Classical Rhetorical Theory

Plato and Aristotle are key figures in the study of rhetoric. Classical period had been known as the era where rhetoric emerged as the influential language existence. Experts on rhetoric had discussed deeply about the history of rhetoric from the classical period up to the renaissance. In this writing, the focus of the discussion is in the classical period. The reviews being discussed in this writing are mainly derived from ongoing discussion on rhetoric.

This chapter discusses the place of metaphor in ancient and modern political rhetoric. It starts with the idea of metaphor in classical rhetorical and stylistic theories and juxtaposes it with modern cognitive theories, to note that the differences between Greek theorists’ and modern linguists’ views have often been misconstrued and overemphasised. It argues that the cognitive aspect of metaphor, well represented in Greek theorising, was sidelined in Roman and later tradition. It also analyses examples of some prominent types of metaphors in classical Athenian and recent rhetorical practice, including Cold War rhetoric, and discusses their real-life impact (including metaphors of states as structures and containers, personifications and body politic, and war as a sporting competition).

A subject frequently discussed in ancient commentaries on Plato but rarely discussed in modern scholarship is how multiple ways of ordering Platonic dialogues can inform our readings of the dialogues. This article looks at four different methods of ordering Platonic dialogues, chronological (order of composition), dramatic (order of dates of dramatic setting), paideutic (order in which dialogues are taught), and metaphysical (philosophical or theoretical progression), and shows how the narratives constructed by these different orders create radically different interpretations of Platonic philosophy. The article provides several examples of the historiography of Platonic chronologies, including the middle Platonists Thrasyllus and Alcinous, neoplatonists Iamblicus and [Elias], and modern scholarship and argues that it might be possible to adjudicate among competing interpretations of Plato by giving most weight to readings which remain valid under multiple simultaneous orderings of the Platonic dialogues and least weight to those readings which depend too closely on the validity of a specific single method of ordering the dialogues.

St. Boethius’ text, "An Overview of the Structure of Rhetoric," is a very concise, yet sound, summary of classical rhetorical theory. For scholars new to the field of rhetoric, this text is an excellent entry point, since it is much briefer than Aristotle’s "Rhetorica" (On Rhetoric), the "Rhetorica ad Herennium" [traditionally (mis)attributed to Cicero], or Cicero’s "De Inventione" & "De Oratore."  This precis gives a synopsis and evaluation of Boethius’s "Overview . . . of Rhetoric."

This paper will examine the eight heads used in these two stages of the progymnasmata.  I will suggest these heads impart an ability to coherently develop argumentation.  However, an equal, if not more profound result of mastering these skills, is an ability to create beauty or delight for an audience.  Aphthonius’ use of what Aristotle calls Recognition will be considered in light of the four narrative heads of Cause, Converse, Analogy, and Example.  Historical and contemporary examples of student writing will be used to illustrate a relationship between these ancient exercises and the creative expression of beauty.  I will finally suggest that the ability and desire to provide an audience with beauty leads a writer to experience language as participatory rather than coercive.

This essay will demonstrate how both the cultural and temporal antecedents of classical rhetoric are linked to Mesopotamian writing by their shared use of similes, such as fable, aenigma, and parable as pardeigmae. Mesopotamian myths employed allegory and aenigma to advance a cultural argument that intersects with common theoretical topics in ancient rhetoric through analogical reasoning. Finally, this essay will introduce this obscure but highly relevant source of rhetorical thinking from Mesopotamia and their culturally transmitted theories in a neglected primary source, Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta. This brief epic shares similar philosophical ground with ancient Greco-Roman rhetoric, and addresses rhetoric's fundamental nature at a much earlier point in history than accounted for in existing histories of classical rhetoric.

In recent years, humanists and social scientists have shown increasing interest in human-animal relations – to the point where many now speak of an ‘animal turn’ in the humanities and social sciences. Across history, psychology, anthropology, literature, sociology, philosophy, and law, an interdisciplinary field of human-animal studies has been forming. Certain common themes run through this diverse field, not least the reproduction of human-animal difference, and the conditions and the implications thereof.

