Definition of rhetoric

Term "rhetoric" comes from the ancient Greek word "orator" and means the theory of oratory, the science of eloquence. Close in meaning to it is the Latin word "oratoria". These dates are associated with public speaking, living word. Even in ancient times, people who masterfully mastered the art of eloquence (orators, orators) played a significant role in public life.

During historical development the meaning of the term "rhetoric" has expanded somewhat. To date, there is no unanimity among scholars regarding the interpretation of this term, even in defining rhetoric as a science. Moreover, some experts even question whether rhetoric can be considered a science at all. In ancient Greece, where this field of activity was finally formed, rhetoric was considered more of an art.

Among the variety of definitions of rhetoric, two main traditions can be distinguished, which have a very long history.

o First tradition is most clearly represented in the work of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (4th century BC). Within it, rhetoric is defined as "the art of persuasion". According to this tradition, the main task of the speaker is to convince the audience.

o Second the tradition is most vividly represented in the works of the ancient Roman rhetorician Quintilian (1st century AD). Within it, rhetoric is defined as "the art of speaking gracefully." According to this tradition, the task of the orator is beauty, sophistication, refinement of the expression of thought. Persuasion is not only possible, but far from being the main goal of the speaker.

Each of these traditions undoubtedly contains a rational grain. At the same time, the emphasis on only one aspect of oratory leads to a loss of integrity in understanding the subject and tasks of rhetoric.

On the one hand, the category of persuasion is indeed one of the main ones in rhetoric. The areas in which one person tries to convince other people are very diverse: science, politics, art, advertising, everyday communication, and the like. We try to make other people accept our ideas, goods or services, our ideas about life, and finally - ourselves.

Persuasion can be directed not only to other people, but also to the person himself. When we think about certain actions, plan our future, we weigh various options and try to choose the best one. This choice depends on those justifications, a person brings to himself (or can lead) in favor of a particular position. The most clearly indicated moments appear when a person answers questions, for example: "Should I go to lectures today?", "I need to study mathematics, maybe I won't need it in my life?" , "Do I wear this bright dress today?", "Do I bring an umbrella with me?" and the like.

In all the above cases, the leading role is played by persuasion, on which Aristotle actually insisted when he defined rhetoric.

On the other hand, in the same areas, equally important positions are sometimes occupied by messages informing others about something. And then elegance in the expression of thought comes to the fore, on which Quintilian insisted in his time. This refers to cases where the task of the speaker is to draw the attention of listeners to something new, interesting; make other people remember the oratory.

Thus, it is possible to fix the two main goals of the orator, between which the field of rhetoric extends. This is persuasion and informing in the process of public speaking.

Today it is obvious that the sphere of interest of rhetoric is communication, communication. Sometimes it is even defined as the theory and skill of effective (targeted, influential, harmonious) broadcasting. However, it should be noted that communication is a very complex and multifaceted phenomenon that is studied by many sciences, in particular linguistics, psychology, philosophy, etc. Therefore, the specifics of rhetoric are not clarified in this way.

The task of the discipline is narrow. Let's try to determine the features of rhetoric through the establishment of its subject.

subject of rhetoric It is public speaking in the process of communication.

Many people can give examples of not only successful speeches, but also such performances that ended in complete failure. Natural questions arise: is it possible to predict the result of a public speech? Can an ordinary person learn to make speeches? Or is such a skill an exclusively natural talent?

To answer these and other questions related to the art of public speaking, you need to turn to the achievements of rhetoric, which have been accumulated for almost 3 thousand years. This guide is dedicated to highlighting the techniques of a successful speaker in front of an audience.

Thus, rhetoric is the science of how to prepare and deliver oratorical speech in order to influence the audience in a certain way.

A distinctive feature of the public speech of the speaker is a one-sided impact on the listeners. The speaker, of course, must take into account the "factor" of the audience. However, active opposition from listeners is not expected, unlike, for example, a dispute. The success of oratorical speech is determined by whether he managed to achieve his goal when influencing the audience.

Influence is the influence on the state, thoughts, feelings and actions of another person using verbal and non-verbal means, as a result of which changes in attitudes or behavior occur.

The psychological impact has many various forms: manipulation, suggestion, persuasion, coercion, etc. Regarding oratory, it is advisable to talk about beliefs, so we will ignore other types.

In modern literature, a fairly popular term for such processes is also the term "presentation". In many ways, its definition coincides with what is meant by public speaking in rhetoric. For example:"Public presentation is a personal or media-mediated presentation of projects, goods, programs with the aim of exerting a persuasive influence on listeners and inducing them to actions that are directly or indirectly beneficial to the one who speaks, or those from whom he speaks."

This definition of presentation indicates a certain identity of the terms "public speaking", "presentation", "oratory". Any speech in front of an audience is not devoid of any informative parts, however, the success of presentations, as emphasized in the definition, largely depends not so much on informing the audience, but on the focus on challenging the desired reaction for the speaker.

However, the limitation of rhetoric exclusively by the category of persuasion leads to its narrowing, which is not justified in the analysis of modern communicative situations. Therefore, it is more appropriate to use the term "success in public speaking", which can be further specified depending on the goal of the speaker (to convince or inform).

The factors on which the success of public speaking depends are presented in the form of the so-called rhetorical triangle:

A speaker is a person who influences other people in such a way that they accept certain statements or perform certain actions.

An audience is a group of people in whose thoughts or behavior the changes that the speaker is striving for must occur. Speech is a speech message with which the speaker addresses the audience.

The work of Corax has not come down to us, but ancient writers give us examples of his sophisms, of which the so-called crocodile was especially famous. A student of Corax, Lysias, developed the same system of sophistical evidence and considered the memorization of exemplary speeches of judicial orators to be the main means of teaching rhetoric.

Gorgias of Leontius, who was famous in his time, came out of his school, who, according to Plato, “discovered that the probable is more important than the true, and was able in his speeches to present the small as great, and the great as small, to pass off the old as new and to recognize the new as old, about one and express conflicting opinions on the same subject. Gorgias' method of teaching also consisted in the study of patterns; each of his students had to know extracts from the works of the best speakers in order to be able to answer the most frequently raised objections. Gorgias owned a curious treatise “On a decent occasion” (ancient Greek. περὶ τοῦ καιροῦ ), which spoke about the dependence of speech on the subject, on the subjective properties of the speaker and the audience, and gave instructions on how to destroy serious arguments with the help of ridicule and, conversely, to respond to ridicule with dignity. Beautiful speaking (beautiful speech, other Greek. εὐέπεια ) Gorgias opposed the assertion of truth (correct speech, ὀρθοέπεια ).

He put a lot of effort into creating rules regarding figures: metaphors, alliteration, parallelism of parts of a phrase. Many famous rhetors came out of the school of Gorgias: Paul of Agrigent, Likimnius, Thrasymachus, Even, Theodore of Byzantium. The sophists Protagoras and Prodicus and the famous orator Isocrates, who developed the doctrine of the period, belonged to the same stylistic direction of rhetoric.

The direction of this school can be called practical, although it prepared rich psychological material for the development of general theoretical provisions on oratory and this facilitated the task of Aristotle, who in his famous "Rhetoric" gives a scientific justification for the old dogmatic rules, using purely empirical methods.

Aristotle's rhetoric

Hellenistic rhetoric

1. Finding (in Latin terminology - invention) - systematization of the content of speeches and the evidence used in them.
2. Arrangement (in Latin terminology - disposition) - the division of speech into introduction, presentation, development (proof of one's view and refutation of the opposite) and conclusion.
3. Verbal expression (in Latin terminology - elocution) - the doctrine of the selection of words, the combination of words, tropes and rhetorical figures, with the help of which the style of speech is formed.
4. Memorization (in Latin terminology - memoria).
5. Pronunciation (in Latin terminology - accio).

The doctrine of verbal expression also included the doctrine of three styles: depending on the use of stylistic means - about a simple (low), medium and high style of speech. This theory retained its significance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

ancient rhetoric

In Roman rhetoric, the dispute about Asianism and Atticism continued. The first follower of Asianism of the direction was Hortensius, and later Cicero joined him, speaking, however, in some writings in favor of Atticism. The most elegant representative of Atticism in Roman literature can be considered Julius Caesar.

The development of material in Roman rhetoric was subject to a special ultimate goal, a belief in which three aspects were distinguished - docere (“to teach”, “to inform”), movere(“induce”, “excite passions”), delectare(“entertain”, “pleasure”). Each of them was inextricably linked with the others, but, depending on the circumstances, could occupy a dominant position. The doctrine of the development of the five stages of speech was also inherited.

Late Antique and Medieval Rhetoric

In the era of the struggle of Christianity with ancient paganism, the science of Christian oratory was created, which reached a brilliant development in the centuries AD. e. . An outstanding representative of this oratory is John Chrysostom. In a theoretical sense, medieval rhetoric adds almost nothing to ancient developments, keeps to the rules of Aristotle and later theorists (in the West - Cicero) and only reworks them based mainly on writing letters (messages) and sermons. Everywhere there is a tightening of requirements for compliance with these rules.

