Friedrich Schiller may not be a household name among contemporary rhetoricians, yet since the 1960s Schiller’s critics have begun to take an interest in the rhetorical dimension of his aesthetic writings, particularly with respect to his Aesthetic Letters. These efforts, however, tend to focus on Schiller’s method of presentation rather than the possible rhetorical implications of the Letters’ key ideas and concepts. This essay proposes treating the Letters as an instance of implicit rhetorical theory, one that suggests an innovative model of rhetorical effectivity, according to which rhetoric enables people to experience the normative ideal of beauty as freedom.

ABSTRACTThis article uses Heidegger's critique of the aesthetic tradition to reconsider the limits and potential of aesthetic rhetoric. Contextualizing rhetoric's so-called aesthetic turn within the German aesthetic tradition, we argue that aesthetic rhetoric remains constrained by aesthetics' traditional opposition to the rational and the true. This theoretical heritage has often prevented contemporary aesthetic rhetorical theory from considering the value of art beyond sense experience and ritualized cultural reproduction. We claim, however, that rhetoric can be artistic and at the same time project a community's evolving sense of political and social truth. Through an analysis of Simón Bolívar's Angostura Address, which in 1819 inaugurated a political rebirth of the Venezuelan republic, we demonstrate how the art of rhetoric can exhibit Heidegger's three senses of “aletheiaic” truth: the bestowing, grounding, and beginning of a political community.

The aim of this essay is to demonstrate how Aristotle's conception of tragic catharsis provides a basis for fleshing out the political office he tacitly assigns to rhetoric: defending a city-state's constitution against its characteristic forces of corruption so as to promote stability over the long-run. By inquiring into the Politics' emphasis on preservation and its endorsement of ostracism, this essay argues that Aristotle's theory of constitutions enables a rethinking of rhetoric's political efficacy in terms of a non-representational cathartic process that by means of facilitating civic purgation renews a community's political identity and so strengthens its commitment to the task of preserving the constitution. It demonstrates how, in articulating the grounds for exile, appeals to ostracism work toward the clarification both of the community's organizing principle and the emotional bonds of political philia. The essay concludes by reflecting on the persistence of rhetorical catharsis in today's Western democracies.