Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Ancient Rhetoric

Sophia Papaioannou, Andreas Serafim, and Michael Edwards, eds., Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Ancient Rhetoric (Leiden: Brill, 2022). 9789004373655. 

Reviewed by Mary Anastasi, University of California, Los Angeles, mkanastasi@ucla.edu.

It is all too easy to think of rhetoric as the weaker counterpart of real intellectual pursuits. But Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Ancient Rhetoric, an impressively comprehensive volume, shows how rhetoric goes beyond superficial eloquence, elucidating rhetoric’s influence in society, politics, literature, and popular culture. In the first, introductory chapter, the editors outline an ambitious goal to reframe rhetoric in both antiquity and modernity as something complex, nuanced, and dynamic; the editors set the book in opposition to the “fractured and simplistic” ways scholars have tended to view the reception of rhetoric (p. 1). Indeed, the volume argues that a cultural or authorial response to rhetoric is a litmus test of how values shift over time or remain analogous to those of ancient Greece and Rome. The twenty-seven chapters of the book collectively and individually succeed in the twofold goal of demystifying rhetoric and urging its readers to see it as a multifaceted and ever-evolving technique for effective communication.

Following the introductory chapter by the editors, the volume is broken down into two primary sections: survey chapters and thematic chapters. The thematic chapters are further subdivided: first, the genres, techniques, and features of rhetoric; second, literature, theatre, and culture; third, politics, leadership, and public speaking; fourth, pedagogy and gender; fifth, religion; and sixth, science. This detailed breakdown is helpful for readers in search of discussions about a particular topic. However, the volume also rewards the reader who persists through all twenty-seven chapters, as the grouping of topics allows one to make new connections in the intellectual history of ancient rhetoric.

One particularly successful aspect of the volume is that it demonstrates the increasingly global reach of rhetoric in both ancient and modern times. It is tempting to think of rhetoric as the purview of the politician or rhetor, or at least of coordinated government propaganda efforts. However, the volume presents a picture of rhetoric as a unifying, stabilizing force in society, not necessarily a threat to truth or tool for blaming political opponents. The chapters contributed by Petkas (Chapter 2, “The Reception of Greek Rhetoric in the Late Antique East”) and Bromberg (Chapter 16, “Sport and Peace: Panhellenic Myth-Making and the Modern Olympics”), respectively dealing with praise/invective and the branding around the modern Olympics, make this point in an especially clear manner.

Although rhetoricians naturally feature prominently in many of the chapters, the focus remains on the ancient and modern cultural contexts necessary to provide a more nuanced interpretation of a given individual. For example, Farrell’s chapter (Chapter 19, “The Last Orator: Rufus Choate and the End of Classical Eloquence in America”) shows how the nineteenth-century orator fashioned himself as Quintilian’s ideal vir bonus dicendi peritus (A good man, skilled in speaking), a goal that (Farrell argues) is representative of America’s longing to simultaneously hold onto the ideals of the (European) past while moving forward on its own terms. Rhetoric has had a global influence, yet still reflects an individual or collective striving toward an ever-clearer articulation of self-identity.

Several authors show how rhetoric intersects with a variety of sensory experiences, not simply hearing. For instance, Demetriou’s chapter (Chapter 12, “The Reception of Quintilian’s Theory of Gesture: Rhetorical Elements in Pantomime Acting”) reveals the nuanced experience of watching a speaker engage in what is almost a stage performance. Similarly, Bakogianni’s chapter (Chapter 15, “Ancient Rhetoric on the Silver Screen: Performing Agōnes in Michael Cacoyannis’ Euripidean Trilogy”) explores how Greek Cypriot filmmaker Michael Cacoyannis uses different visual techniques to sway the audience’s feelings toward Helen, Clytemnestra, and other female characters. In other instances, rhetoric helps writers elucidate concepts that are either fundamentally intangible and unseeable, such as the divine, or that are otherwise difficult for an audience to grasp without the help of the author, as the chapters in the sections on religion and science respectively demonstrate. For example, Luggin’s chapter (Chapter 27, “Philosophia naturalis: Ancient Rhetoric and Early Modern Science”) argues for the relevance of rhetoric for the Scientific Revolution, a time of many new insights and discoveries. The explosion of new and unfamiliar concepts made it necessary for authors to use their rhetorical skill to persuade their readers to accept these seemingly radical new ideas.

In some sense, rhetoric itself is unseeable and unknowable. Losappio’s chapter (Chapter 11, “Ancient Rhetoric and the Early “Italian” Commentaries on the Poetria nova”) teases out the challenges that early modern thinkers faced when attempting to distinguish the terms rhetorica, dialectica, and sermo ornatus (“rhetoric, dialectic, and ornate speech”). It seems to me that perhaps rhetoric has been prone to oversimplification and even marginalization because it is so tricky to pin down what exactly it is and what exactly it is meant to do for its students. Still, this volume makes the case that we should not default to oversimplification. For example, as the chapters by MacDonald (Chapter 14, “‘A Feast of Languages’: William Shakespeare’s Reception of Ancient Rhetoric”), Roer (Chapter 25, “Augustine’s Christian Eloquence”), and Avramović and Thür show (Chapter 22, “Ancient Forensic Rhetoric in a Modern Classroom”), there is often a great deal of cognitive dissonance when it comes to embracing or rejecting rhetoric. In these chapters, the rhetorical traditions of the past are viewed with suspicion, but also provide important models. For example, as MacDonald aptly puts it, “In the plays of Shakespeare the ars rhetorica can be both toxic and intoxicating” (p. 328), and the same could be said of the works of Augustine or even in the modern classroom setting as well. In the case of any effective message, rhetoric is a necessary part of the speaker’s strategy, and the process of thinking about rhetoric is a means of processing one’s own cultural past and present.

