Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students

This fresh interpretation of the ancient canons of composing — invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery — shows that rhetoric, as it was practiced and taught by the ancients, was an intrinsic part of daily life and of communal discourse about current events. The book presents stasis theory, common and special topics, formal topics, ethos, pathos, extrinsic proofs and Aristotelian means of reasoning, and it places particular emphasis on the classic balance between principles and practice by offering ample opportunities for students to develop habits of rhetorical thinking and composing. The authors' engaging discussion and their many contemporary examples of ancient rhetorical principles present rhetoric as a set of flexible, situational practices. This practical history draws the most relevant and useful concepts from ancient rhetorics and discusses, updates and offers them for use in the contemporary composition classroom.