Despite the long history of language use as a marker of such difference, the academic quest to investigate the boundary between human and nonhuman has, somewhat surprisingly, not taken root within rhetorical studies – at least not until now. For this edited volume, we therefore call for chapters that investigate the place of nonhuman animals in the purview of rhetorical theory; what it would mean to communicate beyond the human community; how rhetoric reveals our ‘brute roots.’ In other words, this book invites contributions which enlighten us about likely or possible implications of the animal turn within rhetorical studies. Would such a turn imply, for instance, that rhetoric needs a nonanthropocentric reconfiguration? The question, perhaps, is this: What difference would it make to the discipline if we assumed that nonhuman forms of communication were as interesting as human ones?

cadru didactic asociat la Facultatea de Litere, secția de Filologie clasică, unde susține cursuri și seminarii de latină și greacă veche. A efectuat stagii de documentare în Italia și a fost bursier DAAD la Universitatea din Münster, Germania. Este autor al mai multor studii publicate în reviste de specialitate și în volume colective. La Editura Universității "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" din Iași a publicat, în colaborare, Marcus Tullius Cicero, In L. Catilinam orationes quatuor / Cele patru cuvântări împotriva lui L. Catilina, ediţie bilingvă, 2013.

The Anabasis is a rich text because it complicates the simple dichotomy between force and persuasion. Xenophon not only shows himself fully prepared to use force to attain his aims when convenient, and often uses rhetoric to justify past acts of violence or to threaten future violence if his expectations of “justice” are not met. Violence, in fact, is present in almost everything Xenophon does or says in some way, although often implicit and subtle. What I wish to explore in this essay, therefore, is how rhetoric and power relate to one another in different rhetorical situations as narrated by Xenophon in the Anabasis. Through this exercise I hope to both reveal the subtlety of Xenophon’s rhetoric and to clarify the overall relationship among rhetoric, violence, and power in rhetorical performance as it continues in the present.

How Evagrius Ponticus (d. 399) composed his highly influential treatises of short and succinct chapters (kepahalaia) is bewildering and has been discussed by many scholars. In this essay the literary composition of Evagrius’ To monks in monasteries and communities, or Ad monachos, a typical text of short chapters, is examined from a literary perspective by relating the text to literary conventions, common in late antique literature and in rhetorical handbooks and exercises (progymnasmata). It is demonstrated how the teaching develops gradually in accordance with a pattern for a so-called amplified argument (epicheireme) codified in Pseudo-Hermogenes Progymnasmata. By this arrangement of the teaching, the reader is offered, not just a random taste of various aspects of the monastic life, but a set of specific conclusions to implement or to be aware of practically in the life as monk; conclusions that are perceptible not at just a cursory glance, but at a careful and repeated reading.

ISBN 978-3-7772-1934-9

Kai Brodersen
Menandros Rhetor: Abhandlungen zur Rhetorik. Zweisprachige Ausgabe (Biblothek der griechischen Literatur 88)
Stuttgart: Hiersemann-Verlag 2019
288 Seiten, gebunden


Erste Hilfe für (antike) Redenschreiber

“Das Buch des Menandros, aber schnell!” Diesen Hilferuf sandte der spätantiker Redenschreiber Victor an seinen Bruder, dem er sein Exemplar geliehen hatte, ohne daran zu denken, dass er es für eine eigene Rede benötigt. Wie nämlich kann man ein Land, eine Stadt loben und wie einen Kaiser? Welche Rede verspricht Erfolg, wenn sich ein Politiker bei einem Machthaber oder seinem Statthalter einschmeicheln möchte? Was sagt man zur Begrüßung, was zum Abschied? Und mit welcher Rede kann bei Hochzeiten, Geburtstagen und Todesfällen reüssieren? Konkrete Antworten auf solche Fragen bieten zwei vor gut 1700 Jahren entstandene Abhandlungen des Menandros Rhetor mit praktischen Ratschlägen für Redenschreiber.

