Research Catalog

Title

Rhetorical questions : studies of public discourse / Edwin Black.

Author

Black, Edwin, 1929-

Publication

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

209 pages; 23 cm

Summary

• From classical antiquity through the Renaissance, rhetoric was the prime vehicle of education in the West and the discipline that prepared students for civic life. With a comprehensiveness drawn from this tradition, Edwin Black here probes the incongruities between form and substance that open public discourse to significant interpretation.
• Locating rhetorical studies at the confluence of literature and politics, Black focuses on the ideological component of seemingly literary texts and the use of literary devices to advance political advocacy. The essays collected here range in subject matter from nineteenth-century oratory to New York Times editorials to the rhetoric of Richard Nixon. Unifying the collection are the concerns of secrecy and disclosure, identity, opposition, the scope of argument in public persuasion, and the historical mutability of rhetorical forms.
• Rhetorical Questions will appeal to those in communication, political science, literary study, composition theory, and journalism. Scholars involved in the considerable number of intellectual disciplines that are rediscovering rhetorical studies--especially law, sociology, and cultural anthropology--will find this book to be a model of rhetorical analysis. Indeed, these essays--five of which have never before been published--are essential reading for anyone, whether specialist or nonspecialist, who is concerned with the moral quality of public life and who values its rigorous exploration.

Subject

• Oratory
• Rhetoric
• Criticism
• 17.84 language and style in literature
• Retorica
• Letterkunde
• Maatschappij

Genre/Form

Oratory.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [187]-202) and index.

Contents

Introduction: Rhetoric as Critique -- 1. Idioms of Social Identity -- 2. Secrecy and Disclosure as Rhetorical Forms -- 3. Rhetorical Secrets: Rhetorical Mysteries -- 4. The Sentimental Style as Escapism -- 5. Authoritarian Fiction -- 6. Ideological Justifications -- 7. Dramatic Form in Rhetorical Transactions -- 8. The Mutability of Rhetoric.

ISBN

• 0226055019
• 9780226055015

LCCN

91028534

OCLC

• ocm24429055
• 24429055
• SCSB-1945781

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library