Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students revives the classical strategies of ancient Greek and Roman rhetoricians and adapts them to the needs of contemporary writers and speakers. This is a fresh interpretation of the ancient canons of composing: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. It 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. This book gives special emphasis to classic strategies of invention, devoting separate chapters to stasis theory, common and special topics, formal topics, ethos, pathos, extrinsic proofs, and Aristotelian means of reasoning. 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.
Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students, Fourth Edition, by Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee, revives the classical strategies of ancient Greek and Roman rhetoricians and adapts them to the needs of contemporary writers and speakers. This is a fresh interpretation of the ancient canons of composing: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. It 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.
“When Edward P. J. Corbett and James Kinneavy, among very few others, started fanning the flames of classical rhetoric for modern and contemporary students, they hoped for such a textbook as Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. . . . Both a philosophy of composition and a classic handbook of what works and what doesn’t in each and every act of human communication, Ancient Rhetorics is built on the pillars of one’s integrity, one’s reason, and one’s passion. Will the fourth edition be even better than the third edition? Absolutely.”
–Hugh Burns, Texas Woman’s University
“I would recommend it to anyone teaching a course in rhetoric or a course in argument. I like the way it demonstrates that good writing is not an accident, but a process of choices and discipline.”
–Joseph Zeppetello, Marist College
“The exercises are very well explained and very relevant. I didn’t see one that I wouldn’t want to use.”
–Kimberly Harrison, Florida International University
“This text is richly grounded in classical tradition―but it has succeeded wonderfully in adapting ancient practices to modern realities.”
John Harwood, Pennsylvania State University
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