Beide Traktate hat Kai Brodersen, Professor für Antike Kultur an der Universität Erfurt, nun erstmals in einer deutschen Übersetzung vorgelegt und in einer zweisprachigen Ausgabe präsentiert. Die Einführung stellt die Abhandlungen in ihren historischen Kontext, zahlreiche Anmerkungen und ein Anhang mit Register erschließen sie für ein heutiges Lesepublikum – und können damit auch heute Redenschreibern wie einst jenem Victor nützen, der das Buch des Menandros so dringend zurückhaben wollte.

Kai Brodersen
Menandros Rhetor: Abhandlungen zur Rhetorik. Zweisprachige Ausgabe (Biblothek der griechischen Literatur 88)
Stuttgart: Hiersemann-Verlag 2019
288 Seiten, gebunden
ISBN 978-3-7772-1934-9

Einführungspreis bis Ende 2019 € 87,-, danach € 96,-

Rhetorical scholarship has for decades relied solely on culture to explain persuasive behavior. While this focus allows for deep explorations of historical circumstance, it neglects the powerful effects of biology on rhetorical behavior – how our bodies and brains help shape and constrain rhetorical acts. Not only is the cultural model incomplete, but it tacitly endorses the fallacy of human exceptionalism. By introducing evolutionary biology into the study of rhetoric, this book serves as a model of a biocultural paradigm. Being mindful of biological and cultural influences allows for a deeper view of rhetoric, one that is aware of the ubiquity of persuasive behavior in nature. Human and nonhuman animals, and even some plants, persuade to survive - to live, love, and cooperate. That this broad spectrum of rhetorical behavior exists in the animal world demonstrates how much we can learn from evolutionary biology. By incorporating scholarship on animal signaling into the study of rhetoric, the author explores how communication has evolved, and how numerous different species of animals employ similar persuasive tactics in order to overcome similar problems. This cross-species study of rhetoric allows us to trace the origins of our own persuasive behaviors, providing us with a deeper history of rhetoric that transcends the written and the televised, and reveals the artifacts of our communicative past.

The Ethics of Persuasion challenges the traditional thinking that rhetoric is primarily a utilitarian art built on force and adorned with linguistic ornamentation. The book brings the thought of philosopher Jacques Derrida to a handful of foundational texts in the classical rhetorical tradition to demonstrate the surprising ethical priority of a discipline known for its focus on persuasion. And along the way, it demonstrates the significant rhetorical dimensions of deconstruction, reviving the case that Derrida has much to offer the field of rhetoric. Drawing on Derrida’s (non)definition of ethics and his pointed accounts of performativity, The Ethics of Persuasion argues that ancient theories, practices, and pedagogies of persuasion have a vital ethical component that has been under-theorized for more than two millennia. Through deconstructive readings of some of the rhetorical tradition’s most esteemed texts on persuasion—highly determined pieces by Gorgias, Lysias, Isocrates, and Plato—the book suggests that an ethics emerges from even the most forceful instances of persuasion, showing us that we are not simply sovereign beings who by turns wield and guard against linguistic techniques of rule. Our persuasive endeavors, rather, are made possible by an ethics—an encounter with otherness that interrupts self-presence.

This is a draft of published paper on how the sophists in Philostratus' Vitae Sophistarum actually earned their livings. It appeared in a festschrift for Martin Camargo that may be ordered from Brepols: http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503547770-1

This paper examines how the battle exhortation was analysed in ancient rhetoric. The Thucydidean battle exhortation is the key: by combining different lines of argumentation drawn from the oratorical practices of the late fifth century BCE, Thucydides created a new kind of battle speech. The main feature of this speech is its flexibility in reasoning and its ability to fulfil new functions in historiographic works. Those two features explain why that kind of military speech proved so successful with later historians, and they also explain the views of imperial-age rhetoricians in analysing these speeches.

