Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition
Series Editors: Catherine Hobbs, Patricia Sullivan, Thomas Rickert, and Jennifer Bay
The Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition honors the contributions Janice Lauer has made to the emergence of Rhetoric and Composition as a disciplinary study. It publishes scholarship that carries on Professor Lauer’s varied work in the history of written rhetoric, disciplinarity in composition studies, contemporary pedagogical theory, and written literacy theory and research.
Other Books in the Series
Rhetoric’s Earthly Realm: Heidegger, Sophistry, and the Gorgian Kairos by Bernard Alan Miller (2011)
Techne, from Neoclassicism to Postmodernism: Understanding Writing as a Useful, Teachable Art by Kelly Pender (2011)
Walking and Talking Feminist Rhetorics: Landmark Essays and Controversies, edited by Lindal Buchanan and Kathleen J. Ryan (2010)
Transforming English Studies: New Voices in an Emerging Genre, edited by Lori Ostergaard, Jeff Ludwig, and Jim Nugent (2009)
Ancient Non-Greek Rhetorics, edited by Carol S. Lipson and Roberta A. Binkley (2009)
Roman Rhetoric: Revolution and the Greek Influence, Revised and Expanded Edition, by Richard Leo Enos (2008)
Stories of Mentoring: Theory and Praxis, edited by Michelle F. Eble and Lynée Lewis Gaillet (2008)
Writers Without Borders: Writing and Teaching in Troubled Times by Lynn Z. Bloom (2008)
1977: A Cultural Moment in Composition, by Brent Henze, Jack Selzer, and Wendy Sharer (2008)
The Promise and Perils of Writing Program Administration, edited by Theresa Enos and Shane Borrowman (2008)
Untenured Faculty as Writing Program Administrators: Institutional Practices and Politics, edited by Debra Frank Dew and Alice Horning (2007)
Networked Process: Dissolving Boundaries of Process and Post-Process by Helen Foster (2007)
Composing a Community: A History of Writing Across the Curriculum, edited by Susan H. McLeod and Margot Iris Soven (2006)
Historical Studies of Writing Program Administration: Individuals, Communities, and the Formation of a Discipline, edited by Barbara L’Eplattenier and Lisa Mastrangelo (2004). Winner of the WPA Best Book Award for 2004–2005.
Rhetorics, Poetics, and Cultures: Refiguring College English Studies (Expanded Edition) by James A. Berlin (2003)
Greek Rhetoric Before Aristotle
Revised and Expanded Edition
Richard Leo Enos
Parlor Press
Anderson, South Carolina
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Parlor Press LLC, Anderson, South Carolina, USA
© 2012 by Parlor Press
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S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Enos, Richard Leo.
Greek rhetoric before Aristotle / Richard Leo Enos. -- Rev. and expanded ed.
p. cm. -- (Lauer series in rhetoric and composition)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60235-212-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-213-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-214-8 (adobe ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-215-5 (epub)
1. Greek literature--History and criticism--Theory, etc. 2. Rhetoric, Ancient. I. Title.
PA401.E55 2011
880.9’001--dc22
2011010796
Cover design by David Blakesley.
Cover image: "A Reading from Homer" by Lawrence Alma-Tadema. 1885. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of The Philadelphia Museum of Art / Art Resource, New York. Used by permission.
Printed on acid-free paper.
Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats. This book is available in paper, cloth and Adobe eBook formats from Parlor Press on the World Wide Web at http://www.parlorpress.com or through online and brick-and-mortar bookstores. For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, South Carolina, 29621, or email [email protected].
To Nathan, Alex, Sus, and Quincy . . .
Foreword to the Revised and Expanded Edition
Significant advances in the field of classical rhetoric have been made since the 1993 publication of Greek Rhetoric Before Aristotle. These advances—some of which are mentioned later in this preface—have contributed not only to several new chapters but also to new theoretical, methodological, and critical perspectives. For example, research done on the diverse manifestations of women’s rhetorics has not only expanded the history of rhetoric but also the rigid parameters of what we have considered “rhetoric” to be for women and other previously excluded or marginalized groups. Similarly, postmodern rhetorical theory has revealed the benefits of recognizing political, social, and psychological factors that influence not only rhetorical situations but also the very mentalities involved in the cognition and expression of rhetorical discourse. New primary material on rhetoric in the ancient world is becoming available annually, and advances in technology in the last few decades have made the distribution of such material available in a breadth and with an ease that earlier historians of rhetoric never could have imagined possible. An especially good illustration of such innovative work that both synthesizes and analyzes the most current research in rhetoric is The Sage Handbook of Rhetorical Studies (2009). Given such advances in the field of rhetoric, we would do well to pause and reflect on our starting points. One of the primary points of reflection should be our preference for research methods and our sources of inquiry. In many ways, the sources that we select to use for our history are tied to the selection of our research methods. Our traditional avenue for knowledge of classical rhetoric has been the descent of manuscripts passed along through Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and Modern periods of the book tradition. The selection of these sources has influenced our methods of research, and it is this condition that the preface addresses.
Classical rhetoric is enriched annually by new information that is not from the “book” tradition—particularly from the areas of archaeology, epigraphy, fine arts, and new media refinements in archival studies. With all of this abundance of potential information, however, we continue to research classical rhetoric by traditional approaches. That is, many scholars believe that classical rhetoric should be studied by classical approaches. Unfortunately, “classical approaches” are not really “classical” at all but rather Victorian; that is, the methods of studying classical rhetoric have been based on the methods used in classical studies for the last two centuries. We have, over those two centuries, so strongly co-existed Victorian methods with the study of classical rhetoric that those Victorian methods have been inextricably wedded to (and confused as being) something that grew out of Antiquity. As a result of this confusion, the newest, and often the most sensitive and insightful, theoretical perspectives and innovative historiographical methods are dismissed for no other reason than that they lack the (Victorian) tradition. Scholars have so closely co-existed classical rhetoric with long outdated Victorian research practices that they are unwilling to risk being “unfaithful” by departing from long-established methods (Enos, “Classical” 285 et passim). While there is no doubt that well established research approaches have much to offer, this revised and expanded edition examines and assesses innovative