly titled Against Heresies in English and abbreviated as AH. 1 The purpose of this work, he says, is to protect the sheep from certain men who outwardly are covered with sheep's clothing (Irenaeus AH I, Preface, 2). The first book contains a summary of the tenets of various heretical sects, the second consists of arguments, based on reason, that destroy the validity of these heretical doctrines, and the three remaining books set forth the doctrines of the orthodox faith in contrast with the teachings of the heretics. My present objective is to investigate the rhetorical strategies employed by Irenaeus and in so doing to describe a theory of rhetorical expose. Because Against Heresies is quite long and because much of the expose portion of the work is in Book I, I have restricted my analysis primarily to that book.

Describes a course in the first-year college composition sequence (with substantial research and argumentation components) that is organized around a career focus on social services practice. Describes how the students learn about connections between writing, thinking, problem solving, composition class, and their chosen profession.

Hypertext, in its most available manifestation, the World Wide Web, is being sold as a force for liberation. One must differentiate the varieties of freedom to better understand how different interests manipulate the freedom mythology to achieve different ends. This study examines the scholars who have framed the hypertext debate and the rhetoric employed by the companies that want to sell it to locate a more complex picture of how these interests use the freedom myth. Such consideration leads to discussion of what might shape hypertext's emergence as more than an information-dispersal system.

Reviews 445 L. L. Gaillet ed.z Scottish Rhetoric and Its Influences (Mahwah, N.J.: Hermagoras Press, 1998) xviii + 238pp. Scottish Rhetoric and Its Influences, edited by L. L. Gaillet and introduced by Winifred Bryan Horner, offers up an eclectic collection of conference papers on eighteenth and nineteenthcentury rhetoric delivered originally at the 1995 ISHR meeting in Edinburgh. Save one, the contributors to this handsome volume in Jerry Murphy's Hermagoras Press Series all represent North American colleges and universities. The chapters are divided somewhat unevenly into two parts, thirteen papers on "Reexamining Influential Figures" and four papers on "The Rhetoric of North American Composition". Among the papers that stand out in the first grouping is Susan Jarratt's "Ekphrastic Rhetoric and National Identity in Adam Smith's Rhetoric Lectures". Applying ekphrasis as the "verbal descriptions of visual representations", Jarratt looks at Smith's own example of historical description, Jan Steele's Het offer van Iphigenia (The Sacrifice of Iphigenia), in order to illustrate Smith's rhetorical lesson in lecture 16 as "a reiteration of the use of visual arts by ancient rhetoricians". Constrained from supplying full responses to a series of critical cultural identity questions that launch the essay, Jarratt nevertheless supplies an imaginative portrayal of Smith's belief in what Jarratt characterizes as the "usefulness of visual theories for interpreting rhetorical texts". Herman Cohen's "Rhetoric and Freedom in the Scottish Treatment of the History of Rhetoric" and Linda FerreiraBuckley 's "'Scotch Knowledge' and the Formation of Rhetorical Studies in 19th-Century England", serve this volume title well in terms, respectively, of explicating Blair's rhetorical appraisal of "Roman rhetoric" and "Greek eloquence" in succinct contrast to that of Charles Rollin's appraisal at the College Royale in Paris, and in terms of demonstrating the careful results of archival investigation into the curriculum at University College, London, results which detail the "formative influence of Scottish education...on post-secondary English studies in England". Murray Pittock, the lone U.K. representative, weaves an enjoyable essay that frames a broad enlightenment context for the importance and impact of Scotland's student debating clubs and 446 RHETORICA societies as well as speculates briefly upon the ripple-effect upon modern speech curricula in the States. Also noteworthy in Part I are Don Abbott's findings on Blair's reception "abroad", Gary Lane Hatch's careful consideration of Blair's students' notes, and Sandra Sarkela's cogent analysis of sermons delivered in opposition to colonial independence. Notable in Part II, Beth Hewett and Andrea Lunsford, respectively, re-assess the impact of Samuel P. Newman's A Practical System of Rhetoric and Alexander Bain's rhetorics upon pedagogical practice in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in U.S. colleges and universities. Although arguing that Newman exhibits "a more modern understanding of composition pedagogy" than we might expect, Hewett acknowledges his modest "influence". Lunsford's depiction of Bain's impact is extended here with revealing reconsideration of Bain's autobiography that reinforces his "devotion to students' access to education". The terrain covered in this collection will appear familiarly to scholars in the field. Students of the subject will gain a foothold understanding of the broad impact of Scottish rhetoric that should lead to further discussion and inquiry. Unfortunately, there is no colloquy between or among authors of these chapters to spark further debate, for example, about competing channels of influence upon rhetoric in the early American colleges. Paul Bator Stanford University ...