This is a draft of published paper on how the sophists in Philostratus' Vitae Sophistarum actually earned their livings. It appeared in a festschrift for Martin Camargo that may be ordered from Brepols: http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503547770-1

I identify three modern approaches used to theorize epideictic rhetoric and suggest that each approach has difficulty dealing with the category of presence assigned to the genre by Aristotle. Drawing on Thucydides and, through him, Pericles' funeral oration, I suggest that Jacques Derrida's funeral speeches provide a way of rethinking the epideictic genre's presence as rhetorical ethics. More specifically, I argue that the function of presence in epideictic rhetoric is to provide an ethical interruption, and that Derrida, as one of our most accomplished funeral orators, helps us clarify the category of presence as it is described in Aristotle's and Thucydides' discussions of epideictic oratory.

This course examines the historical relationship between rhetoric (the theory and study of persuasive language and symbol use) and poetics (the theory of literary expression and representation). Together, we will examine representative theories and literary works from the ancient and medieval periods; after doing so, we will then consider the reception of some of these concepts by carefully studying 19th century material from the Mount St. Mary's University archives. While this class will not be comprehensive in its treatment of historical periods (properly covering this material even in a survey would take much longer), all students should gain a deeper understanding of how approaches to the teaching of rhetoric and poetics have influenced the production and interpretation of literature. Moreover, students will have the opportunity to investigate a period, figure(s), concept, or culture in greater depth through a research-driven seminar paper.

Brill's Companion to the Reception of Ancient Rhetoric Series: Brill's Companions to Classical Reception, Volume: 23 Volume Editors: Sophia Papaioannou, Andreas Serafim, and Michael Edwards This volume, examining the reception of ancient rhetoric, aims to demonstrate that the past is always part of the present: in the ways in which decisions about crucial political, social and economic matters have been made historically; or in organic interaction with literature, philosophy and culture at the core of the foundation principles of Western thought and values. Analysis is meant to cover the broadest possible spectrum of considerations that focus on the totality of rhetorical species (i.e. forensic, deliberative and epideictic) as they are applied to diversified topics (including, but not limited to, language, science, religion, literature, theatre and other cultural processes (e.g. athletics), politics and leadership, pedagogy and gender studies) and cross-cultural, geographical and temporal contexts. See Less Copyright Year: 2022

In the paper we explore Greco-Roman rhetoric (also known as classical rhetoric) from the perspective of intercultural communication. Defining rhetoric as a means of interaction between Greek and Roman culture we investigate some of its theoretical and socio-cultural aspects and elucidate rhetoric as: 1) established discipline of public persuasion; 2) connecting sociocultural component, which as an evolving discipline encouraged and to a certain degree even created intercultural encounters between ancient Greeks and Romans. In order to establish a connection between rhetoric as a discipline and rhetoric as an inter/cross-cultural phenomenon we explore characteristics of public speaking in ancient Greece and Rome and present some of the "rhetorical" encounters of both cultures.

I identify three modern approaches used to theorize epideictic rhetoric and suggest that each approach has difficulty dealing with the category of presence assigned to the genre by Aristotle. Drawing on Thucydides and, through him, Pericles' funeral oration, I suggest that Jacques Derrida's funeral speeches provide a way of rethinking the epideictic genre's presence as rhetorical ethics. More specifically, I argue that the function of presence in epideictic rhetoric is to provide an ethical interruption, and that Derrida, as one of our most accomplished funeral orators, helps us clarify the category of presence as it is described in Aristotle's and Thucydides' discussions of epideictic oratory.

