Speech 390
Fall 1999
Options for the Term Paper
Most students will write a term paper about one of the concepts in rhetorical theory listed in the Course Packet. With the permission of the instructor, however, a student may choose one of the following two options instead.
1. Analysis of a Major Rhetorician
Write about one of the rhetoricians listed below, concentrating on the primary work cited with the author. Each rhetorician may be chosen by only one student, unless specific permission is given by the instructor to work on the same topic chosen by another student. The paper must be 2500-5000 words in length (excluding quotations, notes, and bibliography). The content and structure of each student's paper will be unique, but in general each paper should do the following:
- Show a close familiarity with the primary work listed with the rhetorician's name below.
- Show a familiarity with at least five of the best scholarly interpretations of the rhetorician.
- Explain where the rhetorician fits in the rhetorical tradition (to what period or school of rhetoric does the rhetorician belong? to what other rhetoricians is he most similar? how, if at all, did he influence later rhetoricians?).
- Explain what, if anything, is the unique contribution of the rhetorician to rhetorical theory.
- Take a point of view, argue a thesis. That is, your paper should not be merely a paraphrase of the ideas of your author or the secondary literature on your author; instead you should present a claim, and then use your primary and secondary materials to prove that that claim is true. Two sample claims: (a) Aristotle's Rhetoric was written to answer Plato's criticisms of rhetoric in the Gorgias; (b) The central ideas in George Campbell's rhetoric come from David Hume.
Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
De Oratore. In Cicero on Oratory and Orators. Trans. J. S. Watson. 1878; rpt. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1970. 5-261.
Quintilian (ca. 35-96 A.D.)
Institutio Oratoria. Trans. H. E. Butler. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1963.
St. Augustine (354-430)
On Christian Doctrine. Trans. D. W. Robertson, Jr. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958.
Martianus Capella (fl. ca. 410-429)
Martianus Capella. "Rhetoric." The Marriage of Philology and Mercury. Trans. William Harris Stahl et al. Vol. 2 of Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts. New York: Columbia UP, 1977. 155-214.
Alcuin (ca. 735-804)
The Rhetoric of Alcuin & Charlemagne. Trans. Wilbur Samuel Howell. 1941; rpt. New York: Russell, 1965.
Erasmus (1469-1536)
"Ciceronianus, or A Dialogue on the Best Style of Speaking" (1528). Controversies over the Imitation of Cicero. By Izora Scott. 1910; rpt. New York: AMS, 1972. Pt. II, 19-130.
Peter Ramus (1515-1572)
Arguments in Rhetoric against Quintilian: Translation and Text of Peter Ramus's Rhetoricae Distinctiones in Quintilianum (1549). Trans. Carole Newlands. Dekalb: Northern Illinois UP, 1986.
Thomas Wilson (ca. 1523-1581)
The Art of Rhetoric (1560). Ed. Peter E. Medine. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1994.
John Bulwer (fl. 1644-53)
Chirologia: or the Natural Language of the Hand, and Chironomia: or the Art of Manual Rhetoric. 1644; rpt., ed. James W. Cleary, Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1974.
Bernard Lamy (1640-1715)
"The Art of Speaking" (1675). The Rhetorics of Thomas Hobbes and Bernard Lamy. Ed. John T. Harwood. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1986. 180-377.
François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon (1651-1715)
Fénelon's Dialogues on Eloquence (ca. 1679; 1st publ. 1717). Trans. Wilbur Samuel Howell. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1951.
Giambattista Vico (1668-1744)
On the Study Methods of Our Time (1709). Trans. Elio Gianturco. Rev. and enl. edn. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1990.
John Lawson (1709-1759)
Lectures Concerning Oratory. 1758; rpt., ed. E. Neal Claussen and Karl R. Wallace, Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1972.
Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696-1782)
Elements of Criticism (1762). 6th edn. 2 vols. 1785; rpt. New York: Garland, 1972.
Thomas Sheridan (1719-1788)
A Course of Lectures on Elocution. 1762; rpt. New York: Blom, 1968.
John Witherspoon (1723-1794)
"Lectures on Eloquence" (ca. 1768-94). The Selected Writings of John Witherspoon. Ed. Thomas Miller. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1990. 231-318.
Adam Smith (1723-1790)
Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, delivered in the University of Glasgow by Adam Smith, Reported by a Student in 1762-63. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by John M. Lothian. London: Thomas Nelson, 1963.
George Campbell (1719-1796)
The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1776). Ed. Lloyd F. Bitzer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1963.
Joseph Priestley (1733-1804)
A Course of Lectures on Oratory and Criticism. 1777; rpt., ed. Vincent M. Bevilacqua and Richard Murphy, Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1965.
Hugh Blair (1718-1800)
Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1783). 2 vols. Ed. Harold F. Harding. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1965.
John Walker (1732-1807)
A Rhetorical Grammar, or Course of Lessons in Elocution. 1785; rpt. Menston, Eng.: Scolar, 1971.
Gilbert Austin (1752-1837)
Chironomia; or a Treatise on Rhetorical Delivery. 1806; rpt. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1966.
John Quincy Adams (1767-1848)
Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory. 2 vols. 1810; rpt. New York: Russell, 1962.
Richard Whately (1787-1863)
Elements of Rhetoric (1828). 1846; rpt., ed. Douglas Ehninger, Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1963.
Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859)
Selected Essays on Rhetoric (1828-47). Ed. Frederick Burwick. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1967.
Edward T. Channing (1790-1856)
Lectures Read to the Seniors in Harvard College. 1856; rpt., ed. Dorothy I. Anderson and Waldo W. Braden, Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1968.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Friedrich Nietzsche on Rhetoric and Language. Ed. and trans. Sander L. Gilman et al. New York: Oxford UP, 1989.
I. A. Richards (1893-1979)
Richards on Rhetoric: I. A. Richards, Selected Essays (1929-1974). Ed. Ann E. Berthoff. New York: Oxford UP, 1991.
Kenneth Burke (1897-1993)
A Rhetoric of Motives. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1950.
Richard Weaver (1910-1963)
Language Is Sermonic: Richard M. Weaver on the Nature of Rhetoric. Ed. Richard L. Johannesen et al. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP,1970.
Chaim Perelman (1912-1984)
The Realm of Rhetoric. Trans. William Kluback. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 1982.
Stephen Toulmin (b. 1922)
The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1958.
Wayne C. Booth (b. 1921)
Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent. Notre Dame, IN: U of Notre Dame P, 1974.
2. Preparation of a Critical Edition of a Rhetorical Work.
Prepare a critical edition of a short work on rhetoric, such as one of the items listed in the bibliography as part of the collection, British and Continental Rhetoric and Elocution (see the section on eighteenth-century rhetoric in the bibliography at the end of your course packet). The resulting paper will have an introduction, an annotated edition of the text, an index of key terms, and a bibliography of related materials. The requirements for such an assignment will be discussed individually with interested students.