In defence of rhetoric - Brian Vickers

This work sets out to reinstate rhetoric. It begins with an overview of the rhetorical system as developed in classical times, surveying major texts from Aristotle to Tacitus, describing their main emphases and commenting on their value. Plato's attacks on rhetoric are analyzed and the author aims to show that they are a biased travesty of Athenian politics and rhetoric. The controversy between philosophy and rhetoric is traced from the original defence of rhetoric (by Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian) to its triumph in the Renaissance and the subsequent revenge of philosophy.;The Renaissance is considered a time which revived the original conception of eloquence as the natural gift of mankind. The author attempts to demonstrate that rhetoric became the major discipline in the creation and appreciation of literature and the other arts. He emphasizes the expressive function of rhetorical devices and shows how the links between style and persuasion were carried over into music and painting in the 16th and 17th centuries.;Professor Vickers also looks at the modern novel in order to show that writers still value rhetoric as a vehicle for style and thought. He concludes by surveying the state of rhetoric at the present time, in the critical theories of Roman Jakobson, Paul de Man and others, where he feels it suffers a fragmentation and mis-application comparable to that of the Middle Ages.