Rhetoric Society Quarterly Sep 2004

Rhetorical theory in Yale's graduate schools in the late nineteenth century: The example of William C. Robinson'sForensic Oratory

Merrill D. Whitburn Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Abstract

Abstract Although conventional views about nineteenth‐century rhetoric highlight a shift from oratory to composition and from classical rhetoric with origins in Cicero and Quintilian to a "new" rhetoric with origins in Campbell, Blair, and Whately (with an attendant loss of scholarship and quality), William C. Robinson's Forensic Oratory (1893) can be grouped with a growing number of works that complicate such views. Robinson continues to emphasize oratory and to derive his theory from Cicero and Quintilian, using a complex of ideas called "uniformitarianism" to justify his direct appropriation of classical ideas. The resulting rhetoric lacks neither responsible scholarship nor high quality.

Journal
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published
2004-09-01
DOI
10.1080/02773940409391295
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Topics
classical rhetoric modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism public rhetoric
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (3)

  1. Cope (2015)
    “Inspiration of Delivery”: John A. Broadus and the Evangelical Underpinnings of…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  2. DePalma (2012)
    Rhetorical Education for the Nineteenth-Century Pulpit: Austin Phelps and the I…
    Rhetoric Review
  3. Whitburn (2007)
    Invention in James M. Hoppin's HOMILETICS : Scope and Classicism in Late Ninete…
    Advances in the History of Rhetoric

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