Quintilian

The article deals with Rhetoric in Antiquity and the Middle Ages from the perspective of eleven philosophers – Plato and Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca and Quintilian, Rhetoric to Herenium (by unknown author), Augustine, Martianus Capella and Isidore of Seville, Bernard of Clairvaux and Ramon Llull. It also offers an extract from us translated from the New Rhetoric (1301) of the Catalan philosopher, the first translation into Portuguese.

Medici patronage in quattrocento Florence plays a pivotal role in the aesthetic articu-lation of the analogy between horticulture and culture. As an acorn fortunately planted may grow to an oak tree, a seed of an idea properly cultivated may grow to wisdom. One may replant branches of ancient wisdom and see them resprout. As one cultivates vines of grapes in the countryside, one may also plant and cultivate learning in a studiolo. Humanist horticulture is most explicit in a no longer extant studiolo-an inner room of valuables in the Medici Palace, Via Larga, Florence. The horticultural decor of the ceiling of Piero de' Medici's study is early evidence of a taste for vegetative imagery and symbolism within the Medici dynasty.

À quoi sert la prose ? Quelle est la tâche spécifique qui lui incombe ? Quel pouvoir neuf se donne le langage, quand il se détourne du vers ? Telles sont les questions abordées dans ce volume, à travers certaines des réponses que leur ont données les Anciens. Les travaux ici réunis se focalisent particulièrement sur un moment précis de l’histoire antique : la fin de l’époque hellénistique et les premiers siècles de l’Empire romain ; la prose, en effet, accède alors dans le paysage culturel à une position dominante, qui rend justement problématiques sa fidélité à elle-même et son identité.