Already by the 4th century, the scope of rhetorical norms coincided with the very concept of literature: in the Latin literature of the Middle Ages, rhetoric replaces poetics, firmly forgotten by the medieval tradition. Theorists wondered: is the material that can be discussed in a literary text limited? A variety of opinions have been expressed on this matter. In general, the maximalist tendency won: at least until the 13th century, any material was within the competence of rhetoric. Following this art, the author, before creating a work, had to form a clear and rational idea ( intellectio) about the intended material. In medieval rhetoric, the doctrine of persuasion as the main task and the three tasks (“teach, encourage, entertain” lat. docere, movere, electare).

The creation of a work, in turn, was divided into three parts or steps (three main elements out of five in the ancient list).

• Invention (lat. inventory), there is actually a finding of ideas as a creative process. It extracts from the subject all its ideological potential. It assumes that the author has the corresponding talent, but in itself is a purely technical device. Its laws determine the attitude of the writer to his material; they imply that every object, every thought can be clearly expressed in a word, and exclude everything inexpressible, as well as the pure impressionistic form. In its main aspect, called "amplification" (lat. amplificatio), it describes ways to move from the implicit to the explicit. At first, amplification was understood as a qualitative shift, but in medieval theory and practice, it usually denoted a quantitative expansion; usually so called various methods of variation: the most developed of them, description (lat. description), which was codified more than once and occupied a central place in Latin literary aesthetics, in the 13th century, without any changes, passed into the genre of the novel, becoming one of its main features.

• disposition (lat. dispositio), prescribed the order of the parts. Here the general tendencies of the system were indicated with difficulty. Medieval rhetoric never seriously dealt with the problem of the organic combination of parts. It is limited to a few empirical and most general prescriptions, defining a certain aesthetic ideal rather than the means to achieve it. In practice, it takes extraordinary creative power from a medieval poet to overcome this obstacle and achieve harmony and balance in a long text. Often he gets out of the situation by arranging the available elements in accordance with certain numerical proportions: such a practice does not fit into ancient rhetoric, but in the eyes of the medieval cleric it was justified by the existence of numerical "arts", especially music ( musica).

• Elocution (lat. elocutio), clothes the “ideas”, found and explicated by means of invention and organized by means of disposition, in a linguistic form. It served as a kind of normative style and was divided into a number of parts; the most developed of them is the one that is dedicated to decoration, decorated syllable (lat. ornatus), that is, predominantly the theory of rhetorical figures.

Adopting the ideas of ancient mentors, the creators of rhetoric of the XI-XIII centuries focus on amplification and on the doctrine of the decorated syllable, in which they see the very essence of the written word: their activity is reduced mainly to listing and ordering those modes of expression that in their original form already exist in ordinary language; they describe them in functional terms, as a code of syllable types with a high degree of probability.

In 1920-1950. many medievalists, including E. R. Curtius, believed that the rhetorical model is applicable to all areas of literature, and drew far-reaching conclusions from this hypothesis. In fact, rhetoric reigned supreme in Latin literature, and its influence on poetry in the vernacular was long-lasting, but very uneven.

Byzantium

Rhetoric of the Renaissance and Modern Times

A rigid normative character is established behind European rhetoric, especially in Italy, where, thanks to the meeting of the Latin language of scientists and the Italian language of the people, the theory of three styles is best used. In the history of Italian rhetoric, Bembo and Castiglione occupy a prominent place as stylists. The legislative direction is especially clearly expressed in the activities of the Academy della Crusca, whose task is to protect the purity of the language. In the works, for example, by Sperone Speroni, imitation of Gorgia's techniques in antitheses, the rhythmic structure of speech, the selection of consonances is noticeable, and the Florentine Davanzati notices a revival of atticism.

Only in the Renaissance does Quintilian, whose work was lost in the Middle Ages, become known again.

From Italy, this direction is transferred to France and others European countries. A new classicism in rhetoric is being created, which finds its best expression in Fenelon's Discourse on Eloquence. Any speech, according to Fenelon's theory, must either prove (ordinary style), or paint (medium), or captivate (high). According to Cicero, the oratorical word should approach the poetic; it is not necessary, however, to pile up artificial ornaments. We must try to imitate the ancients in everything; the main thing is clarity and correspondence of speech to feeling and thought. Interesting data for the characterization of French rhetoric can also be found in the history of the French Academy and other institutions that guarded traditional rules.

Similarly, the development of rhetoric in England and Germany throughout the eighteenth century.

Rhetoric in the 19th and 20th century

In this form, rhetoric remained a part of liberal education in all European countries until the 19th century. The development of political and other types of eloquence and romantic literature leads to the abolition of the conventional rules of oratory. Traditionally, the most significant part - the doctrine of verbal expression - was dissolved in stylistics as part of the theory of literature, and the remaining sections lost their practical significance. It was then that the word "rhetoric" acquired the odious connotation of pompous idle talk.

The word rhetoric was used for newly created disciplines - prose theory (mainly fiction - XIX century, German philology), stylistics (XX century, French philology), argumentation theory (XX century, Belgian philosopher H. Perelman)

Rhetoric in Modern Russia

In Russia, in the pre-Petrine period of the development of literature, rhetoric could only be used in the field of spiritual eloquence, and the number of its monuments is completely negligible: we have some stylistic remarks in Svyatoslav’s Izbornik, a treatise of the 16th century: “Speech of Greek Subtlety” and “The Science of composition of sermons" by Ioannikius Golyatovsky.

The systematic teaching of rhetoric begins in the southwestern theological schools from the 17th century, and the textbooks are always Latin, so there is no need to look for original processing in them. The first serious Russian work is a Brief Guide to Lomonosov's eloquence ("Rhetoric" Lomonosov,), compiled on the basis of classical authors and Western European manuals and giving confirmation general provisions a number of examples in Russian - examples extracted in part from the works of new European writers. Lomonosov, in his Discourse on the Usefulness of Church Books, applies the Western theory of three styles to the Russian language. In view of the fact that the field of eloquence in Russia was limited almost exclusively to church preaching, rhetoric here almost always coincided with

(Greek rhetorike "oratory"), a scientific discipline that studies the patterns of generation, transmission and perception of good speech and quality text.

At the time of its origin in antiquity, rhetoric was understood only in the direct meaning of the term as the art of a speaker, the art of oral public speaking. A broad understanding of the subject of rhetoric is the property of a later time. Now, if it is necessary to distinguish the technique of oral public speaking from rhetoric in a broad sense, the term is used to refer to the former. oratorio.

Traditional rhetoric (bene dicendi scientia "the science of good speech", as defined by Quintilian) was opposed to grammar (recte dicendi scientia "the science of correct speech"), poetics and hermeneutics. The subject of traditional rhetoric, unlike poetics, was only prose speech and prose texts. What distinguishes rhetoric from hermeneutics is its predominant interest in the persuasive power of the text and only a weakly expressed interest in other components of its content that do not affect the persuasive power.

The methodological difference between rhetoric and the disciplines of the rhetorical cycle from other philological sciences lies in the orientation towards the value aspect in the description of the subject and the subordination of this description to applied tasks. In Ancient Russia, there were a number of synonyms with valuable meaning, denoting mastery of the art of good speech: eloquence, good speech, eloquence, cunning, chrysostom and finally eloquence. In ancient times, the value element also included a moral and ethical component. Rhetoric was considered not only the science and art of good oratory, but also the science and art of bringing to good, persuading good through speech. The moral and ethical component in modern rhetoric has been preserved only in a reduced form, although some researchers are making attempts to restore its meaning. Other attempts are being made to define rhetoric, completely removing the value aspect from the definitions. There are, for example, definitions of rhetoric as the science of generating statements (such a definition is given by A.K. Avelychev with reference to W. Eco Dubois). The elimination of the value aspect of the study of speech and text leads to the loss of the specifics of rhetoric against the background of descriptive philological disciplines. If the task of the latter is to create a complete and consistent description of the subject, which allows further applied use (for example, in teaching foreign language, the creation of automatic translation systems), but in itself is neutral in relation to applied tasks, then in rhetoric the description itself is already built with a focus on the needs of speech practice. In this regard, educational (didactic) rhetoric plays an equally important role as scientific rhetoric in the system of rhetorical disciplines, i.e. learning the technique of generating good speech and quality text.

Ancient rhetoric. M., 1978
Dubois J. et al. General rhetoric. M., 1986
Perelman H., Olbrecht-Tyteka. L. From book « New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation". In the book: Language and modeling of social interaction. M., 1987
Graudina L.K., Miskevich G.I. Theory and practice of Russian eloquence. M., 1989
Toporov V.N. Rhetoric. Trails. Figures of speech. In the book: Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary. M., 1990
Gasparov M.L. Cicero and ancient rhetoric. In the book: Cicero Mark Tullius. Three treatises on oratory. M., 1994
Zaretskaya E.N. Rhetoric. Theory and practice of language communication. M., 1998
Ivin A.A. Fundamentals of the theory of argumentation. M., 1997
Annushkin V.I. History of Russian Rhetoric: Reader. M., 1998
Klyuev E.V. Rhetoric (Invention. Disposition. elocution). M., 1999
Rozhdestvensky Yu.V. Theory of rhetoric. M., 1999
Lotman Yu.M. Rhetoric Mechanism of meaning generation(section of the book "Inside the thinking worlds"). In the book: Lotman Yu.M. Semiosphere. St. Petersburg, 2000

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Lecture 1 Rhetoric as a science and subject

Plan

1. Rhetoric is a scientific discipline. General and private rhetoric.

2. Birth of rhetoric as a discipline.

3. The doctrine of the culture of speech is the central part of Russian rhetoric.

4. Learning the basics of eloquence.

1. Rhetoric- a scientific discipline that studies the patterns of generation, transmission and perception of good speech and high-quality text.