Avec la Rhétorique à Alexandre, nous disposons d’un témoignage très précis—et quasiment unique—sur la théorie de la persuasion telle qu’elle pouvait être développée dans la seconde moitié du IVe s. par un rhéteur professionnel influencé par la sophistique et l’isocratisme. Trop souvent lue avec des “lunettes” aristotéliciennes ou disqualifiée a priori par les anciens préjugés anti-rhétorique et anti-sophistique, cette théorie est la plupart du temps mal comprise, ignorée ou dédaignée. Notre premier objectif est de l’étudier par et pour elle-même, en tentant d’analyser son contenu et de dégager les conceptions épistémologiques et rhétoriques qui en constituent l’arrière-plan. Nous tentons ensuite de préciser la nature des liens qui unissent cette théorie à la pratique oratoire et à Aristote.

436 RHETORICA Takis Poulakos, Speakingfor the Polis: Isocrates' Rhetorical Education (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1997), xii +128 pp. Two ambiguities in Takis Poulakos's title provide a synopsis of the themes developed in this slim volume. In Isocrates' time and practice rhetoric was becoming domesticated; by performing classroom exercises students learned the art of speaking for—and not to—the polls. The rhetorical education designated as "Isocrates'" denotes both the rhetorical education Isocrates received and, Poulakos emphasizes, gleaned for himself; and the rhetorical education he crafted for his students. Perhaps the most innovative thesis advanced in Poulakos's re-reading of Isocrates' model speeches and teaching methods is the claim that the Athens Isocrates speaks for was moving away from an an elite, often xenophobic, hegemonic self conception at the end of Pericles' era and toward an acceptance of its diversity, and its need to negotiate with rather than conquer its neighbors. "Isocrates attempted to close the gap separating individual and collective interests as well as the gap separating Athenian and allied interests" (p. 53). Although Pericles' speechwriters were almost all foreigners, they crafted a discourse of Athenian superiority and homogeneity. Isocrates, the native Athenian, developed a curriculum based on assuming difference and thereby the necessity of creating commonality through training in character, agency, political, and social reform. In this, Poulakos locates Isocrates as a synthesizer of earlier divergent and often hostile rhetorical traditions, represented by Gorgias, Protagoras, and Plato. Poulakos traces the growing conceptualization of logos, oikos (as a domestic model for the city and for its discourse), agency, eloquence, reflection, deliberation, and education itself. These common places of Athenian speeches are preserved in Isocrates' speeches. As with Pericles' oration but with perhaps more deliberateness, each of Isocrates' speeches is a handbook of how to make a speech: once committed to memory each of the set themes and stock oppositions would transmit rhetoric about rhetoric and education about education to successive generations, transmitting a common language to an increasingly diverse Reviews 437 culture. Reversing the usual emphasis on the uniformity of classical rhetorical culture, Poulakos's discussions provide ample food for thought, and a number of contentions that readers will quarrel with, such as the claim that for Isocrates rhetoric resumes the role Plato had dreamed for it: "instruction in philosophy" (p. 9). The use of Greek is inconsistently accompanied by translations and transliterations, creating a sense that this is only half written for the Greekless reader. In the general project of reclaiming Isocrates as much more than a hack, Poulakos's work joins that of Kathleen Welch and others in reminding us that neither philosophy nor classics have been particularly kind to rhetoric. C. Jan Swearingen Texas A&M University David Roochnik, Of Art and Wisdom: Plato's Understanding of Techne (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996) xii + 300 pp. Roochnik claims that the conventional view of Plato's texts that link techne with moral knowledge must be modified. According to Roochnik, moral knowledge cannot be analogous to techne without insurmountable logical problems resulting. Roochnik reads many of Socrates' arguments in Plato's early texts as proving that wisdom cannot be rendered technical. Because wisdom is not a techne, Plato wrote dialogues rather than technical treatises to illustrate the performance of nontechnical wisdom. The book is organized into four lengthy chapters accompanied by four useful appendices. Chapter one provides a thorough examination of the preplatonic meanings of techne in Homer, Solon, Aeschylus, Sophocles, the Hippocratic writings, Gorgias, Isocrates, and Anaximenes of Lampsacus. The chapter culminates with an examination of the rhetorical techne of the sophists to illustrate the claim that the sophists believe that moral knowledge could be taught as a techne. I note in passing that in his analysis Roochnik accepts the conventional accounts of the rhetorical technai of the sophists that Thomas Cole and I have been doing ...

