8/13/2019 Laird - Handbook of Literary Rhetoric

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Handbook of Literary Rhetoric. A Foundation for Literary Study by H. Lausberg; D. F. Orton;

R. D. AndersonReview by: Andrew LairdThe Classical Review, New Series, Vol. 50, No. 1 (2000), pp. 313-314Published by: Cambridge University Presson behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3065464.

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THE CLASSICAL REVIEWHE CLASSICAL REVIEWadjectives are 'weak'.) The concluding chapter secondly considers the degree to whichdescriptions of a locus amoenus are woven into their respective literary contexts. H. concludesthat in all literary periods some are closely embedded in the work, while others are not. Thisgeneral observation counters Curtius's view of a rhetoricized topos whose instances becamevirtually detachable from their contexts starting, with the virtuoso descriptive performances ofOvid.Universityof Virginia JOHN F. MILLER

H. LAUSBERG:Handbook of Literary Rhetoric. A FoundationforLiteraryStudy(trans.D. F Orton and R. D. Anderson). Pp.xxxi + 921.Leiden, Boston, and Cologne: Brill, 1998 (first published in German1960, 2nd edn 1973). Cased, $240.50. ISBN: 90-04-10705-3.To speak of selection is perhapsto misuse the word. Lausbergleavesnothing out. Theexcess of detail is intolerableand self-defeating ... In handling the material, Lausbergowes most to Quintilian, the fidlest of the ancient sources. But the fact of which thereaderis inadequatelywarned is that this is Lausberg's Art of Rhetoric', and very oddto the classical reader,much of it appears.

Those rathercaustic remarks about the first edition of L.'s Handbuchder LiterarischenRhetorikcome from a review by N. E. Douglas, published in the 1962 CR (pp. 246-7). A great deal ofthought and scholarship has been contributed to the study of rhetoric in the forty years sincethat early review was written. Ancient rhetoric has enjoyed a renaissance in contemporarypoetics, theory of literature,and cultural studies, among writers as diverseas WayneBooth andMichel Foucault. Roland Barthes published an aide-memoireto ancient rhetoric in the 1960sand Nietzsche's lectures on the subject have recently been translated. More strictly within therealm of classical studies, many leading scholars including George Kennedy and DonaldRussell have done much to put the history of rhetoric and the study of individual rhetoricaltexts on a more secure footing.It is telling that this revival of interest has been favourable o L.'shandbook, which has becomea standard reference tool: defbcto, its utility hardly needs to be defended. A contemporaryperspective provides some answers to Douglas's criticisms quoted above-criticisms which thisreviewwill attempt to meet because they could still resurfacefrom some quarters.First, there nowseems to be little basis for objecting to the great number and detail of sources in the work.Researchers in Latin and Greek literature who are working properly should always usecompendious works of reference.Indeed, for a number of recent studies of the rhetorization ofancient literature to have come about, the kind of comprehensiveness and breadth offered byL. is clearly indispensable. For example, G. B. Conte's The Rhetoric of ImhitationIthaca, 1986)and A. J.Woodman'sRhetoric in Classical HistoriographYLondon, 1988)-studies as importantand influential as they are divergent-rely on detailed knowledge of tropes and figures (andcompeting testimonies about them), and not merelyon some general ideas of what rhetoric waslike.A claim that L.'s collection is too individualistic in conception would only hold if one couldfind an ars rhetoricawhich was not somehow idiosyncratic.The response to that claim does notonly have to rest on principles of anti-foundationalism which are currentlyin favour. One couldalso appeal to historicist common sense: everyonewho has ever writtena rhetoricalmanual, fromQuintilian to Puttenham, will be awareof how rhetoric works, and will be, to a greateror lesserextent, a rhetorician himself. It is a characteristic of rhetoricians(as it is of all kinds of teachers)to present personal perspectives as the perspectives, to present independent opinions as officialdemonstrations. At least, with the encyclopedic scope of this IHandbook,L. shows all the hiddenplumbing-and it would be hardto see what L. would have had to gain by deliberatelyseeking toappropriateand personally customize the art/scienceof rhetoric.Finally, Douglas's impression that L.'s collection appears 'very odd to the classical reader' isgrounded on the depressing assumption that a classical reader should be confined not only toclassical texts, but to ancient classical texts. L.'s study includes coverage of rhetoric in themedieval and modern periods, with a 300 page of index of rhetorical terms in French, as well asof those in Latin and Greek. Surely part of the point of readingancient literature s to acquire ac OxfordUniversityPress,2000

