ENGLISH

Figuratively Speaking : Rhetoric and Culture from Quintilian to the Twin Towers

Book information

Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Year
2007
ISBN
9781849667555
LCC
P301.S596 2012eb
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
803 kB (822059 bytes)
Series
Classical Inter/Faces Ser.
Edition
1
Pages
145\145
Time added
2023-08-05 19:09:07

Description

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.

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