Presents eight separate short descriptions of teaching tips or classroom activities for composition classes submitted by teachers, including tips on writing exchanges, grammar problems, peer evaluation, revision, mock quizzes, critical thinking regarding television news, computer–assisted commenting, and an educational and entertaining end–of–term review activity period.

(1998). Rhetorical style and the formation of character: Ciceronian ethos in Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 93-106.

T his paper deals with the embodiment in Cicero's De Oratore of a particular rhetorical method. The method is referred to by the Romans as controversia and by the Sophists before them as antilogic and involves the conduct of argument by placing two or more opposing claims in juxtaposition. I will argue that instead of discussing controversia in a formal manner, by abstracting its general nature and detailing its logical parts (diaeresis), Cicero chooses to dramatize controversia in order to transcend abstract principles and allow his students direct access to argument in action. In a word, Cicero chooses to perform the subject, and in so doing to give substance or body to theory and pedagogy. In the process, he also pursues his own most cherished philosophical objective, which is to bring res and verba, the thing and the word into synthesis. I will further suggest that the rhetoric of embodiment which Cicero develops in De Oratore is replete with interesting pedagogical implications. Like much of Cicero's published work, De Oratore was intended to serve as a model for imitation by others (see Axer 59). In this case, the text models both a particular set of rhetorical principles and a distinctive pedagogical stance for teaching them. I am particularly interested in what the pedagogy of De Oratore has to say to us today about an appropriate approach to the teaching of argumentation.' But before I begin with Cicero, De Oratore, antilogic, controversia, and the rhetoric of embodiment, I would go back even further in history, from Rome to the eastern Mediterranean, from the eloquence of Cicero to the arguments of Odysseus, that other man famous for dealing with contention (Odyssey 1.2). You will recall that when Odysseus leaves Calypso after seven years as a captive on her paradisal island, he sails away on a log raft which breaks up in a large storm sent by Poseidon. When it looks as though he is doomed to drown, he laments that all he has accomplished on his way home will perish with him. Would that I had died on the fields of Troy, he cries, where all my deeds would have been noted, praised, and preserved (5.306-12). What Odysseus is concerned with here is his kleos: his fame, honor, stature, renown, that standard heroic obsession that one's reputation will ring out under heaven (8.74f; cf. Thalmann 60-69). Instead of a life of adventure marked by kleos, however, Odysseus in Book V is faced with death at sea, a death unmarked and lonely (5.312). What is notable for us in this episode is that kleos appears only to exist in the reports on one's life; i.e. it requires discourse to give it substance, enough substance to transcend the event itself. Consequently, when Odysseus arrives on land and is taken by Nausikaa to the Phaiakian court, he acts the part of a poet as well as a hero (11.68-69) by recounting his adventures and in the process giving form to his kleos. Discursive enactment, therefore, becomes the only way in which the unforgettable experi-

Research Article| August 01 1998 Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action Ian Worthington ed. Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action (London: Routledge, 1994) xi+277pp. John Poulakos John Poulakos Department of Communications, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1998) 16 (3): 308–312. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1998.16.3.308 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation John Poulakos; Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action. Rhetorica 1 August 1998; 16 (3): 308–312. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1998.16.3.308 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 1998, The International Society for the History of Rhetoric1998 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Abstract: Gorgias's Encomium to Helen presumes a similarity between verbal and visual art. Where language, envisaged as masculine, attempts a logical persuasion, the visual image, seen as feminine and disruptive, overwhelms the beholder and leads the mind astray. Gorgias's account of Helen takes as its starting point an interpretation of her role which originates in book three of the Iliad, where her beauty is seen as causing the Trojan war and inspiring Homer's epic. The tragic poets identify her with destruction. Gorgias proves her innocence, but only by transforming her from a volimtary subject to a passive object. Because Helen was overcome by eros caused by visual stimuli she cannot be held responsible for the consequences of her actions. In this assertion Gorgias has used verbal logic to delimit and overcome the emotional force of previous images of Helen.

Studies different methods of teaching argumentation to middle school students. Concludes that explicit instruction in argumentative form and argument structure sharpens students’ judgment regarding the content and organization needed to generate logically connected arguments and improves students’ writing of arguments. Finds that such an approach is particularly important for minority students.