At the time of its origin in antiquity, rhetoric was understood only in the direct meaning of the term - as the art of a speaker, the art of oral public speaking. A broad understanding of the subject of rhetoric is the property of a later time.

Traditional rhetoric was opposed to grammar, poetics and hermeneutics - the science of text interpretation. The subject of traditional rhetoric, unlike poetics, was only prose speech and prose texts.

What distinguishes rhetoric from hermeneutics is its predominant interest in the persuasive power of the text and only a weakly expressed interest in other components of its content that do not affect the persuasive power.

In ancient times, the value element also included a moral and ethical component. Rhetoric was considered not only the science and art of good oratory, but also the science and art of bringing to good, persuading good through speech.

It would be wrong to limit the subject of rhetoric to any specific categories of verbal works - only oratory, sermons, journalism, mass information, although rhetoric mainly studies works of this kind. Argumentation is contained in scientific, and in philosophical, and even in works of art. Rhetoric studies any works of the word that contain argumentation. The peculiarity of rhetoric is that the study of the works of the word for it is not an end in itself, but a means.

subject of rhetoric- a product of a word that has not yet been created, but which is to be created.

Rhetoric studies the patterns of cultural models for constructing a prosaic expedient statement in the context of a historically established system of speech relations in society.

In the science of rhetoric, scientists distinguish two areas: general rhetoric and private.

The subject of general rhetoric is general patterns speech behavior in various situations and the practical possibilities of using them in order to make speech effective.

The general rhetoric contains the following sections:

1. rhetorical canon

2. public speaking, oratorio

3. dispute management

4. conversation

5. rhetoric of everyday communication;

6. ethno-rhetoric.

Rhetorical canon It is a system of special signs and rules. The rhetorical canon traces the path from thought to word, describing three stages: the invention of content, the arrangement of inventions in the right order, and verbal expression.

Oratorio, or the theory and practice of public speech - a special section of rhetoric. After all, fluency in the word is mandatory for a person who wants to defend his point of view in public, to persuade the audience to his side. Recall that rhetoric is the child of democracy. And the great attention that is being paid to it today shows that our society is oriented towards democratic positions.

Theory and Art of Arguing This is also the realm of rhetoric. In a democratic society, there are many opinions on issues that affect the life of an individual and society as a whole. Learning to behave with dignity in a dispute, to be able to direct it so that it becomes a work to achieve the truth, and not an empty bickering, is always important, and especially today.

The rhetoric of everyday communication gives knowledge about the speech behavior of people in their everyday, everyday, home life. Concerning the rhetoric of everyday communication, it must be said that some experts attribute it to private rhetoric, while others consider it one of the areas of general rhetoric.

Ethno-rhetoric studies national and cultural differences in people's speech behavior. Rhetorical knowledge will help to avoid situations of misunderstanding between people of different nationalities and in the field of business communication, and in areas relating to spiritual values. These laws apply in all spheres of human life.

private rhetoric contains the doctrine of specific genera and types of literature. Especially in private rhetoric, those types of speech are studied that any educated person should actively master: letters on the subjects of the hostel and literary; documents and business correspondence; dialogues, mostly literary, but giving an idea of ​​the rules for constructing and conducting discussions, narrative historical prose; oral word in the form of political, judicial, academic oratorics, preaching spiritual, pedagogical and propaganda speech; scientific and philosophical prose.

To general rhetoric relate the principles of constructing speech in general, regardless of the type of speech, the purpose of the speech and the sphere in which it is pronounced. Private rhetoricians consider the use of these principles in certain specific conditions of communication.

The structure of general rhetoric reflects the course of creation by the rhetor of the statement from the idea to the embodiment in the text of a verbal work. General rhetoric contains:

1. the doctrine of the rhetor;

2. the doctrine of argumentation, that is, the relationship of arguments to the audience to which they are addressed and which decides on their acceptability;

3. the doctrine of rhetorical construction, that is, of a verbal work in the course of its creation by a rhetor.

Rhetorical construction is the doctrine of the so-called inner word, or inner utterance. The statement is considered at the level of the general idea, at the level of verbal construction and at the level of verbal embodiment, which is manifested in the classical division of general rhetoric into invention - invention, location - disposition, verbal expression ‒ elocution, memorization ‒ memorio and pronunciation action.

Rhetoric- this is the science of methods of persuasion, various forms of predominantly linguistic influence on the audience. The task of rhetoric from ancient times to this day is to educate, delight, inspire. The impact can be carried out both orally and in writing with the help of arguments, evidence to form new or change old stereotypes of perception and behavior.

Eloquence, as ancient philosophers noted, is a way of knowing, interpreting complex phenomena, it should bring knowledge to people. It operates with facts, events, figures, putting them into a certain system. Rhetoric uses the discoveries and achievements of many sciences. It is based on psychology, philosophy, logic, ethics, aesthetics and other sciences. rhetoric is a science that teaches reasoning, thinking logically, generalizing. Many of the speakers were prominent scientists and politicians of their time.

Rhetoric- this is the art of constructing and publicly delivering a speech, the art of owning a living word. As an art, she is close to poetry, acting and directing: she studies facial expressions and body movements, teaches her to control her voice and feelings. The condition for the emergence and development of oratory is democracy, the free participation of citizens in the socio-political life of the country.

In the modern era, rhetoric has a strong place in the curriculum of schools and universities around the world. Rhetoric is seen as an important part of liberal arts education modern man regardless of his major. The subject of rhetoric is understood differently in different scientific traditions of modern times. Rhetoric is studied as a theory of the culture of speech, as a history of oratory, as a technique of oral public speaking, as a style of text, as a method of teaching effective communication. All these aspects are directly related to rhetoric. Modern rhetoric is a theoretical and applied philological science about the logical, aesthetic and ethical qualities of non-artistic speech (scientific, business, public, colloquial). The qualities of artistic speech are dealt with by another philological science - poetics. Rhetoric is based on the culture of speech, but implies a higher level of speech skill of the speaker.

2. The birth of rhetoric as a discipline is associated with the period of democracy in Athens around the 5th century BC. In Hellas, city-states were widespread, in which slave-owning democracy developed. The supreme body in such states was the people's assembly. Courts were held in public. The number of judges, for example, in Athens was 500 people. Every citizen could act as an accused and defender. Performances were accepted at holidays, anniversaries, commemorations. Such eloquence became a necessity.

At this time, paid sophist teachers appeared who taught eloquence to those who wished and composed speeches for them. Sophists perfectly mastered all forms of oratory, the laws of logic, and the ability to influence the audience. According to the sophists, the goal of the orator is not to reveal the truth, but to be persuasive. The task of the sophist is to teach how to make a weak opinion strong, to recognize the small as big. It is the same thing to be able to both blame and praise. Rhetoric at the first stages of its formation was not so much a theory as a practice of teaching speech skills - rhetorical pedagogy. The ancient Greeks were well aware of the value of the word as better way expressions of various processes occurring in the human soul, as a powerful tool for subjugating others to one's will and as a way of live communication. The Sophists constantly emphasized the power of the word. Gorgias in his speech “Praise to Helen” stated: “The Word is a great ruler, who, having a very small and completely imperceptible body, performs wonderful deeds. For it can overtake fear, and destroy sadness, and inspire joy, and awaken compassion.

In ancient Greece, a person had to make public speeches quite often - in a national assembly, in court, at crowded holidays and friendly meetings. At the same time, listeners paid attention to the beauty or awkwardness of speech. Therefore, the sophists - representatives of the school of philosophers-enlighteners - taught citizens the art of argument, the laws of logic, and the composition of speeches. Sophists were engaged not only in practice, but also in the theory of eloquence. It was they who laid the foundations of rhetoric as a science of oratory. In their opinion, the goal of the speaker is not to reveal the truth, but to convince the listeners of the correctness of his opinion. Hence their view of the subject of rhetoric as teaching persuasive speeches, in order to make a weak, unfounded opinion strong, convincing in the eyes of the audience. Sophists undertook to teach anyone the art of argument and public speech for an appropriate fee.

It is important to keep in mind that in ancient Greece the concepts of "art" and "skill" were inextricably linked, inseparable from each other. The history of rhetoric is complex, excitingly interesting and even dramatic. What judgments, often the most contradictory, did not cause this area of ​​knowledge and practice! And always the attitude towards rhetoric was amazingly emotional, charged with feeling - from unbridled praise, reverence and direct deification of this science, this skill to passionate, derogatory condemnation, when rhetoric was declared almost main reason decline in public morals, if not banned altogether. After all, as we already know, the possession of a word gives a person some special power, and often power, which can make him dangerous. For the Hellenes, the ability to eloquence made a person equal to God.

