A New Graduate Course, Fall 2001

PLATO

ARISTOTLE

CICERO

          This new course will introduce students to the history of rhetoric, concentrating on ancient Greek and Roman rhetorical theory but also including its transmission into the Middle Ages and its legacy in the modern era. Learn to . . .

•     Think like an educated ancient Greek or Roman by studying primary works by Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, St. Augustine, and others;

•     Perceive contemporary educational methods and composition techniques through the lens of ancient education and oratory;

•     Take part in the ancient quarrel between rhetoric and philosophy;

•     Apply ancient rhetoric as a method for understanding literature, politics, and theology;

•     Explore answers to the following questions:
                    Is rhetoric an art, or only a knack like cooking?
                    Is it important for a speaker (or a writer) to be a good person?
                    Is it honorable to disregard the truth in order to persuade?
                    Should education be as broad as possible, or mostly specialized?

This course will introduce students to the history of rhetoric, primarily concentrating on ancient Greek and Roman rhetorical theory but also including its transmission into the Middle Ages and its legacy in the modern era. I propose that there are three areas of emphasis in this course, presented in descending order of importance:

1. In one respect, the course is a study in the cultural history of rhetoric: Students will learn how the ancient Greeks gained their first appreciation of rhetoric through the "primary" or "natural" rhetoric of Homer, which served as a model for good public speaking in the heroic and archaic era, and how by the classical age of Greece they had begun to theorize "secondary" or "artistic" rhetoric as a means of coping with their obligations as citizens at a volatile and invigorating time. The cultural context of this period is best understood thematically as "The Quarrel Between Rhetoric and Philosophy," a recurring theme that helps explain attitudes toward rhetoric and the application of rhetorical theory in the "Second Sophistic" of the Roman era, the Christian Middle Ages, and modern times.

2. Although the ancients understood rhetoric primarily as oratory, it is essential to illustrate how the tools of public speaking were always intimately associated with the written word and how throughout much of its history, rhetoric was often subordinated to the study of grammar and literature. Furthermore, the influence of rhetorical invention, arrangement, and style on all forms of prose and poetic composition should be demonstrated from antiquity to the modern era.

3. Finally, the history of rhetoric is in part a history of education. It is useful to understand the place of rhetoric within the Liberal Arts tradition, from the elementary school of the Greeks and Romans to the universities of the Middle Ages beyond into our universities. Furthermore, many of the issues raised in education today found their first expression through rhetoricians, including the relationship between natural talent and learned ability on the one hand and comprehensive or specialized knowledge on the other. But besides such historical or philosophical aspects, a knowledge of rhetoric's history provides a useful gloss to the development of composition pedagogy. This should be demonstrated as it pertains to contemporary writing instruction, for it is likely to have the greatest benefit for those graduate students in English who are already professional writing teachers whose methods ultimately derive from classical models.

Through a combination of in-class and out-of-class writing, speaking and research projects, students will be able to identify the canons of rhetoric as they developed in ancient, medieval and modern periods. They will be able to demonstrate how classical rhetoric provides a foundation for much contemporary compositional theory and practice. They will develop keener awareness of how socio-political factors influence various cultural applciations of rhetoric as a means informing, persuading, and entertaining audiences.

(Students will be required to purchase only some of the following works; they will read about others in summary).

Plato. Apology.

—. Gorgias.

—. Phaedrus.

Aristotle. The Art of Rhetoric.

Cicero. De inventione.

—. De Oratore.

Rhetorica ad Herennium.

Quintilian. Institutio oratoria.

Horace. Ars poetica.

Aphthonius. Progymnasmata.

Augustine. De doctrina Christiana.

Geoffrey Vinsauf, Poetria Nova.

Bacon. The Advancement of Learning.

Secondary Sources

(Students will purchase Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times; as many of the other sources as possible will be placed on reserve)

Baldwin, Charles S. Ancient Rhetoric and Poetic. 1924. Cloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1959.

—. Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic. 1928. Cloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1959.

Crowley, Sharon and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1999.

D'Angelo, Frank. Composition in the Classical Tradition. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2000.

Horner, Winifred Bryan, ed. Historical Rhetoric: An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Sources in English. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1980.

---, ed. The Present State of Scholarship in Historical and Contemporary Rhetoric. Rev. ed. Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1990.

Kennedy, George A. A New History of Classical Rhetoric. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994.

—. Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980.

Miller, Joseph M., et al., eds. Readings in Medieval Rhetoric. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1973.

Murphy, James J., ed. A Short history of Writing Instruction from Ancient Greece to Twentieth Century America. Davis, Calif.: Hermagoras Press, 1990.

—, ed. A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric. Davis, Calif.: Hermagoras Press, 1983.

—. Medieval Rhetoric: A Select Bibliography. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978.

—, ed. Medieval Eloquence: Studies in the Theory and Practice of Medieval Rhetoric. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978.

—. Rhetoric in the Middle Ages. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974.

—, ed. Three Medieval Rhetorical Arts. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1971.