The volume is highly successful in achieving its aims, but would have benefited from some restructuring and diversification of topics covered. Many of the chapters discuss late antique and early modern Europe. There is also a certain unevenness with regard to how the chapters have been grouped. For example, Part 1 (“Survey Chapters”) contains only three out of twenty-seven total chapters, and these chapters are so narrow in their focus that they could have easily been grouped among the thematic chapters (e.g., Avramović’s Chapter 4, “The Beginning of Rhetoric among Serbs: Pioneering Manual in Eloquence by Avram Mrazović from 1821,” which is a strong standalone chapter but does not necessarily belong in the survey section). Conversely, each of the thematic chapters also included elements of what we might consider a survey chapter, particularly the first section on the features and genres of rhetoric. In general, the volume focuses on the reception of ancient rhetoric in European and Christian contexts. It does, however, reveal the wide-ranging potential for studies on the reception of ancient rhetoric, looking ahead to future work that might expand the discussion of ancient rhetoric’s reception to address more works by non-European, non-Christian, and non-male authors. There is also scope for future scholarship to analyze additional works of modern/contemporary literature. 

This volume achieves its stated goals of complicating our view of ancient rhetoric’s reception. The twenty-seven chapters show the rich variety of uses for rhetoric from late antiquity all the way to the present day, and they will be of particular interest to scholars in a variety of fields, including history, classics, early modern studies, and even sociology. The volume will especially appeal to those working on interdisciplinary projects, as there is much productive dialogue between each chapter. The contributions are approachable enough for undergraduates; all chapters are structured to include clear, specific conclusions that aid readers who may not be subject-matter specialists. At the same time, there is enough depth that graduate students and scholars working on the reception of ancient rhetoric will find the volume to be a valuable resource. 

Table of Contents

1. Making the Past Present: Ancient Rhetoric across the Ages, Cultures, and Topics / Sophia Papaioannou, Andreas Serafin, and Michael Edwards (1–24)

Part 1: Survey Chapters

2. The Reception of Greek Rhetoric in the Late Antique East / Alex Petkas (25–51)
3. The Reception and Transformation of Rhetoric in Germany during the Eighteenth Century / Dietmar Till (52–74)
4. The Beginning of Rhetoric among Serbs: Pioneering Manual in Eloquence by Avram Mrazović from 1821 / Dragutin Avramović (75–98)

Part 2: Thematic Chapters

Section 1: The Genres, Techniques, and Features of Rhetoric
5. The Persuasive Potential of Epideictic Rhetoric: Ancient Past and Contemporary Reception / Takis Poulakos (99–115)
6. The Reception of Paradeigma in Late Greek Rhetorical Theory / M. Carmen Encinas Reguero (116–34)
7. Reading Pliny’s Panegyricus within the Context of Late Antiquity and the Early Modern Period / William J. Dominik (135–70)
8. Psogos: The Rhetoric of Invective in 4^th Century CE Imperial Speeches / Alberto J. Quiroga Puertas (170–91)
9. Aristotle’s Rhetoric in Italy (1250-1400): The Latin and the Vernacular Traditions / Fiammetta Papi (192–222)
10. Dionysius Longinus, On Sublimity / Malcolm Heath (223–47)
11. Ancient Rhetoric and the Early “Italian” Commentaries on the Poetria nova / Domenico Losappio (247–68)
12. The Reception of Quintilian’s Theory of Gesture: Rhetorical Elements in Pantomime Acting / Chrysanthi Demetriou (269–88)

Section 2: Literature, Theatre, and Culture
13. Rhetoric, the Dorian Hexapolis, and Knidos: A Study of the Reception of Ancient Rhetoric in the Greek East and its Impact on the Second Sophistic / Richard Leo Enos (291–304)
14. “A Feast of Languages”: William Shakespeare’s Reception of Ancient Rhetoric / Michael J. MacDonald (305–30)
15. Ancient Rhetoric on the Silver Screen: Performing Agōnes in Michael Cacoyannis’ Euripidean Trilogy / Anastasia Bakogianni (331–54)
16. Sport and Peace: Panhellenic Myth-Making and the Modern Olympics / Jacques A. Bromberg (356–78)

Section 3: Politics, Leadership, and Public Speaking
17. The Demosthenic Model of Leadership Revisited by Libanius: The Revival of Philip in the Funeral Oration over Julian / Styliani Chrysikou (381–400)
18. Rhetoric, Aesthetics, and the State in Renaissance Political Thought / Peter Stacey (401–29)
19. The Last Orator: Rufus Choate and the End of Classical Eloquence in America / James M. Farrell (430–53)
20. Metaphors in Rhetoric: From Ancient Greek to 21^st-Century Politics / Jakub Filonik (454–85)

Section 4: Pedagogy and Gender
21. The Reception of Ancient Rhetoric in Modern Argumentation Theory / Christian Kirk (489–513)
22. Ancient Forensic Rhetoric in a Modern Classroom / Sima Avramović and Gerhard Thür (514–26)
23. The Rhetoric of Gender in the Heroides of the French Renaissance: Revisiting Female Exempla / Stella Alekou (527–63)

Section 5: Religion 
24. Christians, Ottomans, and Emperors: Demosthenes in European Politics / Maria S. Youni (567–87)
25. Augustine’s Christian Eloquence / Hanne Roer (588–613)

Section 6: Science
26. Rhetoric of Mathematics: The Case of Diophantus of Alexandria / Jean Christianidis and Michalis Sialoros (617–42)
27. Philosophia naturalis: Ancient Rhetoric and Early Modern Science / Johanna Luggin (643–74)