Commentary: It is easier to articulate the issues addressed in this piece today than it was when Written Communication first published it in 1985; we now have the familiar idioms of postmodernism, cultural studies, and reception theory to help illuminate the paradigm that we were arguing governs everyday communication behavior in organizations. In particular, while terms such as contingency, intersubjectivity, shared understandings, social construction of meaning, and discourse communities were familiar enough at the time in the fields of philosophy and critical theory, they had not yet influenced textbooks in organizational communication. Instead, these textbooks were dominated by the human resource and social systems models of the organization at work and by prescriptive approaches to writing. We drew on the work of contemporary theorists (Polanyi, Popper, Kuhn, Toulmin, Perelman, and others) to support the notion that, like scientific communities, organizational communities are “rational enterprises” that develop rules and protocols for the admission and analysis of evidence—criteria which individual practitioners internalize unevenly, imperfectly, and tacitly, and which evolve over time in response to new situations, but which govern the construction of meaning. Through the analysis of a particular case of strategic communication (and one that was deliberately ordinary, not exceptional), we were interested in demonstrating how important the larger context is in shaping communication, how meaning is negotiated by writer and audience, how “good writing” depends less on transmitting a “message” or even adapting a specific format than on tapping (or reenvisioning) shared but tacit recognitions about what is important in the organizational context. Looking back, we are gratified that these observations now seem commonplace, and also that we addressed them in humanistic, cognitive, and philosophical terms to argue the centrality—and complexity—of consensus making. One of the closing sentences still seems like an appropriate call to continue such an inquiry: “In a world marked by divergent values, galloping change, and the need for ethical approaches to problem solving, a rhetoric that both acknowledges the human complexity of decision making and suggests a practical rationale for producing consensus is needed.”

Commentary: When “Ethos Versus Persona” was published in 1988, I was aware that these constructs easily transcend their ancient roots and that their richness and complexity have wide-ranging implications for contemporary rhetorical analysis and criticism. But I had no idea I was exploring concepts that would prove useful a decade later in understanding the political and legal travails of President Bill Clinton. As of this writing (March 1998), the president of the United States is caught in a firestorm of controversy surrounding alleged sexual improprieties and possible illegal acts (perjury, subornation of perjury, obstruction of justice). The national media are operating at a fever pitch to supply instantaneous information and analysis. And the American public, even if they might want to, cannot escape the deluge. By all accounts, the president's approval ratings should be sinking like a rock. Yet commentators from all sides of the political spectrum are astounded that his ratings have soared to an all-time high. At the heart of this conundrum is the question of character and how audiences (or readers or voters) judge character. High-minded conservative pundits such as George Will are railing that this presidency has become so tawdry that, for the sake of national integrity, it must be terminated. Mr. Will apparently subscribes to the (decidedly modernist) theory that a person must not just seem good but be good in order to be credible. But do the approval ratings suggest that the American people have adopted the more postmodern (but also ancient amoral) view that politics is not just about appearances - it is appearances? Maybe. Or has the public - perhaps subscribing to Will's ontology after all - concluded that the taciturn special prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, has employed questionable tactics in obtaining evidence and that, by comparison, the president's character does not seem so bad after all? Regardless of what theories may or may not be reflected in public opinion polls, have the president and his handlers been successful (thus far) in maintaining his image as a credible figure? Or is it just the economy, stupid? “Ethos Versus Persona” does not provide answers to these questions, of course. But it might yield some interesting ways to think about rhetoric and presidential politics as we close out the century. In any event, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Washington and its players for a months-long morality play enacting the tensions that energize ethos and that become even more apparent in any juxtaposition of ethos and persona. I could not have written a better or more timely script myself.

Gorgias's Encomium to Helen presumes a similarity between verbal and visual art. Where language, envisaged as masculine, attempts a logical persuasion, the visual image, seen as feminine and disruptive, overwhelms the beholder and leads the mind astray. Gorgias's account of Helen takes as its starting point an interpretation of her role which originates in book three of the Iliad, where her beauty is seen as causing the Trojan war and inspiring Homer's epic. The tragic poets identify her with destruction. Gorgias proves her innocence, but only by transforming her from a voluntary subject to a passive object. Because Helen was overcome by eros caused by visual stimuli she cannot be held responsible for the consequences of her actions. In this assertion Gorgias has used verbal logic to delimit and overcome the emotional force of previous images of Helen.

