Classical Rhetoric in English PoetryBack in print after 17 years, this is a concise history of rhetoric as it relates to structure, genre, and style, with special reference to English literature and literary criticism from Ancient Greece to the end of the 18th century. The core of the book is a quite original argument that the figures of rhetoric were not mere mechanical devices, were not, as many believed, a "nuisance, a quite sterile appendage to rhetoric to which (unaccountably) teachers, pupils, and writers all over the world devoted much labor for over 2,000 years." Rather, Vickers demonstrates, rhetoric was a stylized representation of language and human feelings. Vickers supplements his argument through analyses of the rhetorical and emotional structure of four Renaissance poems. He also defines 16 of the most common figures of rhetoric, citing examples from the classics, the Bible, and major English poets from Chaucer to Pope. |
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Contents
Preface | 11 |
A CONCISE HISTORY OF RHETORIC | 43 |
THE PROCESSES OF RHETORIC | 61 |
Copyright | |
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Other editions - View all
Classical Rhetoric in English Poetry: With a New Preface and Annotated ... Brian Vickers Limited preview - 1989 |
Classical Rhetoric in English Poetry: With a New Preface and Annotated ... Brian Vickers Limited preview - 1989 |
Common terms and phrases
Ages analysis aposiopesis applied argument Aristotle Astrophil and Stella Baldwin called century chapter character Cicero classical connection conventions course criticism Curtius demonstration described detail discussion Donne effect Elizabethan eloquence emotional English especially essential evidence examples expression fact feeling follow force function further genre give given Greek Herennium human idea important influence interest kind language later Latin literary literature live logic Lost master meaning medieval Middle mind move nature observed orator oratory organic perhaps period poem poetry poets Pope practical praise processes prose psychological Quintilian Ramist reason reference Renaissance repeated repetition rhetorical figures rhetoricians schools seems seen sense Shakespeare shown Sidney Sonnet speech stress structure style suggest teaching theory things thou thought tion tradition tropes whole writers