The History and Theory of Rhetoric

James A. Herrick (MA University of California, PhD University of Wisconsin) is the Guy Vander Jagt Professor of Communication at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where he has taught since 1984. Herrick is the author or editor of seven books as well as a number of scholarly articles, encyclopedia entries, and reviews. In addition to his work on the history of rhetoric, Professor Herrick’s interests include new religious movements and the social implications of new biotechnologies. In 2013 his co-edited volume, After the Genome: A Language for Our Biotechnological Future, received the National Communication Association’s Ethics Division Edited Collection of the Year Award. Herrick is a founding member of the Baylor University Press series in rhetoric and religion.

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1          An Overview of Rhetoric 

Rhetoric and Persuasion 

Defining Rhetoric

Rhetorical Discourse 

Social Functions of the Art Of Rhetoric 

Conclusion 

Questions for Review 

Questions for Discussion 

Terms 

2          The Origins and Early History of Rhetoric 

The Rise of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece 

The Sophists 

Two Influential Sophists 

Gorgias 

Protagoras 

Isocrates: A Master of Rhetoric 

Aspasia’s and Athenian Rhetoric 

Conclusion 

Questions for Review 

Questions for Discussion 

Terms 

3          Plato versus the Sophists: Rhetoric on Trial 

Plato’s Gorgias: Rhetoric On Trial 

Rhetoric in Plato’s Phaedrus: A True Art? 

Conclusion 

Questions for Review 

Questions for Discussion 

Terms 

4          Aristotle on Rhetoric 

Aristotle’s Definitions of Rhetoric 

Three Rhetorical Settings 

The Artistic Proofs 

The Topoi: Lines of Argument 

Aristotle on Style 

Conclusion 

Questions for Review 

Questions for Discussion 

Terms 

5          Rhetoric at Rome 

Roman Society and the Place of Rhetoric 

The Rhetorical Theory of Cicero 

Quintilian 

Rhetoric and the Good Citizen 

Longinus: On the Sublime 

Rhetoric in the Later Roman Empire 

Conclusion 

Questions for Review 

Questions for Discussion 

Terms 

6          Rhetoric in Christian Europe 

Rhetoric in the Early Middle Ages

The Art of Poetry 

Conclusion 

Questions for Review 

Questions for Discussion 

Terms 

7          Rhetoric in the Renaissance 

Features of Renaissance Rhetoric 

Women and Renaissance Rhetoric 

Italian Humanism 

Rhetoric and  Renaissance Art

The Turn Toward Dialectic: Rhetoric and its Critics 

Renaissance Rhetoric in Britain 

Conclusion 

Questions for Review 

Questions for Discussion 

Terms 

8          Enlightenment Rhetorics 

Margaret Cavendish

Vico and the Rhetoric and Human Thought

British Rhetorics in the Eighteenth Century 

Richard Whately’s Classical Rhetoric 

Conclusion 

Questions for Review 

Questions for Discussion 

Terms 

9          Contemporary Rhetoric I: Arguments, Audiences,

            and Advocacy 

Argumentation and Rational Discourse 

Perelman And Olbrechts-Tyteca: A New Rhetoric 

Jurgen Habermas on a Rational Society

The Rhetoric of Science

Critical Response 

Conclusion 

Questions for Review 

Questions for Discussion 

Terms 

10        Contemporary Rhetoric II: Context, Story, Display

Rhetoric in its Social Context

Kenneth Burke and Rhetoric as Symbolic Action 

Lloyd Bitzer and Rhetoric as Situational 

Rhetoric and Narration 

Mikhail Bakhtin

Wayne Booth and the Rhetoric of Fiction 

The Rhetoric of Display

Conclusion 

Questions for Review 

Questions for Discussion 

Terms 

11        Contemporary Rhetoric III: Texts, Power, and Alternatives 

Postmodern Criticism 

 

Feminism and Rhetoric: Critique and Reform

Comparative Rhetoric 

Conclusion 

Questions for Review 

Questions for Discussion 

Terms 

Glossary 

Bibliography 

Index