Rhetorical pedagogy, teaching eloquence arose and flourished in Athens due to the fact that the gift of speech began to be perceived there as a sign and an indispensable condition for a full-fledged, good education. A truly educated person, "best educated for philosophy and literature", "suddenly, in any place of speech will throw<…>, like a mighty shooter, some wonderful saying, short and concise, and the interlocutor will turn out to be no better than a child, ”says Plato’s famous dialogue Protagoras.

The famous sophist Gorgias is considered the founder of sophistic and in general ancient rhetoric. The “father of sophistry” (the words sophistry and rhetoric in this period could be used as synonyms) is called Gorgias by the Greek writer, author of biographies of the sophists Philostratus. The golden statue of Gorgias, which was erected in Delphi, confirms the merits of this sophist to Greek culture, as well as the significant role that Gorgias played in the historical fate of Athens: with his famous Olympic speech, he managed to rally the Greeks against the Medes and Persians.

Here is what Gorgias writes about the rhetorical activity, relying on ancient sources, A.F. Losev: “He was the first to introduce the type of education that prepares orators, special training in the ability and art of speaking, and the first to use tropes, metaphors, allegories, the misuse of words in an improper sense, inversions, secondary doublings, repetitions, apostrophes and parisos (.. .) Undertaking to teach everyone to speak beautifully and being, by the way, a virtuoso of brevity, Gorgias taught everyone who wanted to speak rhetoric so that they could conquer people, “make them their slaves of their own free will, and not under duress.” By the strength of his conviction, he forced the sick to drink such bitter medicines and undergo such operations that even doctors could not force them to do. Gorgias defined rhetoric as the art of speeches and specifically dealt with the theory of judicial and political eloquence.

The author of the first ancient textbook on rhetoric is called the Sicilian Korak from Syracuse, who, together with his student Tisias, began teaching oratory in the special schools he opened. (Tisius subsequently taught eloquence in Athens.)

Under the influence of Greek culture, the art of eloquence began to develop in ancient Rome. The Romans also highly valued the ability of a person to express his thoughts beautifully and clearly. State affairs here were also decided by the people's assembly, in the senate and court, where any free citizen could speak. Possession of the word was therefore a necessary condition for the participation of the citizen in political life. In such social conditions, oratory was a widespread phenomenon.

A major theorist and practitioner of oratory was Mark Thulius Cicero. He set the speaker the following tasks: to prove and at the same time demonstrate the truth of the facts cited, to please the listeners, to influence their will and behavior, to induce to action. The speaker must find something to say, arrange everything in order, give the necessary verbal form, approve everything in memory, pronounce it.

3. In Russian philological science eloquence always occupied a place of honor. At the very early period spread of book learning in Russia, our enlighteners, theologians, studied the ancient rhetoric of Aristotle, Socrates, Plato and other authors. Works devoted to eloquence were translated into the Old Slavonic language and attracted the attention primarily of the clergy, many of whom became famous as wonderful preachers who were fluent in oratory.

In the 17th century, the Russian reader already knew textbooks on eloquence, the most popular of them being Rhetoric and Poetics by Feofan Prokopovich. In our native philology, the central part of rhetoric has always been the doctrine of the culture of speech, the verbal expression of thought. At the same time, much attention was paid not only to the oral speech of the speaker, but also to the art of "all kinds of prose writings."

Serious scientific development of the problems of speech culture in our country began thanks to M.V. Lomonosov, who wrote "A Brief Guide to Eloquence" and "Rhetoric". Since then, many textbooks have been created in this discipline, which occupied an honorable place among the “fine arts”. Philosophers, public figures, scientists, lawyers devoted their works to the problems of eloquence, but writers cared about this most of all, who in their work honed the Russian language and gave brilliant examples of artistic speech.

Eloquence is based on a high culture of speech, therefore its requirements are of paramount importance for speakers and writers, as well as for everyone who strives to speak and write correctly, beautifully and convincingly. Modern science clearly articulates requirements for good speaking: its content; accuracy and clarity; richness of expressive means, figurativeness and at the same time accessibility, simplicity; stylistic diversity and compliance with genres, communication conditions; correctness, logic.

Word " eloquence” means the ability to speak and write beautifully, convincingly and engagingly. So this term was explained by V.I. Dahl in the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language. Modern dictionaries also indicate another meaning of the word: eloquence- this is the "theory of oratory". Indeed, in order to learn something, and eloquence in particular, you need to study the subject, and this requires theory.

The theory of eloquence is also called rhetoric. Many linguists do not distinguish between the concepts of "eloquence" and "rhetoric", but it is important for us to clarify these terms. Modern rhetoric as an academic discipline covers too wide a range of issues - from the emergence of this science in the ancient world and the description of the views of ancient Greek and Roman philosophers to practical advice and advice to speakers on how to win the attention of listeners. The subject of eloquence should be, first of all, the doctrine of beautiful, correct, effective speech, not only in its oral, but also in written form.

4. The study of the basics of eloquence is subject practical purpose- to teach young people to speak and write correctly and expressively, using a variety of techniques for creating emotionality and imagery of speech.

The ability to speak and write beautifully has long been considered a hallmark of a cultured, educated person. It is no coincidence that we judge people by their speech: he owns a word - it means he is smart, he cannot correctly express a thought - narrow-minded. Eloquent people arouse sympathy, it is pleasant to have a conversation with them, their speeches are eagerly listened to, and those who cannot connect two words are uninteresting.

The problems of eloquence have always worried philologists, scientists, public figures. This subject was taught by famous Russian writers and teachers. smartest people of the last century, writers, poets, learned eloquence from the book "Short Rhetoric" by A.F. Merzlyakov, a Russian poet and translator who occupied the department of Russian eloquence and poetry at the Moscow University boarding school. His lectures were listened to by A.S. Griboyedov, F.I. Tyutchev. Merzlyakov gave home lessons to M.Yu. Lermontov and many highly educated people in Russia.

Throughout the 19th century, the theory of eloquence was of interest to our advanced teachers and public figures. One of the favorite teachers of A.S. Pushkin in the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum A.I. Galich wrote the manual "The Theory of Eloquence for All Kinds of Prose Works", which, undoubtedly, was studied by A.S. Pushkin and his lyceum comrades, who later became well-known writers.

Writer and historian N.M. Karamzin, who had a significant influence on the development of the Russian literary language, urged his contemporaries to learn to "write as we speak and speak as we write," without clogging up speech with obsolete borrowings and rude vernacular. The new style of Karamzin became a model for the writers of the Pushkin era and all educated people of that time.

Great importance eloquence was given by the famous Russian historian B.C. Klyuchevsky. He rightly noted that many teachers do not know how to express their thought and present it in such a way that “it withers and fades, like a flower that has fallen under a heavy, hard sole.” As an example to helpless speakers, Klyuchevsky set the historian S.M. Solovyov, in whom "the word has always been according to the growth of thought." “Listening to Solovyov, we felt,” Klyuchevsky wrote, “that a person was talking to us, who knew a lot and thought about everything ... and put all his knowledge into an integral worldview.” In this review, the most important criterion for eloquence is the erudition of the speaker, deep knowledge in the area to which the speech is devoted.

Outstanding Russian scientists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries delighted their contemporaries with their eloquence. DI. Mendeleev was remembered by his students not only as a famous chemist, but also as an excellent popularizer of scientific ideas, bringing a live stream of direct observations into his lectures, creating vivid, impressive images.

K.A. Timiryazev conquered the audience with eloquence, giving public lectures on "The Life of Plants". The strict scientific nature of his speech was combined with the simplicity and clarity of presentation. It seemed to the listeners that an inspired artist was speaking before them, drawing the verbal images of plants. And Timiryazev himself argued that in public speaking, a bright, fascinating form is always important.

The greatest contribution to the development of eloquence - both in theoretical and practical terms - was made by our wonderful writers. They worked tirelessly to improve artistic speech, creating excellent examples of syllables; enriched the Russian literary language, expanding its limits and showing various methods of enhancing emotionality, imagery of speech; they fought for the purity and correctness of the Russian language, protecting it from damage and clogging with unnecessary borrowing and inept word creation. Russian writers left us many recommendations and advice on how to treat the richest language resources of the language, how to skillfully use its expressive possibilities. All this is of paramount importance for the development of problems of eloquence.

Classical writers gave essential improving the culture of speech in society and drew attention to the importance of teaching eloquence. A.P. Chekhov called "good news" the news that a course of recitation was introduced at Moscow University - that is, according to the writer, they began to "learn to speak beautifully and expressively." In a note on this subject, he wrote that the teaching of eloquence should be made obligatory, emphasizing: “For intelligent person speaking badly should be considered as indecent as not being able to read and write.

