The Rhetoric of Fiction (2nd Edition)

Wendy Olmsted, Walter Jost, Charles Altieri, Don H. Bialostosky, Wayne Booth

Part I. Rhetoric in Its Place and Time -- Introduction: contingency and probability -- The politics of deliberation: oratory and democracy in Classical Athens -- Text and context in the Roman Forum: the case of Cicero's First Catilinarian -- A conversational opener: the rhetorical paradigm of John 1:1 -- Continental poetics -- "His tail at commandment": George Puttenham and the carnivalization of rhetoric -- Rhetorical selfhood in Erasmus and Milton -- Rhetoric, rights, and contract theory in the Early Modern Period -- The philosophy of rhetoric in Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric -- The rhetorical legacy of Kenneth Burke -- Part II. Rhetoric's Favorite Places -- Topics (and deliberation): exemplifying deliberation: Cicero's De Officiis and Machiavelli's Prince -- Deliberation (and topics): cultivating deliberating: mindfully resourceful innovation in and through the Federalist Papers -- Ethos: Socrates talks himself out of his body: ethical argument and personal immorality in the Phaedo -- Pathos: rhetoric and emotion -- Analogies, parables, paradoxes: get on down: Plato's rhetoric of education in the Republic -- Style: the rhetoric of the Aphorism -- Argumentation: what jokes can tell us about arguments -- Commonplaces: Sensus Communis -- Judgement: arts of persuasion and judgement: rhetoric and aesthetics -- Part III. Rhetoric and Its Critics -- Epiphany and Epideictic: the Low Modernist lyric in Robert Frost -- Lolita: solipsized or sodomized?; or, against... Lire plus…

Booth, Wayne C.

Wayne Booth's book is readable and he argues a strong case for the revival of the study of rhetoric. Booth goes one step further and argues for what can be called dialogical rhetoric. This is where parties to a discussion truly engage with each other in an attempt to understand where the other party is coming from, rather than simply trying to conquer all opposition. Booth's so-called 'Listening Rhetoric' has much in common with Hans-Georg Gadamer's notion of the fusion of horizons where different parties seek deeper understanding of each other, and through this can come to a deeper understanding of their own position. Anyone looking for a primer in rhetoric should look elsewhere as Booth's book provides only an overview of the field. He is more concerned to raise awareness and arouse interest in a subject that has been sadly neglected for too long. Rhetoric needs to be rehabilitated and Booth's book goes some way to achieving this. Lire plus…

Wendy Olmsted

This book for the most part is fairly easy to read. There are some part of the book where I got a bit lost, because of how it is written, especially how she cites. For example it will look something like this: "...office or profession ("of praise," Essays, P. 214)" If you are ok with having 5-7 citations like that in one page you should be fine. If you are not too comfortable with that method, it's still a good book and you should still read it. Rhetoric by Olmstead covers pretty much everything you need to know about the history of rhetoric. And Olmstead does it in a way that is easy to grasp, she links earlist ideas on rhetoric (Aristotle) to other ideas on Rhetoric in history and disciplines (politics, law, etc.). It shows how Rhetoric changes throughout history; how and why Machiavelli's view are both different from and same as cicero and why it is different. bottom line: Great book! read it and reflect on it; Lire plus…

Monika Fludernik; Translated From The German By Patricia Häusler-Greenfield And Monika Fludernik

An Introduction to Narratology is an accessible, practical guide to narratological theory and terminology and its application to literature. In this book, Monika Fludernik outlines: the key concepts of style, metaphor and metonymy, and the history of narrative forms narratological approaches to interpretation and the linguistic aspects of texts, including new cognitive developments in the field how students can use narratological theory to work with texts, incorporating detailed practical examples a glossary of useful narrative terms, and suggestions for further reading. This textbook offers a comprehensive overview of the key aspects of narratology by a leading practitioner in the field. It demystifies the subject in a way that is accessible to beginners, but also reflects recent theoretical developments and narratology’s increasing popularity as a critical tool. Lire plus…

Edited By James Phelan And Peter J. Rabinowitz

The 35 original essays in A Companion to Narrative Theory constitute the best available introduction to this vital and contested field of humanistic enquiry. The essays represent all the major critical approaches to narrative – narratological, rhetorical, feminist, post-structuralist, historicist – and investigate and debate the relations among them. In addition, they stretch the boundaries of the field by considering narratives in different disciplines, such as law and medicine, and in a variety of media, including film, music, and painting. The volume is divided into six parts: competing accounts of the history of the field; examinations of recurrent problems; suggestions for theoretical revisions and innovations; explorations of the relations among form, history, politics, and ethics; analyses of the way narrative operates in different disciplines and in media beyond the written word; and speculations about the future of narrative and of narrative theory. At the same time, it offers provocative analyses of a wide range of works, both canonical and popular, from the Bible through novels by Dickens, Woolf, and Arundhati Roy on to Bernard Herrmann’s film music and the action paintings of Jackson Pollock. Among its contributors are many of the leading figures in the field, including such early pioneers as Wayne C. Booth, Seymour Chatman, J. Hillis Miller, and Gerald Prince. Lire plus…

Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan

A synthesis of approaches to narrative fiction, considering Anglo-American New Criticism, Russian Formalism and French Structuralism that formulates the ways readers can, should, and do read narrative fiction. Lire plus…

Gérard Genette; Translated By Jane E.lewin; Foreword By Jonathan Culler

Gerard Genette builds a systematic theory of narrative upon an anlaysis of the writings of Marcel Proust, particularly 'Remembrance of Things Past.' Adopting what is essentially a structuralist approach, the author identifies and names the basic constituents and techniques of narrative and illustrates them by referring to literary works in many languages. Lire plus…

By Richard A. Lanham

The first edition of this widely used work has been reprinted many times over two decades. With a unique combination of alphabetical and descriptive lists, it provides in one convenient, accessible volume all the rhetorical terms—mostly Greek and Latin—that students of Western literature and rhetoric are likely to come across in their reading or to find useful in their writing. Now the Second Edition offers new features that will make it still more useful:—A completely revised alphabetical listing that defines nearly 1,000 terms used by scholars of formal rhetoric from classical Greece to the present day.—A revised system of cross-references between terms.—Many new examples and new, extended entries for central terms.—A revised Terms-by-Type listing to identify unknown terms.—A new typographical design for easier access. Lire plus…

Gerald Prince

## Contents vii (1) Roses are red/ Violets are blue/ Sugar is sweet/ And so are you, (2) Roses are red (7) Mary drank a glass of orange juice then she drank a glass of milk and (8) A people on the Columbia had no eyes or mouth. They ate by smelling the sturgeon. Coyote gave them eyes and a mouth as well as Les Trois Mousquetaires, The Secret Agent, or The Peloponnesian War satisfy the definition and, in fact, would generally be considered narrative. On the other hand, (1), Although the term is relatively new, the discipline is not and, in the Western tradition, it goes back at least to Plato and Aristotle. During the twentieth century, narratology has been considerably developed. The last ten or fifteen years, in particular, have witnessed a remarkable growth of narratological activity. The discipline has attracted numerous literary analysts and many linguists, as well as philosophers, psychologists, psychoanalysts, biblicists, semioticians, folklorists, anthropologists, and communication theorists in many parts of the world: Denmark (the 'Copenhagen Group'), France (Barthes, Bremond, Genette, Greimas, Hamon, Kristeva, Todorov, etc.) Germany (Ihwe, Schmidt, etc.), Italy (Eco, Segre), the Netherlands (van Dijk), North America (Chatman, Colby, DoleZel, Dundes, Georges, Hendricks, Labov, Pavel, Scholes, etc.), the U.S.S.R. (Lotman, Toporov, Uspenski, etc.). Narratology examines what all narratives have in common -1. Signs of the Τ Some of these signs may function indirectly.... Lire plus…

James A. Herrick

the History And Theory Of Rhetoric Offers An Accessible Discussion Of The History Of Rhetorical Studies In The Western Tradition, From Ancient Greece To Contemporary American And European Theorists. By Tracing The Historical Progression Of Rhetoric From The Greek Sophists Of The 5th Century B.c. To Contemporary Studies—such As The Rhetoric Of Science And Feminist Rhetoric—this Concise Yet Comprehensive Text Helps Students Better Understand What Rhetoric Is And What Unites Differing Rhetorical Theories Throughout History. Lire plus…

Seymour Benjamin Chatman; Seymour Chatman

This book is the first comprehensive approach in English to a general theory of narrative, both in verbal and in visual media. The primary question to which Professor Chatman addresses himself is what narrative is in itself. Following such French structuralists as Roland Barthes, Tzvetan Todorov, and Gerard Genette, he posits a what and a way. "The what of narrative," he says, "I call its 'story'; the way, I call its 'discourse.'" Liberally illustrating his concepts with discussions of particular novels and films, he effects a synthesis of the latest Continental critical thinking about narrative and the Anglo-American tradition exemplified by Henry James, Percy Lubbock, Wayne Booth, and others. A judicious and well-informed book, Story and Discourse should become a standard guide to narrative and to modern thinking about narrative. Lire plus…

