MONASH UNIVERSITY FACULTY HANDBOOKS

Arts Undergraduate Handbook 1996

Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996

CRT4230

Rhetoric

Walter Veit

Synopsis The subject studies the philosophical foundations and historic development of rhetoric as a theory of communication. It investigates its beginnings in theory and practice in Greek and Roman antiquity (Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian); the major forces during the Middle Ages (Augustine, Boethius, Abelard, Anselm of Canterbury); the decline of rhetoric from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century; and the reassessment of the function of rhetoric in the work of contemporary theoreticians and scholars like E R Curtius, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Ernesto Grassi, Paul Ricoeur, Chaim Perelman, Jürgen Habarmas, Hans Blumenberg and Hayden White, and in the journal Philosophy and Rhetoric. Particular points of discussion will be the theory of argumentation, the function of `topoi', the theory of metaphor, and the relationship between rhetoric, philosophy, literature and literary criticism.

Assessment (8 points) Two seminar papers + Research essay (4000 words)

Assessment (12 points) Two seminar papers + Research essay (6000 words)

Prescribed texts

• Brock B and Scott R Methods of rhetorical criticism: A twentieth-century perspective Wayne State U P
• Burks D Rhetoric, philosophy and literature: An exploration Purdue U P
• Curtius E European literature and the Latin Middle Ages Princeton U P
• Dixon P Rhetoric Methuen