Breve Noticia bibliográfica: aparición de dos nuevos incunables en la Biblioteca Histórica

Comunicación de la aparición de dos nuevos incunables del impresor de Basilea Johann von Amerbach, pertenecientes al fondo de la Facultad de Filología de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid: un manual de retórica Praecepta artis rhetoricae de Albrecht von Eyb y un tratado anónimo de oratoria, Ars oratoria. Análisis, descripción y contextualización de las obras

Dos vidas, tres oradores: Demóstenes, Foción y Démades.

Esta comunicación estudia la caracterización y comparación que hace Plutarco de la oratoria de tres políticos que ejercieron su actividad pública en la segunda mitad del siglo IV a.C.: Demóstenes y Foción, a quienes dedica sendas Vidas, y Démades, que no tiene una biografía con su nombre pero de quien podríamos hacer una a partir de las abundantes citas en las biografías de los otros dos. La oratoria de Foción es comparada solo con la de Demóstenes, mientras que la de este se compara además con la de Démades. Al valorar la oratoria de estos políticos, Plutarco no solo tiene en cuenta su habilidad retórica, sino también su carácter y su actuación pública y privada. Como resultado de ello, sitúa a Foción por encima de los demás oradores de su tiempo, seguido de Demóstenes. El biógrafo recoge las opiniones de otros autores que valoran muy positivamente la oratoria de Démades pero condena la inmoralidad de su vida pública y privada.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de excelencia internacional. Andalucía Tech

The Ethics of Ambiguity in Quintilian

In a list of twelve stylistic and grammatical errors of oratory, the fourth-century grammarian Donatus includes the fault of amphibolia, a transliteration of a Greek word that Donatus further defines as an ambiguitas dictionis. This understanding of ambiguitas dictionis as a flaw in composition is unique neither to the texts of late antiquity nor to technical grammatical treatises, and one can find ample cautioning against it in pedagogical texts both before and after Donatus. In his first-century Institutio Oratoria, for instance, Quintilian similarly cautions against writing ambiguous language and encourages his students to compose lucid and straightforward Latin, particularly in regard to syntax

Tropic Architecture

Mannerist architects in the Cinquecento created what can be called “tropic architecture.” They set out to break the rules of classical architecture, but the rule-breaking was done systematically, by applying rhetorical tropes, or figures of speech, to architectural composition, the four most common being metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. According to Paul Oskar Kristeller, rhetoric was an important basis of Renaissance humanism. Students learned tropes and other figures of speech from well-circulated classical texts such as the Rhetorica ad Herennium and Quintilian’s Institutio oratorio. Examples of tropic devices can be found in works such as Giulio Romano’s Palazzo del Te and Michelangelo’s Porta Pia. There are many examples of mannerist works of architecture in the twentieth century that used the same tropic devices. The use of tropic devices in architectural composition results in an architecture that is a form of poetry

A Call To Combine Rhetorical Theory and Practice in the Legal Writing Classroom

The theory and practice of law have been separated in legal education to their detriment since the turn of the twentieth century. As history teaches us and even the 2007 Carnegie Report perhaps suggests, teaching practice without theory is as inadequate as teaching theory without practice. Just as law students should learn how to draft a simple contract from taking Contracts, they should learn the theory of persuasion from taking a legal writing course. In an economy where law apprenticeship has reverted from employer to educator, legal writing courses should do more than teach analysis, conventional documents, and the social context in which lawyers write. The legal writing professor\u27s task is to impart to her students the intellectual ballast necessary to navigate complex analytical challenges in the workplace. By combining rhetorical theory and practice in the legal writing classroom, the professor can pique students\u27 interest, hasten their learning, and help them develop transferable skills better than teaching by imitation alone. In addition, teaching the rhetorical nature of law in a legal writing course helps students debunk sooner the myth of black letter law in their doctrinal courses. Finally, as the Carnegie Report indicates, a more holistic approach to teaching can best blend the analytical and practical habits of mind that professional practice demands.... This Article begins with a brief history of the separation of theory and practice in the law classroom and the impact that it has had on the quality and reputation of writing as its own subject. The Article argues that despite a wave of pedagogical advances, legal writing as its own subject has ample room to grow. For legal writing courses to achieve intellectual maturity, they must incorporate rhetorical theory. To ignore it is to confirm Plato\u27s suspicion that rhetoric is a discipline without a subject matter and to enable the insidious undervaluing of our profession. As detailed below, there are several advantages to teaching legal writing as rhetoric. Although not the focus of this Article, a corollary advantage may be to help legal writing faculty achieve academic equality, which benefits teacher and student alike. For a variety of reasons, this Article concludes that legal writing professors are responsible for teaching both practical skills as well as the theories that inform them

“Above all Greek, above all Roman Fame”: Classical Rhetoric in America during the Colonial and Early National Periods

The broad and profound influence of classical rhetoric in early America can be observed in both the academic study of that ancient discipline, and in the practical approaches to persuasion adopted by orators and writers in the colonial period, and during the early republic. Classical theoretical treatises on rhetoric enjoyed wide authority both in college curricula and in popular treatments of the art. Classical orators were imitated as models of republican virtue and oratorical style. Indeed, virtually every dimension of the political life of early Ameria bears the imprint of a classical conception of public discourse. This essay marks the various specific aspects of the reception and influence of the classical rhetorical tradition in the learning, speaking and writing of Americans in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries