Figuratively Speaking: Rhetoric and Culture from Quintilian to the Twin Towers (Classical Inter/Faces) - Softcover

Spence, Sarah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0715635131 ISBN 13: 9780715635131

Publisher: Bristol Classical Press, 2007

Synopsis

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 of speech provides a common denominator among western cultures from Cicero to the present. The central idea is that, in the western tradition, figurative speech - using language to do more than name - provides the fundamental way for language to articulate concerns central to each cultural moment. In this study, Sarah Spence identifies the 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.

About this title

About the Author

Sarah Spence is Professor of Classics at the University of Georgia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bristol Classical Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0715635131
• ISBN 13: 9780715635131
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144