L’età Giulio-Claudia
• Gaio Ottavio nacque nel 63 a.C. da Attia, figlia di Giulia, sorella di Gaio Giulio Cesare, in un paesino fuori roma. Alla fine del 45 a.C. l’onnipotente prozio adottò il giovane Ottavio, che proprio in quei giorni compiva il diciottesimo anno di età e che era rimasto molto presto orfano di padre. Da quel momento, in seguito all’adozione, il giovane Gaio Ottavio prese il nome di Gaio Giulio Cesare Ottaviano. Le fonti storiche biografiche che illustrano l’infanzia e la giovinezza del ragazzo si soffermano a riferire i meravigliosi prodigi che accaddero al momento della nascita del bimbo, così come gli episodi della sua fanciullezza anticipatori della futura e ineguagliata capacità di governo che il piccolo un giorno avrebbe mostrato.
- Alla morte di Cesare, il giovane Ottaviano si trovò scaraventato sulla scena della grande politica, nonostante non avesse né l’aspetto né le caratteristiche somatiche del leader.
- Nel 43 a.C. sancì un secondo triunvirato con Marco Antonio e Lepido. Il rapporto tra i tre però se inasprì molto velocemente, quindi Ottaviano guidò gli italici in battaglia, sostenuto dal Senato e dal popolo contro Antonio, ricco, armato e al potere dell’Oriente, e la sua compagna Cleopatra. Antonio e Cleopatra si suicidarono mentre l’Egitto venne annesso all’impero romano; così guerre civili e stranieri cessarono.
- Nel 31 a.C. Ottaviano era l’unica figura politica importante rimasta: al settimo consolato venne nominato Augustus (27 a.C.), chiamato anche princeps, e così l’Impero sostituì la Repubblica. Seguì un periodo di pace estrema chiamato Pax Augustea, quando vi fu un rinnovamento religioso, benessere economico e un periodo di vitalità culturale. Infatti, Augusto creò un proprio circolo letterario costituito da Messalla, Corvino e Mecenate.
- Per non finire come Cesare, odiato e disprezzato, Ottaviano capì di dover appoggiare il popolo e disarmare il Senato, quindi rinunciò agli alti incarichi e trasferì il governo al Senato e al popolo romano. Conquistò molti territori, trasformò ed estese l’Impero (conquistando la Germania e unendo Oriente e Occidente attraverso l’occupazione l’attuale Ungheria, i Balcani e la Turchia centrale). Augusto organizzò anche scontri tra enti animali esotici per distrarre e tenere a bada il popolo.
- Nel 23 a.C. si verificarono dei disastri naturali (piogge ed epidemie) che spinsero il popolo a volere Augusto dittatore, dando la colpa di questi disastri al suo abbandono delle cariche politiche. Una folla barricò quindi il Senato e chiese di proclamare Augusto imperatore assoluto: Augusto accetta l’incarico ma rifiuta di essere chiamato dittatore.
- Ottaviano Augusto ebbe solo una figlia (Giulia) cui entrambi figli maschi morirono precocemente. La seconda moglie di Augusto, Livia Drusilla, aveva già due figli maschi, Druso maggiore e Tiberio, ma il primo morì precocemente quindi rimase solo Tiberio, che venne quindi adottato dall’imperatore.
• 14 d.C.: morte di Augusto
• Tiberio divenne princeps nel 14 d.C. e rimase in carica fino al 37 d.C.
- Il rispetto per la tradizione repubblicana gli consentì una linea politica moderata e di ottenere l’appoggio dei senatori garantendo loro la sicurezza dei beni. Con la morte misteriosa di Germanico (suo nipote e figlio adottivo), Tiberio divenne sempre più diffidente e il timore di molte congiure lo costrinse a ritirarsi a Capri nel 27 d.C.
- Dopo la morte del figlio Druso minore (23 d.C.), Elio Seiano (collaboratore dell’imperatore, prefetto e uomo politico ambizioso) ebbe la libertà di eliminare tutti i possibili concorrenti alla successione. Nonostante nel 31 d.C. il princeps egli assegnò il consolato di quell’anno, Tiberio venne poi informato dei familiari del complotto che Seiano stava escogitando, quindi questi venne condannato a morte.
- Nel 37 d.C. Tiberio muore.
- Sotto Tiberio si verificano numerosi conflitti tra gli intellettuali e potere.
• Il Senato confermò la nomina di Caligola come successore di Tiberio (scelto al posto del figlio di Druso minore per ricordare Germanico) nel 37 d.C. Egli cercò di instaurare una monarchia assoluta di tipo orientale, pretendendo un culto divino per sé è suoi familiari.
- Caligola sperperò somme ingenti per donazioni al popolo e ai pretoriani, oltre che in opere di abbellimento edilizio. Fece uccidere parenti e amici per confiscare i loro patrimoni. Ne derivò un clima di terrore e di congiure contro di lui. Dopo quattro anni di principato Caligola venne assassinato da un complotto di pretoriani che acclamarono imperatore Tiberio Claudio Nerone (41 d.C.).
- Anche durante questo periodo, come quello di Tiberio, vi furono scontri tra intellettuali e l’autorità imperiale. Egli condannò infatti all’esilio un retore che aveva declamato contro i tiranni e fece bruciare vivo un poeta per un verso che conteneva una battuta a doppio senso.
• Nel 41 d.C. succedette a Caligola l'imperatore Claudio, che rimase in carica fino al 54 d.C.
- Il suo principato ebbe come obiettivo l'equilibrio tra le diverse forze sociali nel rispetto della tradizione, uno dei principati più positivi della prima età imperiale per la lucidità della politica di governo e per la correttezza della politica economica. Il dominio romano fu ampliato grazie alla conquista della Mauritania e della Britannia il sud orientale; la Palestina alla Giudea vendere inoltre annesse alla Siria.
- L’imperatore favorì la romanizzazione soprattutto nell'oriente greco e aprendo cariche politiche romane agli stranieri. Egli rese più efficiente l’apparato burocratico con l’assegnazione dei più delicati incarichi amministrativi, finanziari e giudiziari prevalentemente ai liberti della casa imperiale, spesso di origine greca. Questi provvedimenti suscitarono malcontento nei ceti medio alti.
- Nonostante l’opposizione senatoria, Claudio seppe risanare le finanze e realizzò grandi opere pubbliche (il porto d’Ostia e il prosciugamento del lago di Fiumicino, che portò alla coltivazione di nuove terre).
- Dato che sua moglie Messalina lo trattava male, Claudio la fece uccidere per mettersi con Agrippina, la quale, dopo averlo indotto ad adottare il figlio Nerone, lo avvelenò nel 54 d.C.