RHETORICA 312 In chapter 11, "Philosophy and rhetoric", Stephen Halliwell considers the debate between rhetoric and philosophy along the lines suggested in several of Plato's and Aristotle's works. Although both Plato and Aristotle consider rhetoric "philosophically", Halliwell argues that Plato imposes on it the demands of his ethical and political standards while Aristotle accepts the commonsensicalness of rhetorical practice all along reinforcing it with the technical equipment that rendered it an intellectual force of consequence. In the final chapter, "The Canon of the Ten Attic Orators", Ian Worthington reconsiders the dating, the authorship, and the intellectual background of the canon of the Attic orators and concludes that both the rationale and character of the canon are unsatisfactory if only because they hamper scholarly efforts to study and assess the orations of those orators who are excluded. John Poulakos Richard Lockwood, The Reader's Figure: Epideictic Rhetoric in Plato, Aristotle, Bossuet, Racine and Pascal (Geneva: Droz, 1996) 310 pp. Epideictic has always been the joker in the pack. Where deliberative and judicial eloquence can be fairly readily defined, and their function briefly summarized, epideictic continually poses problems. In the first place, what is it? The demonstrative genre, we are told, is that in which the orator (or writer) attributes praise and blame. But this narrow definition is quickly expanded into something much more amorphous—epideictic comes to be the gathering up of all speech acts which are not deliberative or forensic, sometimes including the didactic or academic (as in the volume under review), and not infrequently spilling out to include all speaking whose purpose is not obvious, including, as the writing "for nothing" which came to be called literature. For the question "who does what to whom in epideictic" is by no means straightforward, as Richard Lockwood makes abundantly clear in this densely written and interesting book. Quintilian saw it as aiming solely at delighting its audience", Reviews 313 with the further aim of enhancing the "honour and glory of the speaker". The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "intended or serving to display oratorical skill". It is thus a form of entertainment, a performance meant to gather in applause. But of course there are other views. A speech of praise, for instance, is not necessarily a piece of self-indulgence or flattery. Many historians of the subject have written of the potential civic function of epideictic for inculcating values and creating social consensus. As Aristotle put it, "to praise a man is...akin to urging a course of action". Even Plato, with his sharp eye for the deceits of rhetoric, allows room in his republic for "hymns to the gods and encomia to good men". So what is going on in epideictic? The strength of Lockwood's study is that it homes in on these tensions within the genre. He argues that this type of speech or text carries within it a doubleness, and thus, even more clearly than other rhetorical performances, creates a double figure of the listener or reader, who can at the same time admire the orator and admire the thing praised. It is this doubleness, he claims, that accounts for the powerful effects of epideictic, effects that in the examples he gives are not infrequently unsettling, often fruitfully so. One of the most important points stressed here is the vital role played in epideictic by metadiscursive elements—those points at which the orator or writer reflects as he goes along on what he is doing. In an interesting preliminary, this tactic is seen at work in the Gettysburg Address, where "five full sentences out of ten discuss Lincoln's own act of speaking, and the rest focus largely on the parameters of its context" (p. 19)—the speech in other words is largely about "how to give speeches and how to listen", and in so doing seeks to create what Lockwood calls the "figure" of the reader/listener. In other words, theory and practice are closely interwoven, and there can be no question of a simple dualism whereby the naive take the bait while the sophisticated reflect critically on it; all readers and listeners are involved in the perils and pleasures of...