adjectives are 'weak'.) The concluding chapter secondly considers the degree to whichdescriptions of a locus amoenus are woven into their respective literary contexts. H. concludesthat in all literary periods some are closely embedded in the work, while others are not. Thisgeneral observation counters Curtius's view of a rhetoricized topos whose instances becamevirtually detachable from their contexts starting, with the virtuoso descriptive performances ofOvid.Universityof Virginia JOHN F. MILLER

H. LAUSBERG:Handbook of Literary Rhetoric. A FoundationforLiteraryStudy(trans.D. F Orton and R. D. Anderson). Pp.xxxi + 921.Leiden, Boston, and Cologne: Brill, 1998 (first published in German1960, 2nd edn 1973). Cased, $240.50. ISBN: 90-04-10705-3.To speak of selection is perhapsto misuse the word. Lausbergleavesnothing out. Theexcess of detail is intolerableand self-defeating ... In handling the material, Lausbergowes most to Quintilian, the fidlest of the ancient sources. But the fact of which thereaderis inadequatelywarned is that this is Lausberg's Art of Rhetoric', and very oddto the classical reader,much of it appears.

Those rathercaustic remarks about the first edition of L.'s Handbuchder LiterarischenRhetorikcome from a review by N. E. Douglas, published in the 1962 CR (pp. 246-7). A great deal ofthought and scholarship has been contributed to the study of rhetoric in the forty years sincethat early review was written. Ancient rhetoric has enjoyed a renaissance in contemporarypoetics, theory of literature,and cultural studies, among writers as diverseas WayneBooth andMichel Foucault. Roland Barthes published an aide-memoireto ancient rhetoric in the 1960sand Nietzsche's lectures on the subject have recently been translated. More strictly within therealm of classical studies, many leading scholars including George Kennedy and DonaldRussell have done much to put the history of rhetoric and the study of individual rhetoricaltexts on a more secure footing.It is telling that this revival of interest has been favourable o L.'shandbook, which has becomea standard reference tool: defbcto, its utility hardly needs to be defended. A contemporaryperspective provides some answers to Douglas's criticisms quoted above-criticisms which thisreviewwill attempt to meet because they could still resurfacefrom some quarters.First, there nowseems to be little basis for objecting to the great number and detail of sources in the work.Researchers in Latin and Greek literature who are working properly should always usecompendious works of reference.Indeed, for a number of recent studies of the rhetorization ofancient literature to have come about, the kind of comprehensiveness and breadth offered byL. is clearly indispensable. For example, G. B. Conte's The Rhetoric of ImhitationIthaca, 1986)and A. J.Woodman'sRhetoric in Classical HistoriographYLondon, 1988)-studies as importantand influential as they are divergent-rely on detailed knowledge of tropes and figures (andcompeting testimonies about them), and not merelyon some general ideas of what rhetoric waslike.A claim that L.'s collection is too individualistic in conception would only hold if one couldfind an ars rhetoricawhich was not somehow idiosyncratic.The response to that claim does notonly have to rest on principles of anti-foundationalism which are currentlyin favour. One couldalso appeal to historicist common sense: everyonewho has ever writtena rhetoricalmanual, fromQuintilian to Puttenham, will be awareof how rhetoric works, and will be, to a greateror lesserextent, a rhetorician himself. It is a characteristic of rhetoricians(as it is of all kinds of teachers)to present personal perspectives as the perspectives, to present independent opinions as officialdemonstrations. At least, with the encyclopedic scope of this IHandbook,L. shows all the hiddenplumbing-and it would be hardto see what L. would have had to gain by deliberatelyseeking toappropriateand personally customize the art/scienceof rhetoric.Finally, Douglas's impression that L.'s collection appears 'very odd to the classical reader' isgrounded on the depressing assumption that a classical reader should be confined not only toclassical texts, but to ancient classical texts. L.'s study includes coverage of rhetoric in themedieval and modern periods, with a 300 page of index of rhetorical terms in French, as well asof those in Latin and Greek. Surely part of the point of readingancient literature s to acquire ac OxfordUniversityPress,2000

