The art of rhetoric remains one of the most valuable skills to possess in a healthy democracy….
Readings in the History of Rhetoric fills a large void in the rhetoric market by assembling a worthy collection of central essays and key primary texts that shaped rhetorical history over the past 3,000 years. Readings in the History of Rhetoric provides students access to primary texts from each era that propelled the rhetoric field forward, invited responses, critiques, invectives, and epideictics from others.
By utilizing a decidedly oratory-friendly approach to the history of rhetoric, as opposed to the literary approach adopted by several texts on the market today, Readings in the History of Rhetoric addresses needs of instructors with a background in rhetoric and public address.
Readings in the History of Rhetoric is divided into five sections:
- Section One considers the ancient Greeks
- Section Two presents readings from ancient Roman rhetoricians
- Section Three offers readers various selections from the medieval and Renaissance eras
- Section Four invites readers to engage a series of debates
- Section Five moves the reader into the contemporary era, focusing on readings drawn from key theorists of the early and mid-twentieth century.
By securing actual syllabi from current teachers of the subject and building his book around the texts being used in those courses, the author has crafted a valuable tool for students and teachers of the history of rhetoric. I endorse Readings in the History of Rhetoric wholeheartedly! I very much wish I had this resource forty-some years ago.
Donovan J. Ochs, Emeritus Professor of Rhetoric, The University of Iowa
SECTION ONE Greek Rhetoric
The Iliad by Homer
History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydide
Perikles’ Funeral Oration by Aspasia
The Helen by Gorgias
Antidosis by Isocrates
Gorgias by Plato
Phaedrus by Plato
The Rhetoric by Aristotle
On the Crown by Demosthenes
SECTION TWO Roman Rhetoric
De Oratore by Cicero
The First Philippic by Cicero
Institutio Oratoria by Quintilian
On the Sublime
SECTION THREE Medieval and Renaissance Rhetoric
The Principles of Letter-Writing by Anonymous
Mistress Tengswich to Hildegard by Hildegard of Bingen
Hildegard to the Congregation of Nuns by Hildegard of Bingen
Letter 74 by Catherine of Siena
Letter 272 by Catherine of Siena
The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pisan
Arguments in Rhetoric Against Quintilian (excerpts) by Petrus Ramus
January 28, 1563 by Queen Elizabeth I
January 2, 1567 by Queen Elizabeth I
August 9, 1588 by Queen Elizabeth I
November 30, 1601 by Queen Elizabeth I
Eve’s Apology by Aemilia Lanyer
SECTION FOUR Enlightenment Rhetoric
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences by René Descartes
Women’s Speaking Justified by Margaret Fell
On Conversation by Madeleine de Scudéry
On the Study Methods of Our Time by Giambattista Vico
The Philosophy of Rhetoric by George Campbell
Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres by Hugh Blair
The Elements of Rhetoric by Richard Whately
SECTION FIVE Twentieth-Century Rhetoric
A Grammar of Motives by Kenneth Burke
A Rhetoric of Motives by Kenneth Burke
The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation by Chaim Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca
The Problem of Speech Genres by M.M. Bakhtin
Suggested Readings
Alfred
Mueller
Alfred G. Mueller II is Dean of the Division of Arts and Sciences at Neumann University. He earned his B.A. degrees in Communication, History, and Philosophy from Wilkes University and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa. He is the author of In the Name of God: Rhetoric, Religion, and Identity in Post-Soviet Ukraine (Bloomington: Authorhouse, 2004), past editor of the Russian Communication Association’s journal Vestnik, and has published articles in the Western Journal of Communication, The Journal of Communication and Religion, The Journal of the Association for Communication Administrators, the international journal Ethnologies, the online journal The Successful Professor, the Pennsylvania Communication Annual, and the Iowa Journal of Communication. He also served as a Fulbright Scholar in Armenia and as part of a bridging project sponsored by the Ford Foundation between the University of Iowa and Moscow State University.
By securing actual syllabi from current teachers of the subject and building his book around the texts being used in those courses, the author has crafted a valuable tool for students and teachers of the history of rhetoric. I endorse Readings in the History of Rhetoric wholeheartedly! I very much wish I had this resource fortysome years ago.
Donovan J. Ochs,
Emeritus Professor of Rhetoric
The University of Iowa (1938-2012)