Reviews 329 communicating what he had to say to his various audiences. For this reason Anderson is also right in insisting on the use of ancient rhetorical theory and practice in the original languages. I would add that further help may be gained from the commentaries of the fathers of the Church and those later writers who were more familiar with rhetoric than most of use are, e.g. Melanchthon or the Jesuits, and also from modem rhetoric. In addition to a select bibliography and full indices, there is a useful, select glossary of Greek rhetorical terms (pp. 259-302 and 303-14). This is a most welcome contribution to the debate which has suffered a great deal from various kinds of confusion, a book itself well-planned and clearly argued, offering a good deal of help to those who are interested in this controversial subject. It is important because it also raises some general questions as regards the possibilities and limits of rhetorical criticism, and while I disagree with the author on a number of points, I do not hesitate to recommend it to the critical reader. C. Joachim Classen Kristoffel Demoen, Pagan and Biblical Exempla in Gregory Nazianzen. A Study in Rhetoric and Hermeneutics, coll. Corpus Christianorum, Lingua Patrum, 2 (Tumhout: Brepols, 1996) 498 PP· Cet ouvrage a parfaitement sa place dans la collection prestigieuse du Corpus Christianorum, non seulement parce qu'il y côtoie l'admirable Corpus Nazianzenum, mais parce qu'il fait progresser de façon décisive la connaissance des oeuvres de Grégoire de Nazianze et de sa manière de composer. Il comporte deux grands ensembles, un exposé constitué de deux parties, et un répertoire (p. 325-458). Il s'agit d'une analyse rhétorique de Vexemplum, qui va donc au delà du procédé stylistique, pour l'étudier comme moyen de persuasion. Cela implique une enquête sur la tradition rhétorique dont Grégoire est tributaire, ainsi que l'examen des jugements explicites et sous-jacents portés sur les 330 RHETORICA vecteurs des deux courants culturels que fait se rencontrer "le Théologien", l'hellénisme et ses (xûôoi, le christianisme et la Bible. Le livre est issu d'une Dissertation doctorale présentée à l'Université de Gent (Gand) en février 1993. L'introduction part de l'attitude ambiguë de Grégoire à l'égard de la tradition classique, pour esquisser une idée qui prendra toute sa force au terme de l'ouvrage: voulant rivaliser avec les écrivains non chrétiens, Grégoire sépare l'hellénisme de la religion; cette conception restrictive lui donne le moyen de reconquérir l'hellénisme (après la tentative anti-chrétienne de l'empereur Julien); K. Demoen illustre cette reconquête par l'usage rhétorique d'exemples pris dans la mythologie, dans l'histoire et dans la Bible. Les éléments de l'étude sont de nature narrative. Les sources, du côté grec, sont la mythologie, les légendes, l'histoire, les fables et, par ailleurs, les récits bibliques (épisodes historiques de l'Ancien Testament, paraboles du Nouveau Testament). Ne sont retenues que les "histoires" qui ont une fonction exemplaire. Dès le début est proposée une définition du παράδειγμα, distingué de μεταφορά, παραβολή, γνώμη, σύγκρισις, définition élaborée à l'aide des théories antiques analysées dans le premier chapitre (p. 33-50): "l'évocation d'une histoire (de la Bible ou de la tradition païenne) qui s'est réellement produite ou qui n'est pas arrivée, dont la matière ressemble ou est liée au sujet traité, qui est associée implicitement ou explicitement à ce sujet comme argument (preuve ou modèle) ou comme ornement, et qui prend la forme d'une narration, de la mention d'un nom, ou d'une allusion" (p. 25). Le corpus est fait principalement des poèmes de Grégoire, très hétérogènes, les oeuvres en prose intervenant surtout à titre d'illustration ou de confirmation. L'entreprise se situe (p. 26) dans la perspective érudite de la Συναγωγή; kai; έξήγησις de Cosmas de Jérusalem, scholiaste du VIIIe si...

RHETORICA 308 these six essays demonstrate the breadth, status, and versatility of rhetoric as a field of inquiry, study, and practice. In their introductory essay, Bennett and Leff remark, "Working quietly against the grain of a specialized [academic] culture, Murphy has opened a conduit between historical scholarship and the classroom" (4). A lengthy bibliography of Murphy's publications and work in progress, contributed by Winifred Horner, follows the Preface. Like Murphy's own contributions to the field, the essays collected in Rhetoric and Pedagogy successfully "hold historical scholarship and current pragmatic interests in a useful relationship to one another" (4). By their own interest in bridging historical scholarship and current teaching practice, the contributors to this Festschrift honor Murphy's legacy and continue his work. Cynthia Miecznikowski Sheard Ian Worthington ed. Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action (London: Routledge, 1994) xi+277pp. This collection of twelve essays is interesting for three reasons. First, it constitutes one more sign that rhetoric is undergoing a veritable renaissance. Second, it shows that classics, a discipline once indifferent or hostile to the rhetorical enterprise, is now willing to join other disciplines in recognizing rhetoric as a major force in the shaping of western culture (nine of the contributors to this collection are classicists). Third, and most important, this volume does not concern itself with rhetoric in isolation. Rather, it examines its many intersections with such genres as politics, history, law, epic, tragedy, comedy and philosophy. The various treatments of the particular intersections combine traditional and new insights, and open the path to many provocative questions. Likewise, they generally invite reflection and criticism. More importantly, however, the collection as a whole points to a maximalist project that takes rhetoric beyond the orators, who practised it and the philosophers, who discussed Reviews 309 it. In so doing, it suggests that richer understandings can be had when placing rhetoric at the center of the Hellenic culture and crossing it with other genres (i.e. epic, tragedy, comedy, history). In this regard, the collection recommends itself in its entirety much more than any one of its chapters. The common framework that all contributors share comes from the distinction as well as the connection between rhetoric as the study, and oratory as the practice of persuasion. According to the editor, "The aim of this book is to bring together...discussions of the relationship of Greek oratory and rhetoric to a variety of important areas and genres, at the same time reflecting new trends and ideas now at work in the study of rhetoric" (ix). In the first chapter, "From orality to rhetoric: an intellectual transformation", Carol Thomas and Edward Webb trace the emergence of rhetoric along the orality-literacy continuum. Relying on but also refining the work of George Kennedy, Eric Havelock, Walter Ong and Thomas Cole, the authors point out that even though rhetoric benefited from the contributions of literacy it nevertheless retained its initial oral character. This chapter examines rhetoric along the registers of composition, delivery, and analysis, and pays attention to four features: uses, persuasive intent, magical aura, and the speaker's esteem. In chapter 2, "Rhetorical means of persuasion", Christopher Carey argues that of the three Aristotelian pisteis, pathos and ethos are more indirect while the third, logos, is a more direct means of persuasion. Carey illustrates the uses of pathos and ethos in the actual speeches of orators such as Demosthenes, Aeschines and Lysias, and concludes that Aristotle's distinctions are considerably "neater" than their actual use shows. In chapter 3, "Probability and persuasion: Plato and early Greek rhetoric", Michael Gagarin seeks to minimize the Platonic influence on our understanding of classical Greek rhetoric. His thesis is that Plato's widely accepted claim that the orators prefer probability over the truth is demonstrably wrong. Gagarin reviews the uses of probability arguments in the surviving speeches of orators and sophists and finds no evidence supporting Plato's claim. Gagarin's study shows convincingly that the orators generally value truth; however, they resort to probability when RHETORICA 310 the truth of a case is unknown, unclear, or subject to differing interpretations. In chapter 4, "Classical rhetoric and modem theories of discourse", David Cohen takes a brief but...