Questions and tasks for self-control

1. What is rhetoric as a science and an academic subject?

2. What is the subject of general rhetoric?

3. What is the doctrine of the types and types of literature contains private rhetoric?

4. What is the reason for the birth of rhetoric as a discipline?

5. Who is the founder of ancient rhetoric?

6. What place did eloquence occupy in Russian philological science?

7. What is the study of the basics of eloquence about?

Dictionary Ushakov

Rhetoric

rito rica(or rhetoric), rhetoric, pl. No, female (Greek rhetorike).

1. Theory of oratory, eloquence ( scientific). Textbook of classical rhetoric. rules of rhetoric.

| trans. A rant in which beautiful phrases and words hide its vacuity ( books. neod.).

2. In the old days - the name of the youngest of the three classes of theological seminaries (rhetoric, philosophy, theology).

Pedagogical speech science. Dictionary-Reference

Rhetoric

(Greek rhetorike techne from rhetor - speaker) - the theory and practical skill of expedient, influencing, harmonizing speech. R.'s theory, which arose as early as antiquity (the middle of the 1st millennium BC), syncretically contained all the main disciplines of the humanities; by the middle of the 19th century. their isolation and specialization is completed, and R. loses the status of a theoretical field of knowledge. The development of humanitarian culture since the middle of the 20th century. marked by the so-called "rhetorical renaissance" or "revival of R.". This concerns, first of all, the theory of R.: linguistics and literary criticism again turn to the classical rhetorical heritage, rethinking it at a new level; abroad, a modern new rhetoric (neorhetoric) is emerging, which even begins to claim the role of a general methodology of humanitarian knowledge (the grounds for this are found in the fact that many of the most general theoretical concepts of the humanities arose precisely in classical rhetorical theory). Neo-rhetoric is related to linguistic pragmatics, communicative linguistics, etc.; these young sciences are essentially the disciplines of the rhetorical circle; their theoretical apparatus also largely goes back to the system of concepts of ancient R.

Since the second half of the XX century. abroad there is an interest in rhetorical practice, there are special methods and courses for improving speech communication, listening and understanding, quick reading, etc. In recent years, manifestations of the “rhetorical Renaissance” are noticeable in our country. However, the modern theory of general speech, the subject of which is the general patterns of speech behavior that operate in various situations of communication, and ways to optimize speech communication, is just beginning to be developed in Russian philology. The same applies to modern private R., on the basis of which it is possible to improve speech communication in the so-called "areas of increased speech responsibility" (such as diplomacy and medicine, pedagogy and jurisprudence, administrative and organizational activities, social assistance, journalism, trade, services etc.).

Lit.: Aristotle. Rhetoric // Ancient rhetoric. - M., 1978; Vinogradov V.V. On the language of artistic prose. - M., 1980; Graudina L.K., Miskevich G.I. Theory and practice of Russian eloquence. - M., 1989; Mikhalskaya A.K. O modern concept culture of speech // FN. - 1990. - No. 5; Mikhalskaya A.K. Russian Socrates: Lectures on comparative historical rhetoric. - M., 1996; Neo-rhetoric: genesis, problems, prospects: Sat. scientific and analytical reviews. - M., 1987; Rhetoric and style / Ed. Yu.V. Rozhdestvensky. - M., 1984.

A. K. Mikhalskaya 204

Rhetoric

(Greek rhetorike). The theory of expressive speech, the theory of eloquence, oratory.

Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language

Rhetoric

Latin - rhetorica.

In Russian written speech, the word was first used by Avvakum (XVII century), and its spelling was somewhat different from the modern one, changed several times over the centuries. The Old Russian word with the meaning "the theory of prose speech in general, eloquence in particular" was written and pronounced as "rhetoric", then the shortened "rhetoric" became widely used.

At the beginning of the XX century. traditional was the spelling "rhetoric" (respectively - "rhetor", "rhetorical").

Related are:

Polish - retoryka.

Derivatives: orator, rhetorician, rhetorical.

Culturology. Dictionary-reference

Rhetoric

(Greek rhetorike) is the science of oratory (about fiction in general). Consisted of 5 parts: finding the material, location, verbal expression, memorization and pronunciation. Rhetoric developed in antiquity (Cicero, Quintilian), developed in the Middle Ages and modern times, in the nineteenth century. immersed in literary theory.

Rhetoric: Dictionary Reference

Rhetoric

(other Greek ρητώρίκη)

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

Pedagogical terminological dictionary

Rhetoric

(Greek rhetorike (tekhne) - oratory)

a discipline that studies the ways of constructing artistically expressive speech (primarily prose and oral), various forms of speech impact on the audience.

R. received its beginnings in ancient Greece in the 5th century. BC. In the schools of sophists (see), a system of educational oratorical exercises was developed - recitations on given topics. The scientific foundations of R. were laid by Aristotle, who considered R. as the science of the laws of opinion (correlating it with logic, the science of the laws of knowledge). For teaching R. was important activity Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, who in his essay "On the Syllable" gave an extensive systematized apparatus of rhetorical categories. Teaching in rhetorical schools was based on the study of the theory and exemplary works of orators of the 5th-4th centuries. BC.

Later, there was a gap between theory and normative samples: the theory set the task of R. entertaining presentation, the development of a high style, in the samples of Ch. attention was paid to the accuracy of the expression. In the Middle Ages, along with grammar and dialectics (logic), R. was part of the trivium, the lowest level of the seven free arts. In the monastic and cathedral schools of Western Europe, and then at the universities of the main. Sources for studying R. were the Latin anonymous "Rhetoric to Herennius" and "On Finding Words" by Cicero. R. remained a part of classical education until the 19th century. However, which began already in the 18th century. The discrepancy between normative school language and language practice was the reason for the exclusion of language from educational courses by the beginning of the 20th century.

In Russia, the systematic teaching of R. began in the schools of Orthodox brotherhoods in Southwestern Russia and the Commonwealth in the 16th and 17th centuries. from Latin textbooks. In the Kyiv archives, 127 Roman textbooks in Latin dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries have been preserved, which were used in classes at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy. The authors of educational books on R. were: Simeon Polotsky, the Likhud brothers (1698), teacher R. Georgy Daniilovsky (c. 1720), M.V. Lomonosov (1748) and others. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. instead of R., the theory of literature began to be taught, under this name from the 70s. 19th century until the 20s. 20th century came out school normative manuals, considering ch.o. artistic writing.

Elements of pedagogical R. have been preserved in the courses of the Russian language and literature to the present day ( creative work, practical exercises on the development of oral and written forms of speech and mastering the norms speech etiquette and etc.).

From the 50s. In connection with the development of mass communication and information media in a number of countries (primarily in the United States, France, and Japan), interest in R. as an independent scientific and educational discipline arose again. In Ros. Federation in the 90s. R. as an academic discipline introduced in secondary schools.

(Bim-Bad B.M. Pedagogical encyclopedic dictionary. - M., 2002. S. 241-242)

see also

Dictionary of linguistic terms

Rhetoric

(other Greek ρητώρίκη)

1) theory and art of eloquence;

2) a science that studies expressive techniques; stylistically differentiated speech, methods and techniques of discussion-polemical speech;

3) under the influence of enantiosemy, the meaning of the word R. has developed, including a negative assessment: R. - beautiful, pompous, little content speech;

4) According to A.A. Volkov: a philological discipline that studies the relationship of thought to the word; R.'s scope is prosaic speech or public argumentation. "Grammar, poetics, lexicography, textual criticism, literary history, stylistics arose later than rhetoric and developed for a long time as auxiliary or preparatory subjects for the study of rhetoric"; Today, rhetoric as a philological discipline ranks among linguistics, stylistics, textual criticism, theory and history of fiction, folklore, and occupies a place in the system of philological disciplines that is justified historically and methodologically;

R. focuses on the structure of the linguistic personality of the sender and recipient of speech, on the speech technique of argumentation and the method of constructing an expedient statement;

R. generalizes the experience of social and linguistic practice, studying the type of linguistic personality specific to each cultural and linguistic community and the nature of speech relations;

general R. studies the principles of constructing expedient speech;

private R. studies specific types of speech;

modern Russian argumentation technique has deep historical roots: it goes back to the ancient Byzantine culture of public speech and adopted the methods and forms of argumentation of Western European societies;

5) R. - an academic discipline that involves the special and literary education of a rhetor;

R.'s social tasks consist of:

a) in the education of a rhetor;

b) creation of norms of public argumentation, providing a discussion of problems significant for society;

c) organization of speech relations in the field of management, education, economic activity, security, law and order;

d) in determining the criteria for evaluating public activities, on the basis of which persons capable of holding responsible positions are selected. The science of the art of speech, eloquence, oratory. R. summarizes the experience of the masters of the word, sets the rules.

Antique world. Dictionary-reference

Rhetoric

(Greek rhetorike)

the science of the laws of eloquence and their practical application. In Ancient Greece, arose in the 5th century. BC, but how science developed in the III century. BC. In ancient Rome, reached its peak in the 1st century. BC. The Romans learned oratory from the Greeks and borrowed a lot from them. Classic antique r. included 5 main parts: 1) selection and systematization of the material; 2) the arrangement of the material and its presentation; 3) verbal expression, combination of words and style of speech (simple, medium, high); 4) conclusion; 5) pronunciation technique. According to the laws of speech should consist of the following parts: introduction, presentation of the essence of the case, evidence and conclusion.

