classicism
1. The classical aesthetic ideals of simplicity, form, order, harmony, balance, clarity, decorum, restraint, serenity, unity, and proportion—together with an emphasis on reason. The term is not ...
Contingency and Probability
For Aristotle (384–322 bce), the contingent is the unproblematic scene of rhetoric. This Aristotelian connection between the scene and agency (or practice), originally put into play to blunt Plato's ...
Eloquence
Modern usage applies the concept of eloquence in various ways, at times with an implication of distrust, as if a choice had to be made between art and sincerity. But ...
Ethopoeia
(Lat. notatio)designates a textual unit, in which the individual nature of a given character is imitated through the assignment to that character of specific discourses or speech.The most ...
Forensic genre
In forensic, or legal, rhetoric, the speaker addresses a jury or judge selected to adjudicate issues surrounding a past event. Through pro and con argumentation by prosecution and defense (forensic ...
genre
A grouping of texts related within the system of literature by their sharing features of form and content. Ancient theoretical discussions of specific literary genres operate according to criteria ...
Horace
(65–8bc),Roman poet of the Augustan period. A notable satirist and literary critic, he is best known for his Odes, much imitated by later ages, especially by the poets of 17th-century England.
horizon of expectations
The shared ‘mental set’ or framework within which those of a particular generation in a culture understand, interpret, and evaluate a text or an artwork. This includes textual knowledge of ...
Jean Mairet
(1604–86)French dramatist. A rival of Corneille, Mairet is generally regarded as responsible for the introduction of the three unities into serious French drama, first in a preface to Silvanire ...
Juan de la Cueva
(1550–1610)Spanish poet and playwright. A prolific writer for the stage, he is distinguished by his blatant disregard for the neoclassical unities, his reduction of the traditional number of acts ...
Kairos
Is variously described in relation to a temporality and to a way of acting: it is the opportune moment. Be that as it may, it is an elusive word, appearing ...
laughter
We laugh at things that are laughable, but also laugh exultantly at a success, or bitterly at a failure, or at the unexpected or even the typical. We may even laugh but not at anything—with pure joy, ...
Lope de Vega
(1562–1635)Spanish dramatist. Born in Madrid, the son of an embroiderer, he attended a Jesuit school and probably the University of Alcalá. He served a long series of noble masters ...
neoclassicism
The revival of a classical style or treatment in art, literature, architecture, or music. As an aesthetic and artistic style this originated in Rome in the mid 18th century, combining a reaction ...
Nineteenth-Century rhetoric
The discipline of nineteenth-century American rhetoric—the focus of this article, although many of the enumerated characteristics pertain to nineteenth-century European rhetoric as well—was founded ...
Occasion
We have become accustomed to thinking of all communicative situations as rhetorical. Aristotle (384–322 bce) himself opines (Rhetoric 2.18) that rhetoric is at play even in a conversation involving ...
periphrasis
[pe-rif-ră-sis](plural -ases)A roundabout way of referring to something by means of several words instead of naming it directly in a single word or phrase. Commonly known as ‘circumlocution’, ...
phronēsis
(Greek, intelligence, prudence)Practical wisdom, or knowledge of the proper ends of life, distinguished by Aristotle from theoretical knowledge and mere means-end reasoning, or craft, and itself a ...
Pierre Corneille
(1606–84),French dramatist, best known as the creator of French classical tragedy. He exerted a powerful influence on the English dramatists of the Restoration, particularly on Dryden, and on ...
poetic diction
A term used to mean language and usage peculiar to poetry, which came into prominence with Wordsworth's discussion in his preface (1800) to the Lyrical Ballads, in which he claims to have taken pains ...