In a number of his academic articles in the field of Words and Music, Eric Prieto makes a point of drawing attention to the idea that ‘the application of concepts from one art to objects from the other is an inherently metaphorical act.’  This he expounds upon in considerable detail in ‘Metaphor and Methodology in Word and Music Studies’, in which it is declared that in the further continuation of Word and Music studies practitioners must ‘Accept and embrace the inherently metaphorical status of all attempts to apply terms from one art to objects in another.’  To a certain degree I believe that Prieto is quite correct in his assertion that when we use language that is specific to one art form to talk about another, it is frequently metaphorical. If one speaks, for example, of a poetic line modulating or arpeggiating (language that is based upon tonal movements and issues of pitch) one is clearly employing an element of ‘metaphoricity’ to describe similar patterns, ideas or interpretations of the musical forms within poetry. However, I do not believe that this must apply to ‘all attempts’ as Prieto insists,  for there are numerous articles within musical discourse that are not solely dependent on pitch, such as structure, rhythm, articulation and dynamic. All of these elements can be, and frequently are, used within poetry also, and thus that metaphorical layer is not an issue.
This paper discusses potential ways in which common language used in musical discourse may be applied in conversations relating to poetry, and, to further these thoughts, explores how one may use ideas relating to traditional music composition when approaching the composition of poetry.

Quintilien se tourne vers la tradition philosophique pour s’approprier les instruments et les arguments qui appartiennent légitimement à l’orateur et qui, après la séparation de la rhétorique de la philosophie, sont devenus le monopole presque exclusif de celle-ci. On examinera ici un
exemple significatif de cette réappropriation, à savoir l’utilisation des generales quaestiones dites aussi quaestiones philosopho conuenientes. L’importance qui leur est attribuée dans l’Institutio oratoria, leur structuration catégorielle aristotélicienne ainsi que leur parenté avec les doxographies de physique et d’éthique constituent l’un des aspects les plus intéressants du rapport entre rhétorique et philosophie chez Quintilien.

Wydanie w 2012 r. nakładem Księgarni Akademickiej dokonanego przez Stani-sława Śnieżewskiego przekładu niemal pięciu ksiąg Institutio oratoria Kwintyliana jest niewątpliwie wydarzeniem dla polskich badań nad retoryką rzymską ważnym, by nie rzec doniosłym. Dzieło retora z Calagurris, ów najważniejszy podręcznik retoryki okresu cesarstwa, ujmujący tytułowe kształcenie mówcy holistycznie: od nauki mówienia po grecku i po łacinie, przez naukę czytania, pisania oraz pozna-wanie literatury pod okiem gramatyka, aż po właściwy kurs retoryki, obejmujący kolejne działy: wynajdowanie i wstępne opracowanie materiału (inventio), jego rozplanowanie (dispositio), opracowanie językowo-stylistyczne (elocutio), zapa-miętywanie (memoria) i wreszcie wygłoszenie mowy (pronuntiatio) 1 , dotychczas był bowiem znany polskiemu czytelnikowi jedynie z liczącego sobie już przeszło 60 lat przekładu trzech ksiąg (I, II i X) pióra Mieczysława Brożka 2 oraz nielicznych, rozproszonych tłumaczeń poszczególnych passusów dzieła 3. Kontekst przekładu Brożka jest tu szczególnie istotny, gdyż Śnieżewski nie po raz pierwszy sięga po tekst tłumaczony przez swego krakowskiego poprzednika. O ile jednak w przypadku Sylw Stacjusza mieliśmy do czynienia z nowym tłumaczeniem dzieła przełożonego wcześniej w całości 4 , o tyle w przypadku Kształcenia mówcy zazębia się jedynie przekład księgi X, a zatem księgi VIII, IX, XI i XII zostały na język polski przeło-żone po raz pierwszy. *

Can jokes win a hostile room, a hopeless argument, or even an election? You bet they can, according to Cicero, and he knew what he was talking about. One of Rome’s greatest politicians, speakers, and lawyers, Cicero was also reputedly one of antiquity’s funniest people. After he was elected commander-in-chief and head of state, his enemies even started calling him “the stand-up Consul.” How to Tell a Joke provides a lively new translation of Cicero’s essential writing on humor alongside that of the later Roman orator and educator Quintilian. The result is a timeless practical guide to how a well-timed joke can win over any audience.

As powerful as jokes can be, they are also hugely risky. The line between a witty joke and an offensive one isn’t always clear. Cross it and you’ll look like a clown, or worse. Here, Cicero and Quintilian explore every aspect of telling jokes―while avoiding costly mistakes. Presenting the sections on humor in Cicero’s On the Ideal Orator and Quintilian’s The Education of the Orator, complete with an enlightening introduction and the original Latin on facing pages, How to Tell a Joke examines the risks and rewards of humor and analyzes basic types that readers can use to write their own jokes.

Filled with insight, wit, and examples, including more than a few lawyer jokes, How to Tell a Joke will appeal to anyone interested in humor or the art of public speaking.

La fiction et le vers. Comment les Modernes ont légitimé la rime, et comment, par là même, ils l’ont perdue (1548-1826)

Avec cet article, nous avons voulu montrer que la logique aboutissant à la forme privilégiée du théâtre moderne, le théâtre en prose, était un produit de la logique du barreau des Anciens, et non pas de leur théâtre, ni de leur poésie. Le processus de la légitimation de la rime s’avèrera un cas symptomatique de l’invasion de la logique des avocats anciens dans le domaine de la fiction des Modernes. Nous articulerons ce processus en trois temps. Dans un premier temps, nous verrons que la manière dont les arts poétiques de la Renaissance ont légitimé la rime impliquait déjà sa dévalorisation. Les références resterons les mêmes jusqu’au XVIIIe siècle : Cicéron et Quintilien. Dans un deuxième temps, la négativité de la figure « affectée » qu’est la rime sera analysée au sein du système de la rhétorique romaine, et nous examinerons les conditions dans lesquelles les poètes modernes étaient amenés à choisir la logique de l’orateur ancien au lieu de celle du poète ancien. Enfin, nous verrons le processus dans lequel cette logique de la rhétorique romaine s’est acclimatée chez les Modernes, particulièrement dans le domaine de théâtre, sous le nom de « déclamation », et que c’est dans ce cadre théorique que la légitimité de la rime est remise en question, ce qui a provoqué l’appel à un théâtre en prose. Au cours de cette analyse, la notion d’« affectation » que les Modernes ont tiré de Quintilien se révèlera comme un stigmate de la pénétration de la logique oratoire dans le théâtre, et reliera ainsi cette étude à nos derniers articles concernant les conditions théoriques de l’exclusion du chant et de la danse dans le théâtre des Modernes. (...)

En este capítulo, expondré la teoría de Linda Hutcheon de Irony’s Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony, pero, para tener una lectura contextualizada de esta exposición, presento primero una breve historia del término ironía, desde la ironía socrática hasta la renovación teórica durante el Romanticismo y los nuevos enfoques modernos y posmodernos, acompañados por las teorías neorretóricas en el siglo XX. En la segunda parte, me avoco a exponer los conceptos que Linda Hutcheon adopta en su teoría de la ironía, como son: su filo evaluativo, su naturaleza transideológica, sus funciones, sus características semánticas, las comunidades discursivas del intérprete, la relación entre la intencionalidad y la interpretación y los contextos y marcas de la ironía

I. HISTORIA Y TEORÍA DE LA IRONÍA
1. Breve viaje en la historia del término
___a. La gran definición histórica
___b. El Romanticismo y el cambio de paradigma
___c. La modernidad y la posmodernidad
___d. Posturas neorretóricas
2. La red irónica: Irony’s Edge de Linda Hutcheon
___a. El filo evaluativo
___b. Naturaleza transideológica
___c. Funciones
___d. Características semánticas
___e. Comunidades discursivas
___f. Intencionalidad e interpretación
___g. Contextos y marcas irónicas
______I) Contextos
______II) Marcas

William Dominik examines a few of the more important passages on style from the works of Quintilian, Seneca and Tacitus. Dominik's purpose is to appraise their purpose and intent within the context of their authors' works and the ancient debate on style generally in the first century CE. Since Quintilian's polemic against Seneca has heavily influenced ancient and modern scholarship, this passage raises the question as to what sty}istic model Quintilian was promoting in his judgment of Seneca. Seneca's discussion of style in his Epistles and Marcus Aper's defence of postclassical rhetoric in Tacitus' Dialogus help to place Quintilian's criticism of Seneca and his style in its rhetorical, literary and historical contexts. While Quintilian disparaged the postclassical style as exemplified by Seneca, Aper argued that this style reflected the changed social and political circumstances of the early imperial period and therefore was a form of expression particularly suited to the contemporary age.