R. of antiquity are mainly judicial and solemn (ceremonial) speeches. Roman eloquence reached its perfection in the person of Cicero (about 50 of his speeches have survived): even today the best orators are compared with Cicero.

Cicero. Three treatises on oratory. M., 1972; Ancient rhetoric / Ed. A.A. Tahoe-Godi. M., 1978; Kozarzhevsky A.Ch. Ancient oratory. M., 1980; Kuznetsova T.I., Strelnikova I.P. Oratory in Ancient Rome. M., 1976.

(I.A. Lisovy, K.A. Revyako. The ancient world in terms, names and titles: Dictionary-reference book on the history and culture of Ancient Greece and Rome / Scientific ed. A.I. Nemirovsky. - 3rd ed. - Minsk: Belarus, 2001)

in the ancient world, the science of the laws of eloquence, theory and practice publ. speech. R. owes its appearance to a widely developed society, life in gr. democrat, city-states (primarily in Sicily and Athens), where state issues. management and legal disputes were resolved in Nar. assembly and court hearings involving, therefore, the number of citizens. Under these circumstances, the priority the task of the speaker yavl. substantiation of his own t. sp., the desire to convince listeners using all means of influencing their mind and emotions. About the role played by the public. word in Athens in the 5th - 4th centuries, give an idea of ​​the speech put into the mouth of Thucydides watered, figures of the period of the Peloponnesian War, as well as preserved. speeches Lysia, Isocrates, Demosthenes and other Athenian speakers. Theor. R.'s justification as a science is traditionally associated with the names of the Sicilian teachers of eloquence - Tisias and Korak (5th century BC) and their compatriot George, who in 427 conquered the Athenians with his orator and skill. Bol. other senior sophists (Protagoras, Hippias) also made a contribution to the development of R., who considered one of their chapters. merit is the ability to "make a weak word strong", that is, to find convincing evidence. any thesis. The first school of R. was opened in Athens by Isocrates, who sought to reinforce the practical training of his speaker. general education. To the 2nd floor. 4th century refers to the 1st normative manual for the speaker, claim-woo - the so-called. "R. to Alexander" Anaximenes (not to be confused with a philosopher!), preserved. among the works of Aristotle. His own “R.”, which was based on the laws of logic, ethics, and the psychology of perception, did not have any influence on the professional development of questions of R., which occupied Ch. place in Theophrastus treatise “On style” (or “On syllable”), which has not come down to us, where, no-vid., the doctrine of 3 styles of speech (high, medium, simple) was first developed and the requirements for its clarity, beauty and "relevance", i.e., compliance with the task of the speaker. The crisis of the democrats, policies and the formation of Hellenes, monarchies (by the 4th - 3rd centuries BC) deprives the public of the meaning. speeches on issues of states, importance, in connection with which the development of formal tech. sides of speech, a detailed classification of the system of evidence, speech figures, etc., which, however, does not interfere with the manifestation of a true taste for art. word in op. Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the anonymous treatise "On the Sublime". The result of the development of other gr. R. steel prod. Hermogenes (II century AD), focused on the needs of school education.

In lat. lang. the first monument of R. yavl. non-bol. treatise R. to Herennius, erroneously attributed to Cicero, who himself was rather reserved about technical instructions, highlighting the ideal of meaningfulness of speech and comprehensive education of the speaker. From 3 ch. Cicero's treatises on the orator, the claim in the naib, degree "Orator" (46 BC) is devoted to a systematic presentation of styles. questions R. The establishment of the empire in Rome leads, as in gr. state-wah, to the fall of the content side of R.: bol. distribution in rhetors, schools receive all kinds of recitations intended for fictitious trials and fictitious incidents. Consideration of the technical side of the speaker, the lawsuit prevails in the work that completes the development of the theory of R. in Rome. soil, - in the "Education of a speaker" Kvintshshana. Numerous monuments orator, prose preserved. from the late antique period. (speeches by Dion Chrysostom, Libanius, Themistius), but neither the writers themselves nor the authors of the specials enter R.'s theory. treatises and manuals have not introduced anything fundamentally new. Main its provisions were fully formed by the end of the 1st century. n. e. and included the division of speeches into political (deliberative), judicial, and epidictic (ceremonial); traditional speech structure, ch. arr. judiciary (introduction, presentation, proof, refutation, conclusion), the doctrine of speech preparation (finding material, its location, selection of expressions, means, memorization) and its pronunciation; style theory; detailed classification of speech figures; the requirement for the speaker not only to convince and excite the listener, but also to delight him with the beauty of the sounding word.

(Ancient culture: literature, theater, art, philosophy, science. Dictionary-reference book / Edited by V.N. Yarkho. M., 1995.)

Terminological dictionary-thesaurus on literary criticism

Rhetoric

(from Greek rhetorike, from rhetor - speaker) - the science of oratory and, more broadly, of fiction in general. In the 19th century immersed in literary theory.

Republic of Belarus: literature and science

Corr: poetics

The Whole: Literary Theory

Ass: style, tropes, figures of speech

* "As a special discipline, rhetoric is aimed at comprehending the specifics of the artistic language and the means of its creation. It is designed to explain how and why rhetorical figures- these cliches of artistic thought - transform speech, give it a style and quality of artistry "(Yu.B. Borev).

"Rhetoric from the very beginning becomes a kind of nervous system of literature" (M.Ya. Polyakov). *

Dictionary of forgotten and difficult words of the 18th-19th centuries

Rhetoric

and rhetoric, and , and.

1. The science of eloquence, oratory; textbook on the theory of eloquence.

* As for the Russian language, we only had textbooks, i.e. grammar, syntax and rhetoric. // Saltykov-Shchedrin. Poshekhonskaya old times //* *

RHETORICAL.

2. The pomp of speech.

* This fidelity is false from beginning to end. There is a lot of rhetoric in the story, but no logic. // Chekhov. Uncle Ivan // *

3. The name of the junior class of the theological seminary.

* [Pravdin:] And you, Mr. Kuteikin, aren't you one of the scientists? [Kuteikin:] From scientists, your highness! Seminaries of the local diocese. Reached rhetoric, but deigning God, returned back. // Fonvizin. Undergrowth // *

Gasparov. Entries and extracts

Rhetoric

♦ At school, we were taught to list three of its meanings at the end of the analysis of each work: cognitive, ideological and educational, and literary and artistic. Actually, this exactly corresponds to the three tasks of rhetoric: docere, movere, delectare (mind, will, feeling).

♦ (T.V.) "Rhetoric - wherever a person first thinks and then speaks, Aristotle is more rhetorical than Plato, and Socrates was the only Greek non-rhetorician."

♦ An unfamiliar voice called me: "I am so-and-so ("ah, I know, of course I read"), I'm defending my doctorate, do not refuse to be an opponent". The topic is close to me, there are few specialists, I agreed. Time is short, as always. After reading the paper, I overcame my phone fear and called him: "I will say the best words, I can’t say just one thing - what is it scientific work ; I hope that my rhetorical experience is enough so that the scientific council does not notice this, but consider whether you can take another opponent". He thought for half a minute and said: "No, I rely on you". Rhetorical experience was enough, the vote was unanimous

♦ (From the diary of M. Shkapskaya in RGALI). Olga Forsh was waiting for the tram, missed four, jumped into the fifth; it was removed by a young policeman, who said: "You, citizen, are not so young as you are unreasonable." She walked away, touched, and only then realized that he had simply told her the old fool.

♦ In vain they think that this is the ability to say what you don't really think. This is the ability to say exactly what you think, but in such a way that you are not surprised or indignant. The ability to say one's own words in other people's words is exactly what the hater of rhetoric Bakhtin has been doing all his life. The Muses in the prologue to Theogony say:

We know how to tell a lot of lies

similar to the truth,

But we also know how to speak the truth,

When we want.

Published "History of world literature", I wrote the introduction to the antique section. N. from the editorial board in a bright speech demanded that Greece created the type of Promethean man who became a beacon for progressive mankind of all times. I listened, kept silent and wrote the opposite - that Greece created the concept of law, world and human, which is above all, etc., - but using the vocabulary characteristic of N-y. I N., and everyone in the editorial board was completely satisfied. Who wants to can read in the I volume IVL.

Terms of Cinematic Semiotics

RHETORIC

(Greek rhetorikē) Theory of oratory. See also in the understanding of K. Metz.

