There are numerous works employing new approaches to classical rhetoric or discussing theoretical issues about modern approaches to classical rhetoric. Of the former, the best by far is J. Walker’s Rhetoric and Poetics in Antiquity (Oxford: 2000). Challenging the prevalent assumption that rhetoric became a field of its own by divorcing itself from poetry, Walker traces the various transformations that the inextricable link between rhetoric and poetry - most visible in works of epideictic rhetoric - underwent over the ages. Of the latter, most instructive and engaging are the various debates that have periodically formed around issues of interpreting classical rhetoric or more generally the history of rhetoric. A special issue of the journal Pre/Text 8 (1987), devoted to historiography and the history of rhetoric, raises a variety of theoretical issues concerning the ideological nature of modern approaches to classical rhetoric as well as the historiography of rhetoric. The debate is extended further in two edited collections, one byT. Poulakos, Rethinking the History of Rhetoric (Boulder, CO: 1993), and the other by V. Vitanza, Writing Histories of Rhetoric (Carbondale, Ill: 1994). Another debate was formed around issues of gender and their importance in approaching classical rhetoric, as well as the history of rhetoric, from contemporary perspectives. Two special issues of the journal Rhetoric Society Quarterly are devoted to feminist readings and feminist historiography of rhetoric, Vol. 22, edited by S. Jarratt (1992), and Vol. 32, edited by P. Bizzell (2002).
A Companion to Greek Rhetoric Edited by Ian Worthington Copyright © 2007 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
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