A New History of Classical Rhetoric

by George A. Kennedy

Overview

George Kennedy's three volumes on classical rhetoric have long been regarded as authoritative treatments of the subject. This new volume, an extensive revision and abridgment of The Art of Persuasion in Greece, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, and Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors, provides a comprehensive history of classical rhetoric, one that is sure to become a standard for its time.


Kennedy begins by identifying the rhetorical features of early Greek literature that anticipated the formulation of "metarhetoric," or a theory of rhetoric, in the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e. and then traces the development of that theory through the Greco-Roman period. He gives an account of the teaching of literary and oral composition in schools, and of Greek and Latin oratory as the primary rhetorical genre. He also discusses the overlapping disciplines of ancient philosophy and religion and their interaction with rhetoric. The result is a broad and engaging history of classical rhetoric that will prove especially useful for students and for others who want an overview of classical rhetoric in condensed form.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691000596
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	11/06/1994
Series:	Princeton Paperbacks Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

George A. Kennedy is Paddison Professor of Classics, Professor of Comparative Literature, and Adjunct Professor of Speech Communication at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Table of Contents

Preface
Ch. 1	Introduction: The Nature of Rhetoric	3
Ch. 2	Persuasion in Greek Literature before 400 B.C.	11
Ch. 3	Greek Rhetorical Theory from Corax to Aristotle	30
Plato's Gorgias	35
Plato's Phaedrus	39
Isocrates	43
The Rhetoric for Alexander	49
Aristotle	51
Ch. 4	The Attic Orators	64
Lysias	65
Demosthenes	68
Ch. 5	Hellenistic Rhetoric	81
Theophrastus	84
Later Peripatetics	87
Demetrius, On Style	88
The Stoics	90
The Academics	93
The Epicureans	93
Asianism	95
Hermagoras and Stasis Theory	97
Ch. 6	Early Roman Rhetoric	102
Cato the Elder	106
Roman Orators of the Late Second and Early First Centuries B.C.	111
Latin Rhetoricians	115
Cicero's On Invention	117
The Rhetoric for Herennius	121
Ch. 7	Cicero	128
Cicero's Orations in the Years from 81 to 56 B.C.	129
On the Orator	140
For Milo and Cicero's Later Speeches	147
Brutus and Orator	151
Ch. 8	Rhetoric in Augustan Rome	159
Greek Rhetoricians of the Second Half of the First Century B.C.	160
Dionysius of Halicarnassus	161
Declamation and Seneca the Elder	166
Ch. 9	Latin Rhetoric in the Silver Age	173
Quintilian	177
Discussions of the "Decline of Eloquence"	186
Pliny the Younger	192
Fronto and Gellius	196
Apuleius	199
Ch. 10	Greek Rhetoric under the Roman Empire	201
Progymnasmata	202
Hermogenes and the Formation of the Hermogenic Corpus	208
Prolegomena	217
Other Greek Rhetorical Treatises	224
Ch. 11	The Second Sophistic	230
Dio Chrysostom	233
Polemon and Herodes Atticus	237
Aclius Aristides	239
Sophistry from the Late Second to the Early Fourth Century	241
The Sophistic Renaissance of the Fourth Century	242
Prohaeresius	243
Himerius	245
Libanius	248
Themistius	251
Synesius	252
The "University" of Constantinople	254
The School of Gaza	255
The Decline of the Schools	256
Ch. 12	Christianity and Classical Rhetoric	257
Christian Panegyric	260
Gregory of Nazianzus	261
Other Major Figures of the Fourth Century	263
The Latin Fathers	264
Saint Augustine	265
Ch. 13	The Survival of Classical Rhetoric from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages	271
The Decline in the East	271
The Decline in the West	273
Latin Grammarians of Later Antiquity	274
The "Minor" Latin Rhetoricians	275
Martianus Capella	279
Cassiodorus	279
Isidore of Seville	280
Other Late Latin Works on Rhetoric	280
Bede and Alcuin	281
Boethius	282
Bibliography	285
Index	297

Editorial Reviews

"The panoptic vision, the reliable accounts, and deeply conservative view of what constitutes rhetoric and rhetorical theory have justly made these books standard for classicists and other disciplines. . . . Many of the qualities admired in the three volumes are transferred elegantly to the briefer format. There are few scholars who could construct such a compilation."

Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews

"The discipline of rhetoric, as Mr. Kennedy shows meticulously, was central to ancient life."

The Economist

The panoptic vision, the reliable accounts, and deeply conservative view of what constitutes rhetoric and rhetorical theory have justly made these books standard for classicists and other disciplines. . . . Many of the qualities admired in the three volumes are transferred elegantly to the briefer format. There are few scholars who could construct such a compilation.

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"The panoptic vision, the reliable accounts, and deeply conservative view of what constitutes rhetoric and rhetorical theory have justly made these books standard for classicists and other disciplines. . . . Many of the qualities admired in the three volumes are transferred elegantly to the briefer format. There are few scholars who could construct such a compilation."—Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews

From the Publisher