William J. Dominik discusses both scholarly and non-scholarly opinions about Quintilian in the present day.

The Classical Review 73.1 (2023) 146:  'W. J. Dominik (‘Modern Assessments of Quintilian’) presents a bravura, telegraphic Sammelrezension of around half the 600-odd scholarly publications (and several ‘pseudo-scholarly’ ones, p. 465) on Quintilian between 1980 and 2016; they range beyond the usual languages into tongues as diverse as Ukrainian, Armenian and Japanese (most of these last, it is true, on Wikipedia)'.

Il contributo è ripartito in tre proposte. La prima parte, di inquadramento e contestualizzazione storica, letteraria e culturale, mira a dimostrare come lo Spagnolo ed i principes flavi appartengano ad un’epoca neoclassica, che tenta di restaurare i valori del classicismo augusteo, ma in parte arriva a tradirli. La seconda, incentrata sull’analisi testuale, passa in rassegna e poi spiega i giudizi critici del decimo liber di Quintiliano su alcuni autori greci
e latini, al fine di valutare quanto il lessico latino della storiografia letteraria, pur intellettuale, sia essenzialmente realistico, e di dimostrare la spiccata predilezione di Quintiliano per un numero chiuso di parole, tale da far parlare di monolinguismo. La terza ed ultima parte, un’indagine concettuale rapportata però al testo, dimostra quanto sinceramente il buon Calahorrese, sempre nel libro X dell'Institutio Oratoria, voglia, pur nel grande rispetto della cultura greca, avvalorare l’avvenenza e l’autenticità della letteratura latina, con tocchi di patriottismo, sfidando, quando può, l’antesignana ellenica.

The question of the relation between Juvenal and Quintilian is still unanswered: the reconstruction of their possible biographical and literary connections is very uncertain. The Life of Juvenal does not mention Quintilian; its author only states that Juvenal spent a significant part of his life declaiming. Their personal acquaintance is not confirmed by any ancient source, and the views of modern research are not univocal either; however, most scholars leave the question undecided. On the grounds of the biographical data, it cannot even be proven with certainty that Juvenal known Quintilian, thus we have to find evidence in the texts of the two authors. In this paper, I examine the possible influence of Quintilian on Juvenal’s Satires, highlight textual and thematic parallels as well as common motifs in order to unfold the relation between the two authors.

The tenth book of the Institutio oratoria by Quintilian (1st century A.D.) contains an extensive review of the authors and the works that young speakers in training had to read, learn to judge, imitate and emulate. The book aims to study the theoretical assumptions and the expositive and argumentative procedures that led to compiling this list that was the first ample example of literary history in a comparative perspective between the Greek and Latin worlds. The specific theme fits in the broader context of rhetorical education in Rome during the Imperial Age. The art of speech was the cultural paradigm that profoundly and comprehensively structured the worldview of the ruling groups of that time: through the art of speech they were formed, they perceived and thought reality, and they acted in public life.

This paper reviews approaches to what is known as the septimus casus from Varro and Quintilian to the late grammarians. It emphasizes the different points of view adopted to describe the seventh case in the history of Latin grammar, and suggests that some descriptions have arisen from simple misinterpretations of earlier sources. The paper confirms that Varro may have had a concept of a seventh case. Interestingly, an unnoticed connection has been detected between the earliest approaches and those in Servius’s commentaries on Vergil, where the opinion differs greatly from those in the artes grammaticae.

This chapter proposes a new reading of Jerome’s Letter 107, which is addressed to the aristocratic Christian matron Laeta and offers advice on how to bring up her daughter. It argues that the educational prescriptions of this letter are not an end in themselves but a pretext for imagining the triumph of Christian asceticism, practised at the borders of the Empire, over the pagan elites associated with the urban fabric of Rome. The uploaded document contains the uncorrected proofs.