RHETORIC in the understanding of Y. Lotman - Y. Lotman writes: RHETORIC - one of the most traditional disciplines of the philological cycle - has now received a new life. The need to connect the data of linguistics and the poetics of the text gave rise to neo-rhetoric, which in a short time brought to life an extensive scientific literature. Without touching upon the problems that arise in this case in their entirety, we single out an aspect that we will need in the further presentation. A rhetorical statement, in the terminology we have adopted, is not some simple message, on which decorations are superimposed on top, when removed, the main meaning is preserved. In other words. A rhetorical statement cannot be expressed in a non-rhetorical way. The rhetorical structure lies not in the sphere of expression, but in the sphere of content. Unlike a non-rhetorical text, as already noted, we will call a rhetorical text one that can be represented as a structural unity of two (or several) subtexts encrypted using different, mutually untranslatable codes. These subtexts may represent local orders, and thus the text in its various parts will have to be read in different languages ​​or act as different words, uniform throughout the text. In this second case, the text assumes a double reading, for example everyday and symbolic. Rhetorical texts will include all cases of counterpoint clashes within the same structure of various semiotic languages. The rhetoric of a baroque text is characterized by a clash within a whole area marked by different degrees of semioticity. In the collision of languages, one of them invariably appears as a natural (non-language), and the other as emphatically artificial. In the baroque temple wall paintings in the Czech Republic, one can find a motif: an angel in a frame. The peculiarity of the painting is that the frame imitates an oval window. And the figure sitting on the windowsill hangs one leg, as if crawling out of the frame. The leg that does not fit inside the composition is sculptural. It is attached to the drawing as a continuation. Thus, the text is a pictorial and sculptural combination, and the background behind the figure imitates the blue sky and appears as a breakthrough in the space of the fresco. The protruding three-dimensional leg breaks this space in a different way and in the opposite direction. The entire text is built on the game between real and unreal space and the clash of art languages, one of which is a natural property of the object itself, and the other is an artificial imitation of it. The art of classicism demanded unity of style. The baroque change of local orders seemed barbaric. All text throughout should be evenly organized and encoded in the same way. This does not mean, however, that the rhetorical structure is abandoned. The rhetorical effect is achieved by other means - the multi-layered language structure. The most common is the case when the object of the image is encoded first by the theatrical, and then by the poetic (lyrical), historical or pictorial code. In a number of cases (this is especially characteristic of historical prose, pastoral poetry, and eighteenth-century painting), the text is a direct reproduction of the corresponding theatrical exposition or stage episode. In accordance with the genre, such an intermediary text-code can be a scene from a tragedy, comedy or ballet. So, for example, Charles Coypel's painting Psyche Abandoned by Cupid reproduces the ballet scene in all the conventions of the spectacle of this genre in the interpretation of the 18th century. (Yu. Lotman Semiosphere St. Petersburg, Art - St. Petersburg, 2000, pp. 197-198). See also .

P.S. It can be seen from this text that Y. Lotman reduces RHETORIC (NEO-RITORIC), which has suddenly become popular, to the long-known ECLECTICS, or SYMBIOSIS of artistic means. In contrast, Christian Metz provides a more meaningful explanation for semiologists' keen interest in medieval rhetoric. See next term.

RHETORIC in the understanding of K. Metz - Christian Metz writes: "Is the "grammar" of cinema RHETORIC or grammar? Based on the foregoing, we can assume that this is most likely RHETORIC, since the minimum unit (plan) is indefinite, and therefore codification can only affect large units The doctrine of "disposition" (dispositio) * (or big syntagmatics), which is one of the main parts of classical RHETORIC, consists in prescribing a certain combination of indefinite elements: any legal speech should consist of five parts (introduction, exposition, and so on) , but the duration and internal composition of each of them are arbitrary.Practically all the figures of "cinematic grammar" - that is, a set of units: 1) sign (as opposed to "differential"), 2) discrete, 3) large sizes, 4) specific to cinema and common to films - obey the same principle. It is both codified (= by the very fact of alternation) and symbolic (since this alternation denotes simultaneity), but the duration and internal composition of the combined elements (that is, alternating images) remain absolutely arbitrary. And yet it is precisely here that one of the greatest difficulties of the semiotics of cinema arises, since rhetoric in its other aspects is grammar, and the essence of the semiotics of cinema lies in the fact that rhetoric and grammar here turn out to be indivisible, as Pier-Paolo Pasolini rightly emphasizes. "(Sat "The structure of the film" M., Rainbow, 1984, article by K. Metz "Problems of denotation in a feature film" pp., 109-110).

Note:

the doctrine of "disposition" (dispositio) * - The doctrine of "disposition" is one of the three parts of classical rhetoric: 1) inventio - the selection of arguments and evidence, 2) dispositio - the development of the order of presentation of arguments and evidence, 3) elocutio - the doctrine of verbal expression (Note M. Yampolsky).

P.S. From the above, at least, it is clear why Christian Metz needed a respectable rhetoric: he is trying to define the essence of cinematic grammar, and is not engaged, like Yu. Lotman, only in terminological renaming.

Philosophical Dictionary (Comte-Sponville)

Rhetoric

Rhetoric

♦ Rhetorique

The art of discourse (as opposed to eloquence as the art of speech) aimed at persuasion. Rhetoric subordinates the form with all its possibilities of persuasion to the content, that is, thought. For example, forms such as chiasmus (***), antithesis, or metaphor do not by themselves prove anything and cannot serve as an argument for anything, but as an aid they can help in persuasion. Therefore, rhetorical devices should not be abused. Rhetoric tending towards self-sufficiency ceases to be rhetoric and turns into sophistry. Rhetoric is necessary, and only complacent people can think that rhetoric is easy to do without. The best minds of mankind did not disdain rhetoric. Take Pascal or Rousseau: a brilliant possession of oratory did not prevent each of them from becoming a brilliant writer and thinker. True, we admit that Montaigne looks more advantageous against their background - he is more direct, more inventive and more free. He was much less eager to convince anyone of his innocence; he had enough truth and freedom. However, it cannot be said that he completely dispensed with rhetoric - he was simply better than others able to maintain his independence from rhetoric. As they say, first learn a trade, and then forget that you learned it.

Kind of parallelism; the arrangement of the parts of two parallel terms in reverse order ("We eat to live, not live to eat").

Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language (Alabugina)

Rhetoric

AND, and.

1. Theory of oratory, eloquence.

* Study rhetoric. *

2. trans. Excessive elation of presentation, pomposity.

* Speak without rhetoric and loud phrases. *

|| adj. rhetorical, th, th.

* Rhetorical question. *

Explanatory Translation Dictionary

Rhetoric

theory of expressiveness of speech, theory of eloquence, oratory.

Rhetoric: Dictionary Reference

Rhetoric

(other Greek ρητώρίκη)

1) Theory and art of eloquence;

2) a science that studies expressive techniques; stylistically differentiated speech, methods and techniques of discussion-polemical speech;

3) under the influence of enantiosemy, the meaning of the word R. has developed, including a negative assessment: R. - beautiful, pompous, little content speech;

4) According to A.A. Volkov: a philological discipline that studies the relationship of thought to the word; R.'s scope is prosaic speech or public argumentation. “Grammar, poetics, lexicography, textual criticism, literary history, stylistics arose later than rhetoric and developed for a long time as auxiliary or preparatory subjects for the study of rhetoric”; Today, rhetoric as a philological discipline ranks among linguistics, stylistics, textual criticism, theory and history of fiction, folklore, and occupies a place in the system of philological disciplines that is justified historically and methodologically; R. focuses on the structure of the linguistic personality of the sender and recipient of speech, on the speech technique of argumentation and the method of constructing an expedient statement; R. generalizes the experience of social and linguistic practice, studying the type of linguistic personality specific to each cultural and linguistic community and the nature of speech relations; general R. studies the principles of constructing expedient speech; private R. studies specific types of speech; modern Russian argumentation technique has deep historical roots: it goes back to the ancient Byzantine culture of public speech and adopted the methods and forms of argumentation of Western European societies;

5) R. - an academic discipline that involves the special and literary education of a rhetor; R.'s social tasks are: a) in the education of a rhetorician; b) creation of norms of public argumentation, providing a discussion of problems significant for society; c) organization of speech relations in the field of management, education, economic activity, security, law and order; d) in determining the criteria for evaluating public activities, on the basis of which persons capable of holding responsible positions are selected. The science of the art of speech, eloquence, oratory. R. summarizes the experience of the masters of the word, sets the rules.

encyclopedic Dictionary

Rhetoric

(Greek rhetorike),

1. the science of oratory and, more broadly, of artistic prose in general. Consisted of 5 parts: finding material, arrangement, verbal expression (teaching about 3 styles: high, medium and low and about 3 means of style elevation: selection of words, combination of words and stylistic figures), memorization and pronunciation. Rhetoric was developed in antiquity (Cicero, Quintilian), developed in the Middle Ages and in modern times (in Russia, M. V. Lomonosov). In the 19th century the doctrine of verbal expression merged into poetics and became part of the theory of literature under the name of stylistics. All R. 20th century the broad (general literary, linguistic and even philosophical) meaning of tereffective speech communication is being revived.
2. Musical rhetoric is a musical-theoretical doctrine of the Baroque era, associated with the view of music as a direct analogy of oratory and poetic speech. Includes the same parts as literary rhetoric; their content was expressed in a system of specific musical techniques (see Art. Figure).

Ozhegov's dictionary

RIT O RIKA, and, and.

1. Theory of oratory.

2. trans. Pompous and incoherent speech. Empty r. Get into rhetoric.

| adj. rhetorical, oh, oh. R. question(reception of oratorical speech statement in the form of a question).