This workshop aims to explore the linguistic and literary devices employed by ancient authors to advise or instruct their addressees. While instruction, a form of communication dependent on a teacher-pupil relationship, has been widely explored, especially in connection with philosophy (Baier, Manuwald and Zimmermann 2005; Braund 2009; Schafer 2011), the practice of giving advice and its distinction from teaching have not received the same degree of attention. Like a teacher, the advisor is usually in a superior position with respect to the addressee because of a claim to expertise in the matter. In contrast, the recipient of advice is not necessarily obliged to follow the suggestions (Ps.-Lib. char. epist. 5). Additionally, advice can be easily regarded as a “face-threatening act” (Hall 2009): this is especially the case in the highly competitive aristocratic society of Late Republican Rome. To avoid difficulties, authors could, for example, choose to praise their addressee (Arist. Rhet. 1367b35-1368a37; Rhet. Her. 3,7; Ps.-Lib. char. epist. 92) or adduce exempla for imitation (Oppermann 2000).
Although rhetorical strategies for advice and instruction overlap to some degree, scholarship has tended to focus on each phenomenon and genre separately (e.g., Gibson 1997 on didactic poetry and Langslow 2005 on technical prose). The workshop aims to bridge this divide. By considering these two phenomena as part of the same spectrum, it seeks to examine classical texts of advice and instruction, ranging from oratory, letters, treatises and didactic poetry, in order to address and explore the following questions in a more holistic fashion:
 What are the main features of teaching and advisory communication? Which expressions are used to give advice or instructions? How do they differ across the genres?
 What devices are commonly employed to make the suggestions and the teachings plausible (e.g. exempla, praise, specific expressions, etc.)?
 How does the advisor/teacher perceive his relationship to the addressee/pupil? How does this perception influence the way in which the suggestions/instructions are presented?
 What effect do literary models have on the teaching and advisory role of the speaker?
 To what extent can we speak about a development of the advisory and teaching motifs
across the centuries?
This is the first of two workshops, jointly organised by the Departments of Classics at the University of Manchester and the University of Rostock. The workshops will bring together scholars at all levels from Germany and the UK (from PhDs and early career to established staff) working on advice and instruction in order to create an international research network and to further enhance the existing Erasmus+ cooperation between Rostock and Manchester.

This chapter discusses the place of metaphor in ancient and modern political rhetoric. It starts with the idea of metaphor in classical rhetorical and stylistic theories and juxtaposes it with modern cognitive theories, to note that the differences between Greek theorists’ and modern linguists’ views have often been misconstrued and overemphasised. It argues that the cognitive aspect of metaphor, well represented in Greek theorising, was sidelined in Roman and later tradition. It also analyses examples of some prominent types of metaphors in classical Athenian and recent rhetorical practice, including Cold War rhetoric, and discusses their real-life impact (including metaphors of states as structures and containers, personifications and body politic, and war as a sporting competition).

Brill's Companion to the Reception of Ancient Rhetoric Series: Brill's Companions to Classical Reception, Volume: 23 Volume Editors: Sophia Papaioannou, Andreas Serafim, and Michael Edwards This volume, examining the reception of ancient rhetoric, aims to demonstrate that the past is always part of the present: in the ways in which decisions about crucial political, social and economic matters have been made historically; or in organic interaction with literature, philosophy and culture at the core of the foundation principles of Western thought and values. Analysis is meant to cover the broadest possible spectrum of considerations that focus on the totality of rhetorical species (i.e. forensic, deliberative and epideictic) as they are applied to diversified topics (including, but not limited to, language, science, religion, literature, theatre and other cultural processes (e.g. athletics), politics and leadership, pedagogy and gender studies) and cross-cultural, geographica...

Abstract: This contribution deals with speeches, their forms of appearance, and the reflection about speeches in Greek literature before the arrival of the sophists at Athens, that is from the beginnings until the last third of the 5th century B.C. Included are speech situations in Homer, statements about the effect of good and bad rhetoric in Hesiod, and passages of archaic lyric that are close to guidelines and/or to literary forms known from the history of rhetoric after ca. 400 B.C. After the archaic poets, Herodotusʼ Histories and funeral speeches in Athens provide early forms of rhetorical texts of the Classical age, while Corax and Tisias lay the foundation for later rhetorical theory. This article tries to carve out how the phenomenon later labeled ‘rhetoric’ was prepared for in early Greek literature and to point out potential continuities from Homer to the time of Aristotle.