Oratory and rhetoric are the most appropriate fields to test the lexical specialization of the verbs declamo and recito: declamo describes preparatory exercises of oratory itself; on the opposite hand, recito is referred to the reading of speeches, which are definitely fixed in a written version. Indeed recito always presupposes the presence of a written text. The exam of the occurrences of the phrase orationem (et sim.) recitare provides a sample not only of the evolution of the meaning of such verb but also of the changes that oratory underwent.

The topic of my paper is memory and oblivion in the literary field, as it appears in the work of Quintilian and, in particular, in the tenth book of his Institutio oratoria. After some general considerations, I focus on the comparison between the Roman writer and his Greek predecessor, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, about the construction of a shared literary memory in order thereby to identify what are the motivations and the discursive strategies Quintilian uses in the devel- opment of this dynamic process between memory and oblivion.

Road House, a 1989 b-movie starring Patrick Swayze, is an action film that’s jam-packed with explicit violence and extremely laughable levels of machismo, the likes of which helped cement this cinematic wonder as a timeless cult classic. On the flip side of its ridiculous tone, Road House features moments of surprising sophistication, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s one of the best films to feature the use of rhetoric that I’ve ever seen. You want proof? Get this: the film features Swayze playing James Dalton, a badass bar bouncer who also happens to have a PHD in philosophy from NYU! Throughout the film, Swayze’s Dalton uses his rhetorical skills to solve conflicts almost as much as he uses his feet to roundhouse kick bad guys in the face. With so many great examples to choose from, I decided to analyze Dalton’s I Want You to Be Nice speech, which I believe incorporates similar rhetorical practices taught by Cicero and Quintilian, two of Rome’s most influential rhetoricians.

This book-length study is published as an online supplement to an article in the following DramaNet volume:
History and Drama. The Pan-European Tradition.
Edited by Joachim Küpper, Jan Mosch, Elena Penskaya.

(For the condensed version, see the paper below).

Full Title (abbreviated in the above caption due to spatial constraints):
"Variants of Rhetorical Ventriloquism: sermocinatio, ethopoeia, prosopopoeia (and Affine Terms) in the Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Quintilian, Augustine – Including Tentative Remarks on the Oratorico-Dramatic Concepts of ethos and persona, as well as Their Potential with Respect to Authorial Selfcraft in Shakespeare and Cervantes".

This paper aims to cross two different themes in a complementary way. On the one hand it focuses on the theorization of the right teaching, dealing with the issue of the contrast between rhetoric and philosophy. On the other, it deals with the reception of Seneca reception in the educative program developed by his successors (Quintilian, Fronto, Gellius). In the first section of the paper, I start from a passage of Fronto’s De orationibus (pp. 153.1-16-154.1-20 vdH2), and then go backwards in time in my survey of the critiques moved against Seneca. A lexical analysis of the texts allows me to suppose a sort of ‘retaliation’ against Seneca on Gellius’ part. In the second section of the article, I focus on a letter written by Fronto to Marcus Aurelio (ad M. Caesarem 3.16, pp. 47.19-22-48.1-25 vdH2). The letter seems to offer a specular overturning of Seneca’s educative program, illustrated through the memories of his teachers. Nevertheless, both the vocabulary and the repertoire of images here employed can find its background in Seneca’s description of his paideutic models.

This paper focuses on the reciprocity between visual and verbal that characterizes ancient ekphrasis. According to the authors of the Progymnasmata (Aelius Theon, Hermogenes, Nicolaus, Aphtonius), a major feature of ekphrasis is its vividness (enargeia), i.e. its ability to "bring before the eyes" what is absent.  Ekphrasis is not aimed at the imitation of a given object, but at the effect this very object produces on the audience. This ecphrastic shift, according to which the fictive object is more vivid, and hence more persuasive, than the real object, is a key feature of Philostratus' Eikones. Philostratus himself defines his own work as a logos graphes, i.e. as a "speech on verbal images," which is paradigmatic for the mutual dependence between visual and verbal in ancient ekphrasis.