Dictionary of Efremova

Rhetoric

1. and.
   1. :
      1. Theory and art of eloquence.
      2. An academic subject containing the theory of eloquence.
      3. unfold A textbook that sets out the content of a given academic subject.
   2. trans. Effective, beautiful, but little content speech.
2. and. obsolete The name of the junior class of the theological seminary.

Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron

Rhetoric

(ρητορική τέχνη) - in the original meaning of the word - the science of oratory, but later was sometimes understood more broadly, as a theory of prose in general. European rhetoric got its start in Greece, in the schools of the sophists, whose main task was the purely practical teaching of eloquence; therefore, their R. included many rules related to stylistics and grammar proper. According to Diogenes Laertes, Aristotle attributed the invention of R. to the Pythagorean Empedocles, whose composition is unknown to us even by name. From the words of Aristotle himself and from other sources, we know that the first treatise on R. belonged to a student of Empedocles, Corax, a favorite of the Syracusan tyrant Hieron, a political orator and lawyer. In him we find a curious definition: "eloquence is the worker of persuasion (πειθοΰς δημιουργός)"; he is the first to make an attempt to establish the division of oratory into parts: introduction (προοιμιον), sentence (κατάστάσις), exposition (διήγησις), proof or struggle (άγών), fall (παρέκβασις) and conclusion; he also put forward the position that the main goal of the orator is not the disclosure of truth, but persuasiveness with the help of the probable (είκός), for which all sorts of sophisms are extremely useful. The work of Corax has not come down to us, but ancient writers give us examples of his sophisms, of which the so-called crocodile was especially famous. A student of Corax, Tizius, developed the same system of sophistical evidence and the main means of teaching R. considered memorizing exemplary speeches of judicial orators. Gorgias of Leontius, who was famous in his time, came out of his school, who, according to Plato, “discovered that the probable is more important than the true, and was able in his speeches to present the small as great, and the great as small, to pass off the old as new and recognize the new as old, about one and express conflicting opinions on the same subject. Gorgias' method of teaching also consisted in the study of patterns; each of his students had to know extracts from the works of the best speakers in order to be able to answer the most frequently raised objections. Gorgias owned a curious treatise "on a decent occasion" (περί τοΰ καιροΰ), which spoke of the dependence of speech on the subject, on the subjective properties of the speaker and the audience, and gave instructions on how to destroy serious arguments with the help of ridicule and, conversely, to respond to ridicule with dignity . Gorgias contrasted beautiful speaking (εύέπεια) with the affirmation of truth (όρθοέπεια). He contributed a lot to the creation of rules about metaphors, figures, alliteration, parallelism of parts of a phrase. Many famous rhetoricians came out of the school of Gorgias: Paul of Agrigent, Likimnius, Thrasymachus, Even, Theodore of Byzantium; the sophists Protagoras and Prodicus and the famous orator Isocrates, who developed the doctrine of the period, belonged to the same stylistic direction. The direction of this school can be called practical, although it prepared rich psychological material for the development of general theoretical provisions on oratory and this facilitated the task of Aristotle, who in his famous "Rhetoric" (translated by H. N. Platonova, St. Petersburg, 1894) provides a scientific justification for the former dogmatic rules, using purely empirical methods. Aristotle significantly expanded the field of R., in comparison with the view of it that was common at that time. “Since the gift of speech,” he says, “has the character of universality and finds application in the most diverse cases, and since the action in giving advice, with all kinds of explanations and convictions given for one person or for entire assemblies (with which the orator is dealing ), is essentially the same, then R. has as little to do with any one specific area as does dialectics: it embraces all spheres human life. Rhetoric, understood in this sense, is used by everyone at every turn; it is equally necessary both in matters relating to the everyday needs of an individual, and in matters of national importance: once a person begins to persuade another person to something or dissuade him from something, he must resort to the help of R., consciously or unconsciously " Understanding R. in this way, Aristotle defines it as the ability to find possible ways of persuasion regarding each given subject.From here, the goal pursued by Aristotle in his treatise is clear: he wanted, on the basis of observation, to give general forms of oratory, to indicate what he should guided by the orator or, in general, anyone who wants to convince someone of something.Accordingly, he divided his treatise into three parts: the first of them is devoted to an analysis of those principles on the basis of which the orator (i.e., anyone who speaks about something - any) can induce or divert his listeners to something, can praise or blame something.The second part speaks of those personal properties and features of the speaker, with the help of which he can inspire confidence in his listeners and thus more likely to achieve his goal, that is, to persuade or dissuade them. The third part deals with the special, technical, so to speak, side of rhetoric: Aristotle speaks here about the methods of expression that should be used in speech, and about the construction of speech. Thanks to many subtle psychological remarks on the interaction between the speaker and the environment (for example, the meaning of humor, pathos, the impact on young people and old people), thanks to an excellent analysis of the power of evidence used in speech, Aristotle's work has not lost its significance for our time and had a strong influence on the entire subsequent development of European R.: in essence, some of the questions posed by Aristotle could now be the subject of scientific research, and, of course, the same empirical method used by Aristotle should be applied. Having accepted many of the provisions of Aristotle as dogmatic truths, R., however - both in Greece and later in Western Europe - strongly deviated from his method of research, returning to the path of practical instructions that the sophists followed. Among the Greeks, after Aristotle, we see two directions: attic, concerned primarily with the accuracy of the expression, and asian, which set the task of entertaining presentation and developed a special high style based on contrasts, replete with comparisons and metaphors. In Rome, Hortensius was the first follower of this Asiatic trend, and later Cicero adjoins him, who, however, speaks in some writings in favor of Atticism, the most elegant representative of which in Roman literature can be considered Caesar. Already at this time, one can see in the writings of some rhetoricians the emergence of the theory of three styles - high, medium and low - developed in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance. Cicero owns a considerable number of treatises on oratory (for example, "Brutus", "Orator"), and Roman R. received the most complete expression in the writings of Quintilian; She has never been original. In the era of the struggle between Christianity and ancient paganism, the science of Christian oratory was created (see Homiletics), which reached a brilliant development in the 4th and 5th centuries. after R. Kh. In a theoretical sense, it adds almost nothing to what was worked out by antiquity. In Byzantium, R.'s methods are closest to the Asian direction, and in this form this science is transmitted to ancient Russia, where we can see excellent examples of its influence in the works of Metropolitan Hilarion and Cyril of Turov. In the West, R. keeps the instructions of Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian, and these instructions turn into indisputable rules, and science becomes some kind of legislative code. This character is established in European R., especially in Italy, where, thanks to the meeting of the Latin scientific and Italian vernacular languages, the theory of three styles finds its best application. As stylists, Bembo and Castiglione occupy a prominent place in the history of Italian R., and the legislative direction is especially clearly expressed in the activities of the Academy della Crusca, whose task is to preserve the purity of the language. In the works, for example, by Sperone Speroni, the imitation of Gorgias' techniques in antitheses, the rhythmic structure of speech, the selection of consonances is noticeable, while the Florentine Davanzati notices a revival of Atticism. From Italy, this direction is transferred to France and other European countries. A new classicism is being created in R., which finds its best expression in Fenelon's Discourse on Eloquence. Any speech, according to Fenelon's theory, must either prove (ordinary style), or paint (medium), or captivate (high). According to Cicero, the oratorical word should approach the poetic; it is not necessary, however, to pile up artificial ornaments. We must try to imitate the ancients in everything; the main thing is clarity and correspondence of speech to feeling and thought. Interesting data for the characterization of French rhetoric can also be found in the history of the French academy and other institutions that guarded traditional rules. Similarly, R.'s development in England and Germany throughout the eighteenth century. In our century, the development of political and other types of eloquence should have led to the abolition of the conventional, legislative rules of oratory - and R. returns to the path of observation outlined by Aristotle. The concept of science is also expanding: for example, in Wackernagel, R. includes the entire theory of prose and is divided into two sections (narrative and instructive prose), and remarks about style are finally excluded from R., since they equally apply to poetry, and to prose, and therefore constitute a special department of stylistics. In Russia, in the pre-Petrine period of the development of literature, R. could be used only in the field of spiritual eloquence, and the number of her monuments is completely negligible: we have some stylistic remarks in Svyatoslav's "Izbornik", a curious treatise of the 16th century: "Speech of Greek Subtlety" ( ed. of the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature) and "The Science of Composition of Sermons", Ioannikius Golyatovsky. The systematic teaching of R. begins in the southwestern theological schools from the 17th century, and the textbooks are always Latin, so there is no need to look for original processing in them. The first serious Russian work is Lomonosov's "Rhetoric", compiled on the basis of classical authors and Western European manuals and giving a number of examples in Russian to confirm the general provisions - examples taken partly from the works of new European writers. Lomonosov, in his Discourse on the Usefulness of Church Books, applies the Western theory of three styles to the Russian language. In view of the fact that the area of ​​eloquence in Russia was limited almost exclusively to church preaching, R. coincides with us almost always with homiletics (see); on secular rhetoric, we have extremely few works, and even those do not differ in independence, such as Koshansky's guides (see). The scientific development of R. in the sense that it is understood in the West has not yet begun in our country.