Book of Quotations on Rhetoric
Kinney 1 Book of Quotations on Rhetoric Nearly 2,000 years ago, in the Institutio oratoria, the Roman rhetorician Quintilian undertook to catalogue what he believed were the more significant definitions of rhetoric. Some 3,000 words later, he concluded, “there has grown up a perverse desire in writers of textbooks [on rhetoric] never to formulate anything in words which some predecessor has used. I shall have no such pretensions.” Indeed, Quintilian borrowed his definition—the science of speaking well— from Marcus Cato. Although Quintilian opted out of this “perverse desire,” it has continued unabatedly. If anything, the practice of defining and redefining the term rhetoric has intensified in recent years. In 1828, when Richard Whately sought to repeat Quintilian’s undertaking, he explained, in words that could be echoed today, “To enter into an examination of all the definitions [of rhetoric] that have been given, would lead to much uninteresting and uninstructive verbal controversy.” Undoubtedly, this obsession with definitions, taxonomies, and just words in general— copiousness, Erasmus calls it—has made rhetoric an art that is hard to master. Yet, as Kenneth Burke reminds us, “a definition the critic’s equivalent of a lyric, or of an aria in opera.” Hence, copiousness is the hallmark of rhetoric. And while it may be one of rhetoric’s greatest weaknesses, it is also one of its greatest strengths. For better or worse, rhetoric is an example of what philosopher W. B. Gallie calls an “essentially contested concept.” Sappho (ca. 6th Century BCE) “Whom has Persuasion to bring round now “to your love? Who, Sappho, is unfair to you? For, let her run, she will soon run after; “if she won’t accept gifts, she will one day give them; and if she won’t love you—she soon will “love, although unwillingly...” Source: Sappho, “Prayer to My Lady of Paphos,” Sappho: A New Translation.
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