Figuratively speaking : rhetoric and culture from Quintilian to the Twin Towers / Sarah Spence.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Spence, Sarah, 1954-

Series:

Classical inter/faces

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rhetoric--History.

Rhetoric.

History.

Rhetoric--Philosophy.

Physical Description:

144 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London : Duckworth, 2007.

Summary:

Although rhetoric is a term often associated with lies, this book takes a polemical look at rhetoric as a purveyor of truth. Its purpose is to focus on one aspect of rhetoric, figurative speech, and to demonstrate how the treatment of figures provides a common denominator among western cultures from Cicero to the present. The central idea is that, in the western tradition, figurative speech - the 'flowers' of rhetoric - provides a fundamental way for language to articulate concerns that define a culture or community. In this study Sarah Spence identifies embedded tropes for four periods in Western culture: Roman antiquity, the High Middle Ages, the age of Montaigne, and our present, post-9/11 moment. In so doing she reasserts the fundamental importance of rhetoric, the art of speaking well.

Contents:

1 Weapons of Mass Creation: Repetition versus Replication 19

2 Looking Back: Figures of Speech and Thought in the Roman World 39

3 Dwelling on a Point: Rhetoric and Love in the Middle Ages 67

4 The Chiastic Page: The Rhetoric of Montaigne's Essais 97.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 135-140) and index.

ISBN:

0715635131

9780715635131

OCLC:

71238954