Edward Morgan Forster; Frank Kermode; Oliver Stallybrass

A highly original and intelligent investigation of the novel from celebrated writer and “gentle genius” E. M. Forster E. M. Forster’s renowned guide to writing sparkles with wit and insight for contemporary writers and readers. With lively language and excerpts from well-known classics, Forster takes on the seven elements vital to a novel: story, people, plot, fantasy, prophecy, pattern, and rhythm. He not only defines and explains such terms as “round” versus “flat” characters (and why both are needed for an effective novel), but also provides examples of writing from such literary greats as Dickens and Austen. Forster's original commentary illuminates and entertains without lapsing into complicated, scholarly rhetoric, coming together in a key volume on writing that avoids chronology and what he calls “pseudoscholarship.” Lire plus…

Ian P Watt

The Rise of the Novel is Ian Watt's classic description of the interworkings of social conditions, changing attitudes, and literary practices during the period when the novel emerged as the dominant literary form of the individualist era.In a new foreword, W. B. Carnochan accounts for the increasing interest in the English novel, including the contributions that Ian Watt's study made to literary studies: his introduction of sociology and philosophy to traditional criticism. Lire plus…

Geoffrey Leech, Michael Short

Describes the ways in which the techniques of linguistic analysis and literary criticism can be combined, and illuminated, through the linguistic study of literary style, and draws on the prose fiction of the last 150 years to demonstrate the approach. Lire plus…

Peter Brooks

A book which should appeal to both literary theorists and to readers of the novel, this study invites the reader to consider how the plot reflects the patterns of human destiny and seeks to impose a new meaning on life. Lire plus…

Robert Scholes, James Phelan, Robert Kellogg, Robert E. Scholes

For the past forty years The Nature of Narrative has been a seminal work for literary students, teachers, writers, and scholars. Countering the tendency to view the novel as the paradigm case of literary narrative, authors Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg in the original edition offered a compelling history of the genre narrative from antiquity to the twentieth-century, even as they carried out their main task of describing and analyzing the nature of narrative's main elements: meaning, character, plot, and point of view. Their history emphasized the broad sweep of literary narrative from ancient times to the contemporary period, and it included a chapter on the oral heritage of written narrative and an appendix on the interior monologue in ancient texts. The fortieth anniversary edition of this groundbreaking work has been revised and expanded to include a new preface and a lengthy chapter on developments in narrative theory since 1966 by James Phelan. This chapter describes the principles and practices of structuralist, cognitive, feminist, and rhetorical approaches to narrative, paying special attention to their work on plot, character, and narrative discourse. A continued leader in the field of narrative studies, The Nature of Narrative offers unique and invaluable histories of both narrative and narrative theory. This analytical study provides a welcome balance to the critical practice of judging all narrative literature by standards appropriate only to the novel. Lire plus…

Edward Morgan Forster; Frank Kermode; Oliver Stallybrass

A highly original and intelligent investigation of the novel from celebrated writer and “gentle genius” E. M. Forster E. M. Forster’s renowned guide to writing sparkles with wit and insight for contemporary writers and readers. With lively language and excerpts from well-known classics, Forster takes on the seven elements vital to a novel: story, people, plot, fantasy, prophecy, pattern, and rhythm. He not only defines and explains such terms as “round” versus “flat” characters (and why both are needed for an effective novel), but also provides examples of writing from such literary greats as Dickens and Austen. Forster's original commentary illuminates and entertains without lapsing into complicated, scholarly rhetoric, coming together in a key volume on writing that avoids chronology and what he calls “pseudoscholarship.” Lire plus…

James Phelan

In Narrative As Rhetoric, James Phelan Explores The Consequences For Narrative Theory Of Two Significant Principles: (1) Narrative Is Rhetoric Because Narrative Occurs When Someone Tells A Particular Story For A Particular Audience In A Particular Situation For Some Particular Purpose(s); (2) The Reading Of Narrative Is A Multidimensional Activity, Simultaneously Engaging Our Intellects, Emotions, Ideologies, And Ethics. The Rhetorical Theory Of Narrative That Emerges From These Investigations Emphasizes The Recursive Relationships Between Authorial Agency, Textual Phenomena, And Reader Response, Even As It Remains Open To Insights From A Range Of Critical Approaches - Including Feminism, Psychoanalysis, Bakhtinian Linguistics, And Cultural Studies. The Rhetorical Criticism Phelan Advocates And Employs Seeks, Above All, To Attend Carefully To The Multiple Demands Of Reading Sophisticated Narrative; For That Reason, His Rhetorical Theory Moves Less Toward Predictions About The Relationships Between Techniques, Ethics, And Ideologies And More Toward Developing Some Principles And Concepts That Allow Us To Recognize The Complex Diversity Of Narrative Art. Written With Clarity And Flair And Experimenting At Times With The Conventions Of Critical Writing, This Collection, Which Includes Some Of Phelan's Best Work, Is Itself Audience Oriented. The Book Includes An Appendix That Is In Part An Experiment With Voice, And It Ends With A Helpful Glossary Of The Technical Vocabulary... Lire plus…