I. Classical Rhetoric
| 9.1 | Introduction Walter Ong, "Some Psychodynamics of Orality" in Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London: Methuen, 1982), pp. 31-77 (pdf) Richard Lanham, "The Rhetorical Ideal of Life" in The Motives of Eloquence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), pp. 1-35 (pdf) |
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| 9.3 | Reading: Aristotle, Poetics, pp. 223-248 (print) Eric Havelock, "Mimesis" and "Psychology of the Poetic Performance" in Preface to Plato, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), pp 20-35 and 145-164. (pdf) |
| 9.8 | Reading: Aristotle, Poetics, pp. 248-266 (print) Alcidamas, "Concerning Those Who Write Speeches" in Matsen, Readings from Classical Rhetoric (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990), pp. 37-42. (pdf) |
| 9.10 | Reading: Aristotle, Rhetoric, pp. 19-35, 37-46, 90-97, 122-142 (print) Gorgias, On Helen in Matsen, Readings from Classical Rhetoric (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990), pp. 33-36 (pdf) and print |
| 9.15 | Reading: Aristotle, Rhetoric, pp. 90-122, 164-218 (print) Extra Session: Dramatic Reading of Oedipus Rex (print) |
| 9.17 | Reading: Aristotle, "On Memory" in On the Soul (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), pp. 289-313 (pdf) Roman Jakobson, The Fundamentals of Language, Part II "Two Aspects of Language…" pp. 72-96. (library on-line ebook) |
| 9.22 | Reading: Ad Herennium, Book I, pp. 145-50, Book III (print) |
| 9.24 | Reading: Ad Herennium, Book IV (print) |
| 9.29 | Reading: excerpts from Cicero, De Oratore (The Making of an Orator), pp. 3-51, 85-87, 155-159, 191-195, 357-419 (pdf) |
| 10.1 | Reading: Freud, Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, pp. 5-105, 143-156 required (143-170 recommended), 293 (print) |
| 10.6 | Reading: excerpts from Quintilian, De Institutio Oratoria, pp 197-275 and 301-345 (pdf) |
| 10.8 | Reading: Lacan, Ecrits: "The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious," pp. 146- 159; "Function and Field of Speech," pp. 40-77 (pdf) |
II. Renaissance Rhetoric and "Copia"
| 10.13 | Reading: Tasso, "The Dialogue of the Father" in Tasso's Dialogues (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982 pp. 45-149 (pdf) |
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| 10.15 | Reading: Erasmus, Book I, chapters 1-2, 13-29 and Book II, 3 methods on embellishing copia of thought in De Copia (pdf) (also at www.gutenberg.com) Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique, pp 16-21 and 95-140 (pdf) |
| 10.19- 10.23 |
Fall Break |
| 10.27 | Reading: Pinciss and Lockyer, eds. Shakespeare's World, pp. 155-189 (pdf) George Puttenham, Book 2, "Of Proportion" in The Arte of English Poesie (pdf) |
| 10.29 | Reading: Shakespeare, Sonnets 1-6 Vendler, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets, pp.1-31 (pdf) |
| 11.3 | Reading: Shakespeare, Sonnets 7-13 Greene, "A Pitiful Husbandry" in The Vulnerable Text, pp. 175-193 (pdf) |
| 11.5 | Reading: Shakespeare, Sonnets 14-20 Smith, "The Secret Sharer" in Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare's England, pp. 228-270 (pdf) |
III. Modern Rhetoric and the Sublime
| 11.10 | Reading: Longinus, On the Sublime (www.gutenberg.com) |
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| 11.12 | Reading: Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises, pp. 37-43, 91-134. |
| 11.17 | Reading: Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime, Parts I and II, pp. 31-87. |
| 11.19 | Reading: Kant, "Analytic of the Sublime" and "On Genius," in Philosophical Writings, pp. 201-237. |
| 11.24 | Reading: Joyce, "Araby" in Dubliners |
| 11.26 | Reading: Joyce, "The Dead" in Dubliners |
| 12.1 | Reading: Joyce, "The Dead" in Dubliners |
Preparation for Conference
Prepare for every conference in at least one of the following ways:
- Write an annotation or a list of the major ideas in theoretical readings;
- Choose a paragraph that you find baffling and write 3 questions about it and/or its function in the text as a whole.
Written Assignments
You will have a written assignment of 2-3 pages due every week with the exception of the first week of class, the week before fall break, and the last week of class. You will sign up to write either for a Tuesday or a Thursday due date. If you are writing about a theoretical text, you will select one paragraph whose significance you will analyze both in terms of the key propositions it makes and in terms of its role in the text as a whole. If you are writing about a literary text you will select a passage (or a sonnet) for rhetorical analysis. How are invention, arrangement, and diction evident in the text and what purposes do they serve? All papers will open with a block quote of the text you are writing about.
Late papers will not be accepted short of medical or family emergency.