31313

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THE CLASSICAL REVIEWHE CLASSICAL REVIEWbetter understandingof later literatures: he rangeof testimonia collected by L. (who was a pupilof E. R. Curtius) provides abundant proof of the vital and central role of classical rhetoric forthe Westernliterarytradition as a whole. And this Handbook s more than a glossary of technicalterms purely within rhetoric: the last sections of the study (pp. 504-94) are devoted to poetics,whilst the earliest parts examine definitions and conceptions of rhetoric, placing it in relation togrammar, philosophy, and the artes liberales as a whole. L. did not by any means intend to offera historical study, but scrutiny of the various entries contained in this book will provideconsiderable insight into the evolution of humanistic education.Universityof Wanvick ANDREW LAIRD

P. ROLLINSON, R. GECKLE: A Guide to Classical Rhetoric. Pp. xxx+ 179. Signal Mountain, TN: Summertown, 1998. Cased, $29.95.ISBN: 1-893009-01-7.A handbook concisely introducing the classical rhetoricians seems a good idea; unfortunately,this book does not do the job well. An introduction provides a brief but unreliable historicaloverview. The development of 'the acute need for oratorical powers' (p. xiii) is explained bycontrasting Homeric society and the classicalpolis; the account of the latter gives the mistakenimpression that democracy was normal in the polis, and concludes with the remarkableassertion that 'over much of the Greek world ... came the demand for education for all [sic ]free men in gaining and perfecting argumentativeand persuasive skills with words' (p. xiv). Nohint is given that skill with words was alreadya key element of a young man'straining in Homer(Iliad 9.442f.). The history of rhetorical theory that follows is also misleading in detail.Consider p. xxi, where the statements that Hermagoras' staseis 'were universally adopted' andthat 'there are four of them' sandwich a list of treatments of stasis that includes the Rhetoricaad Herennium(which only recognizes three staseis), Quintilian (who surveys systems with up toeight), Hermogenes (with thirteen), and Menander Rhetor (the works on epideictic make noreference to stasis at all: the claim that Menander 'applies the issues to epideictic rhetoric' issimply and utterly wrong).The bulk of the book comprises thirty short chapters summarizing the works of majorrhetoricians.The aim is 'to provide comprehensive nformation about ancient rhetoricaltheory inthe form of highly detailed descriptive summaries of all the important authorities and worksfrom Greek and Latin antiquity' (p. vi). All' is a bit of a stretch:Hermagorasis omitted (the lossof his works is not a sufficientexplanation:Corax and Tisias have a chapter), and so is Sopater.'Highly detailed' is even more of a stretch: Quintilian is covered in fifteen pages. But the majorflaw is that these epitomes are too detailed for the space available.At times the desire to stuff indetail means that the summaries are compressed to the point of unintelligibility: I defy anyonewho is not already well acquainted with Hermogenes' On Issues to figure out the profoundlymuddled paragraphat the bottom of p. 70. But even when this pitfall is avoided the summariesmake no attempt to help the reader make sense of the material: bald lists of technical terms andprecepts without context or rationale do nothing to advance understanding--which, surely, iswhat a 'guide' should do.The collection of Rhetores Graecicuriously attributed here to an editor named 'LeonardiSpengel' (passin) is occasionally cited where more recent editions have superseded it: Schmid'stext of pseudo-Aristides and Felten's of Nicolaus should have been mentioned. But in generalthe bibliographical references are commendably up to date: Dilts and Kennedy are cited for theAnonymus Seguerianusand Apsines, and Patillon for Theon. It is a strong sign of the increasingvigour of this field that supplements are already needed: note, in particular,the translation ofpseudo-Aristides in Rutherford'sCanonsof Style (Oxford, 1998). I haverecently expresseddoubtsabout Apsines' authorship of the treatisetraditionallyascribed to him (AJP 119 [1998],89--111);pedantry compels me to point out that his ethnic is no guarantee that he was actually born inGadara (p. 13).Universitvof Leeds MALCOLM H E ATH, OxfordUniversityPress,2000

better understandingof later literatures: he rangeof testimonia collected by L. (who was a pupilof E. R. Curtius) provides abundant proof of the vital and central role of classical rhetoric forthe Westernliterarytradition as a whole. And this Handbook s more than a glossary of technicalterms purely within rhetoric: the last sections of the study (pp. 504-94) are devoted to poetics,whilst the earliest parts examine definitions and conceptions of rhetoric, placing it in relation togrammar, philosophy, and the artes liberales as a whole. L. did not by any means intend to offera historical study, but scrutiny of the various entries contained in this book will provideconsiderable insight into the evolution of humanistic education.Universityof Wanvick ANDREW LAIRD

P. ROLLINSON, R. GECKLE: A Guide to Classical Rhetoric. Pp. xxx+ 179. Signal Mountain, TN: Summertown, 1998. Cased, $29.95.ISBN: 1-893009-01-7.A handbook concisely introducing the classical rhetoricians seems a good idea; unfortunately,this book does not do the job well. An introduction provides a brief but unreliable historicaloverview. The development of 'the acute need for oratorical powers' (p. xiii) is explained bycontrasting Homeric society and the classicalpolis; the account of the latter gives the mistakenimpression that democracy was normal in the polis, and concludes with the remarkableassertion that 'over much of the Greek world ... came the demand for education for all [sic ]free men in gaining and perfecting argumentativeand persuasive skills with words' (p. xiv). Nohint is given that skill with words was alreadya key element of a young man'straining in Homer(Iliad 9.442f.). The history of rhetorical theory that follows is also misleading in detail.Consider p. xxi, where the statements that Hermagoras' staseis 'were universally adopted' andthat 'there are four of them' sandwich a list of treatments of stasis that includes the Rhetoricaad Herennium(which only recognizes three staseis), Quintilian (who surveys systems with up toeight), Hermogenes (with thirteen), and Menander Rhetor (the works on epideictic make noreference to stasis at all: the claim that Menander 'applies the issues to epideictic rhetoric' issimply and utterly wrong).The bulk of the book comprises thirty short chapters summarizing the works of majorrhetoricians.The aim is 'to provide comprehensive nformation about ancient rhetoricaltheory inthe form of highly detailed descriptive summaries of all the important authorities and worksfrom Greek and Latin antiquity' (p. vi). All' is a bit of a stretch:Hermagorasis omitted (the lossof his works is not a sufficientexplanation:Corax and Tisias have a chapter), and so is Sopater.'Highly detailed' is even more of a stretch: Quintilian is covered in fifteen pages. But the majorflaw is that these epitomes are too detailed for the space available.At times the desire to stuff indetail means that the summaries are compressed to the point of unintelligibility: I defy anyonewho is not already well acquainted with Hermogenes' On Issues to figure out the profoundlymuddled paragraphat the bottom of p. 70. But even when this pitfall is avoided the summariesmake no attempt to help the reader make sense of the material: bald lists of technical terms andprecepts without context or rationale do nothing to advance understanding--which, surely, iswhat a 'guide' should do.The collection of Rhetores Graecicuriously attributed here to an editor named 'LeonardiSpengel' (passin) is occasionally cited where more recent editions have superseded it: Schmid'stext of pseudo-Aristides and Felten's of Nicolaus should have been mentioned. But in generalthe bibliographical references are commendably up to date: Dilts and Kennedy are cited for theAnonymus Seguerianusand Apsines, and Patillon for Theon. It is a strong sign of the increasingvigour of this field that supplements are already needed: note, in particular,the translation ofpseudo-Aristides in Rutherford'sCanonsof Style (Oxford, 1998). I haverecently expresseddoubtsabout Apsines' authorship of the treatisetraditionallyascribed to him (AJP 119 [1998],89--111);pedantry compels me to point out that his ethnic is no guarantee that he was actually born inGadara (p. 13).Universitvof Leeds MALCOLM H E ATH, OxfordUniversityPress,2000

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