Der folgende Aufsatz bewegt sich im Fadenkreuz von Rhetorik und Philosophie. Dass dem so ist, ja, sogar sein muss, entspringt gleichwohl nicht einer Laune des Verfassers, sondern liegt vielmehr nur und ausschließlich in der Logik der Thematik begründet. Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (35-96 n. Chr.) war zwar durchaus philosophisch bewandert, wenngleich sein gesamtes intellektuelles Wirken um die Rhetorik kreist. Von seiner herausragenden Qualität als Berufsrhetoriker mag der Umstand zeugen, dass er als der erste staatlich besoldete Rhetoriklehrer in die Geschichte Roms eingegangen ist. Nicht weniger bekannt sind außerdem Quintilians Leistungen als Pädagoge: Schon bei der Wiederentdeckung und Neueinschätzung seiner institutio oratoriae im Mittelalter und vor allem in der Renaissance trat in den Mittelpunkt des Interesses der durch seinen universalistischen Einschlag fachübergreifende pädagogische Gehalt eben dieses Werkes. Weniger bekannt ist dabei jedoch, dass Quintilians formale Bestimmung der Rhetorik im höchsten Maß der Philosophie verpflichtet ist, was im folgenden Aufsatz dargelegt werden soll, indem seine Gedankengänge hinsichtlich Begründung und Bestimmung der Rhetorik nachgezeichnet werden. Erstens gilt es zu zeigen, dass Quintilian sich bei seiner Rhetorikauslegung an verschiedene Vertreter der Stoa anlehnt und zweitens sollen die Bausteine und das implizite Wissen, das in die Bestimmung einfließt, deutlich hervorgehoben werden. Der Grund für diese Bestimmung bleibt uneinsichtig, solange man diese nicht in den ursprünglichen Zusammenhang des stoischen Verstehens über den Menschen und die Welt eingebettet hat. Wird die Rhetorik aus diesem Zusammenhang herausgelöst, so verliert sie ihre ursprüngliche und die ihr von Natur aus zukommende Tragweite, derart, dass sie dann, herabdegradiert und entstellt, lediglich als vis persuadendi (Überzeugungskraft) aufgefasst werden kann. Was die Rhetorik jedoch in Wahrheit ist, dies kann nur dann genau ermessen werden, wenn man sie im Rückgang auf das innerste Ziel menschlichen Bestrebens beschreibt und bestimmt. Das setzt nun voraus, dass sich der Definitionsversuch der Rhetorik von einem deutlichen, d. h. philosophischen, Wissen um das letzte Ziel, auf das der Mensch von Natur aus ausgerichtet ist, leiten lässt. Die Definition der Rhetorik gründet sich somit in einem Wissen philosophischer Art. Im Folgenden werde ich zeigen, dass Quintilian bei seinem Definitionsversuch der Rhetorik genau von dieser Annahme ausging.

Comparison, interaction, and rivalry among the arts, a Western cultural trope since the paragone debates of the Renaissance, rejuvenated by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing two and a half centuries ago, and the main theme of this volume, have strong roots in ancient literary discourse. The earliest extant example, in Xenophon’s Memorabilia of Sokrates, records four conversations between the philosopher and the painter Parrhasios, the sculptor Kleitōn, the armorer Pistias, and the courtesan Theodotē that inter alia seem to rank their respective specialties in exactly that descending order. Five centuries later, Quintilian, while referencing this passage, claims the opposite (armor and seduction excluded). The following pages explore this discrepancy in the light of the two critics’ differing dates, perspectives, and critical agendas.

A trope is the transfer of a word from its usual meaning to a different one, justified by a relation of similitude, or of another kind, between the two meanings. Early modern students of grammar and rhetoric memorized the tropes and learned how to identify and use each of them through the use of widely reprinted ancient and contemporary manuals of rhetoric, as well as publications dealing exclusively with tropes, such as those by Despauterius, Mosellanus and Susenbrotus. In practical terms, tropes stood out as crucial ingredients of the ornament of style, and as such they were central to the way literate individuals would speak and, especially, write. Furthermore, from a theoretical standpoint, tropes were a catalyst for crucial developments in early modern linguistic and aesthetic thought. On the one hand, they provided a window to the mechanisms through which language works, opening as they did a distinction between literal and figurative meaning. On the other, tropes (and especially metaphor) attracted great attention as the locus of coalescence between cognition and pleasure and became, therefore, touchstones for the development of a theory of the beautiful.