Reviews three books: August Wilson and the African American Odyssey, by Kim Pereira; When Students Have Power: Negotiating Authority in a Critical Pedagogy, by Ira Shor; A Guide to Argumentative Writing, by Byron L. Stay.

Describes how one teacher adapted the Toulmin argumentation model to improve discussion in introductory literature classes. Describes the method and its application to literary texts. Shows how it enables students with no particular attraction to literature to invent and respond to arguments about a text, ground those arguments in the text, and warrant them to their classmates’ satisfaction.

One of the few authors to define and focus on feminist theories of rhetoric, Krista Ratcliffe takes Bathsheba s dilemma as her controlling metaphor: I have the feelings of a woman, says Bathsheba Everdene in Hardy s Far from the Madding Crowd, only the language of men. Although women and men have different relationships to language and to each other, traditional theories of rhetoric do not foreground such gender differences, Ratcliffe notes. She argues that feminist theories of rhetoric are needed if we are to recognize, validate, and address Bathsheba s dilemma. Ratcliffe argues that because feminists generally have not conceptualized their language theories from the perspective of rhetoric and composition studies, rhetoric and composition scholars must construct feminist theories of rhetoric by employing a variety of interwoven strategies: recovering lost or marginalized texts; rereading traditional rhetoric texts; extrapolating rhetorical theories from such nonrhetoric texts as letters, diaries, essays, cookbooks, and other sources; and constructing their own theories of rhetoric. Focusing on the third option, Ratcliffe explores ways in which the rhetorical theories of Virginia Woolf, Mary Daly, and Adrienne Rich may be extrapolated from their Anglo-American feminist texts through examination of the interrelationship between what these authors write and how they write. In other words, she extrapolates feminist theories of rhetoric from interwoven claims and textual strategies. By inviting Woolf, Daly, and Rich into the rhetorical traditions and by modeling the extrapolation strategy/methodology on their writings, Ratcliffe shows how feminist texts about women, language, and culture may be reread from the vantage point of rhetoric to construct feminist theories of rhetoric. She rereads Anglo-American feminist texts both to expose their white privilege and to rescue them from charges of naivete and essentialism. She also outlines the pedagogical implications of these three feminist theories of rhetoric, thus contributing to ongoing discussions of feminist pedagogies. Traditional rhetorical theories are gender-blind, ignoring the reality that women and men occupy different cultural spaces and that these spaces are further complicated by race and class, Ratcliffe explains. Arguing that issues such as who can talk, where one can talk, and how one can talk emerge in daily life but are often disregarded in rhetorical theories, Ratcliffe rereads Roland Barthes The Old Rhetoric to show the limitations of classical rhetorical theories for women and feminists. Discovering spaces for feminist theories of rhetoric in the rhetorical traditions, Ratcliffe invites readers not only to question how women have been located as a part of and apart from these traditions but also to explore the implications for rhetorical history, theory, and pedagogy. In extrapolating rhetorical theories from three feminist writers not generally considered rhetoricians, Ratcliffe creates a new model for examining women s work. She situates the rhetorical theories of Woolf, Daly, and Rich within current discussions about feminist pedagogy, particularly the interweavings of critical thinking, reading, and writing. Ratcliffe concludes with an application to teaching.

