Literary notes about rhetoric (AI summary)
In literature, rhetoric is portrayed as a multifaceted art form—a tool of persuasion that ranges from a natural outpouring of emotion to a carefully honed academic discipline. Writers depict it as both an innate quality of passionate expression, as when language flows without pretense ([1]), and as a refined craft embedded in the liberal arts, essential for constructing persuasive arguments and self-defense ([2], [3]). Philosophical dialogues often examine rhetoric as a means of flattery or even deception, contrasting it with other forms of discourse like dialectic and poetry ([4], [5]), while dramatic exchanges underscore its power to sway public assemblies and influence opinion ([6], [7]). This dual portrayal highlights not only the beauty and efficacy of rhetoric as an art but also its susceptibility to misuse when divorced from genuine reasoning or moral purpose ([8], [9]).
- She used no rhetoric in her passion; or it was nature's own rhetoric, most legitimate then, when it seemed altogether without rule or law.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 by Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb - The gates will then stand for the seven liberal arts of grammar, rhetoric, etc.
— from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri - “The art of expressing one’s thoughts neatly and suitably is one which, in the neglect of rhetoric as a study, we must practice for ourselves.
— from The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness by Cecil B. Hartley - So pedantry might be substituted for wisdom, tyranny for government, superstition for morals, rhetoric for art.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - But dialectic is not rhetoric; nothing on that subject is to be found in the endless treatises of rhetoric, however prolific in hard names.
— from Phaedrus by Plato - Then now we have discovered a sort of rhetoric which is addressed to a crowd of men, women, and children, freemen and slaves.
— from Gorgias by Plato - Still, notwithstanding the absurdities of Polus and others, rhetoric has great power in public assemblies.
— from Phaedrus by Plato - Scarcely had it been born out of rhetoric when it was smothered in authority.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - Aristo wisely defined rhetoric to be “a science to persuade the people;” Socrates and Plato “an art to flatter and deceive.”
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne
