In looking at rhetoric and literature we are looking at ways of categorizing the world. We are comparing different ways in which language is used, different ways in which the experience of a particular society is channeled into written expression, and different ways in which the categorization of the world is given a value. Literature strikes us as something ‘‘artistic’’; rhetoric is more ‘‘practical.’’ For a historical society such as Rome, both these forms of expression are, because of the nature of the evidence, now ‘‘literary,’’ in the sense that they are written down; all our sources for Roman rhetoric are now literary sources. But it is questionable how far we would want to think about books on rhetorical theory as literature, and even Cicero’s speeches are often treated as a kind of historical evidence for the political events of which they are a part; even when they are analyzed for their rhetorical techniques, that analysis generally aims to shed light on the interplay between Cicero’s persuasive strategy and the underlying social context in which that strategy can be effective. Cicero’s output, indeed, can be neatly divided by genre: his poetry can clearly be categorized as ‘‘literature,’’ his theoretical writings as ‘‘philosophy,’’ his speeches as examples of‘‘rhetoric.’’ However, the terms ‘‘rhetoric’’ and ‘‘literature’’ do not have constant, historically unchanging terms of reference; and the differences between our own application of these terms today and the equivalent Roman categorizations are as enormous as the differences between the two worlds to which they are applied. This chapter introduces the section of this volume in which the influence of rhetoric is explored on particular kinds of literature. Individual authors and genres will be examined in detail in the following chapters; this one will tackle the general theme, and more particularly, explore the differences and points of contact between ancient literary production and modern conceptions of the term ‘‘literature.’’
The title of this chapter is a useful starting point. ‘‘Rhetoric and literature’’ sets up an opposition between two different activities: rhetoric, most simply understood as the cultivation of persuasive skill in oral presentation; and literature, an activity best characterized as writing destined for the experience of the individual reader. Here, we
Will explore how far this opposition (which developed into a much more solid contrast in the postclassical world) is at all appropriate to the context of Rome. It is possible to argue that in a culture still dominated by oral rather than written media, and where the production and publication of books was so very different from today’s literary world, it is crassly anachronistic to think of an opposition between rhetoric and literature in Rome. Literature is simply the written expression of that rhetorical mindset which defined Roman cultural expression. However, my discussion aims for a more detailed understanding, one which accepts that in the Roman context the title ‘‘rhetoric and literature’’ would have been incomprehensible, while at the same time exploring the roots, which can be found in Roman texts, of what has today become an established opposition between rhetoric and literature.
World History