This study investigated differences among student writers at three grade levels (6, 8, and 10) and between expert writers and students in terms of the uses and complexity of arguments presented in their persuasive texts. To analyze argument, a model was developed that could account for structural variations occurring across a range of writing situations. The characteristics of this model were defined using categories derived from a model of semantic representation in discourse. The structural analysis revealed that (a) argument was the predominant organizational structure for all writers, (b) more than 80% of students produced arguments involving some form of opposition, (c) embedded arguments identified in expert texts functioned primarily as countered rebuttals and in student texts as subclaims or reservations, and (d) expert texts contained relatively higher frequencies of warrants, countered rebuttals, and modals, and student uses of these substructures increased with grade.

Advocates a position on the margins of English studies. Provides a general introduction to analytic philosophy of language. Elaborates Donald Davidson’s work on interpretation, which demonstrates why truth and rationality are inextricably linked to language and communication. Calls for reconfiguring the debate between and assessment of the disparate methodologies of English studies.

SHORT REVIEWS Christopher Lyle Johnstone, Theory, Text, Context: Issues in Greek Rhetoric and Oratory (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996) 196 pp. In many ways, this collection of articles on Ancient Greek rhetoric in English offers the best of what contemporary historiography and rhetorical theory have to offer. Rather than reading texts in isolation, or presuming interpretive clarity, these articles interpret their objects in relationship to the social, political, and even physical circumstances that influenced their production. Taken together, they summarize much of what is new in ancient rhetoric. Christopher Lyle Johnstone introduces the collection by rehearsing current rhetorical historiography, attributing the term rhetorike to Plato but acknowledging the creative significance of a set of prototypical rhetorical conditions such as the rise of democratic institutions, the spread of literacy, and the concomitant transformation of mythos into logos which made abstract categorization possible. These social, political, and intellectual conditions nurtured rhetoric as a distinct discipline. Johnstone's perspective clearly differentiates this work from earlier creation narratives that attributed rhetoric to the spontaneous genius of specific individuals. Continuing this line of reasoning, the first article, one of Father Grimaldi's last, "How Do We Get from CoraxTisias to Plato-Aristotle in Greek Rhetorical Theory?" is an excellent overview of the sophists' contribution to the development of rhetoric, and thus a contribution to their ongoing rehabilitation. While Grimaldi acknowledges that his task is synthetic and therefore not highly original, the article is nevertheless thorough and cogent. The second article dedicated to sophistic origins, John Poulakos's "Extending and Correcting the Rhetorical Tradition: Aristotle's Perception of the Sophists" argues that Aristotle acknowledged the 227 RHETORICA 228 sophists for inaugurating the study of rhetoric but went to great lengths to correct the logical and linguistic inadequacies that were the inevitable result of their imperfect epistemology. Thus he concludes that Aristotle followed Plato insofar as he critiqued the sophists but "marked out an independent path", for himself by including their efforts as among those founding the rhetorical tradition. In the third piece on the place of sophistry within the tradition, Schiappa argues for what he calls a "predisciplinary approach" to the study of the sophists, by which he means avoiding "vocabulary and assumptions about discursive theories and practice imported from the fourth century when analyzing fifth-century texts" (p. 67). He makes the case for rigorous historiography by rereading Gorgias's Helen in such a way as to prove that it "advanced the art of written prose in general, and of argumentative composition in particular" (p. 78) while in no way succumbing to the tendency to perceive the sophistic piece as somehow indicative of the philosophy/rhetoric split which was an intellectual artifact of later developments. Leaving the sophists but remaining firmly within the realm of current theoretical issues, Michael C. Leff questions the general applicability of Dilip Goankar's assertion that contemporary rhetorical theory differs from ancient theory in that it is hermeneutic rather than performative and dubious about the possibility of human agency fully explaining rhetorical decisions. Leff reads Thucydides's account of the Mytilene disaster as evidence that the ancients were, or at least Thucydides was, aware of how rhetorical discourse could be shaped by circumstances beyond participants' control. Leff ends his argument, however, by asserting that Thucydides' observations were intended to have a therapeutic effect in that "The readers of History...become better equipped to assume the role of agent, for they are better able to interpret that role not just at the moment of action but also from within an understanding of history" (p. 96). Christopher Lyle Johnstone's own noteworthy contribution combines archaeology with acoustics to challenge one of the idols of traditional rhetorical history. Whereas we have always argued that deliberative rhetoric must have played an integral part in Athenian democracy, Johnstone points out that we have never taken into account the physical circumstances of delivery in the open spaces of the ancient agoras. The Pynx, in particular, he argues, was constructed such that even under ideal climatic conditions, perhaps only "half of the 5000 Reviews 229 present could understand what speakers were saying" (p. 126). If this compelling argument is true, then we need to...