PAPERS on RHETORIC IX

Three papers are concerned with Aristotle: Pierre Chiron tries to answer the difficult question of the nature and the aim of his Rhetoric; Thomas Schirren focuses on the vexata quaestio, how to interpret the role of the qewrov~ within the distinction of the three genres of rhetoric and Luigi Spina discusses in detail two passages of the Rhetoric to highlight Aristotle’s way of composing its text. Several other Greek authors are object of investigations: Isocrates’ Encomion of Helen offers to Marie-Pierre Noël matter for an interesting analysis of the meaning and the use of two argumentative instruments, the semeion and the tekmerion, Michael Edwards brings evidence of the ways the Attic orators call on the gods in their speeches, Maria Silvana Celentano points out the function of the ejnavrgeia in the description of Polyphemus’ love by Theocritus, and Dafne Maggiorini calls attention to an important, but almost unknown work, Sopatros’ Diaivresi~ zhthmavtwn, and wants to prove Neoplatonic influences on its rhetorical system. As to Latin texts we have the article of Christopher Craig, who examines Cicero’s speech Pro Marcello as a case for oratio figurata, the long study of Francesco Berardi, who deals with the figures of the ejnavrgeia in Cassiodorus’ Explanatio psalmorum, and the very interesting essay of Gualtiero Calboli about the knowledge of the Rhetorica ad Herennium in northern Italy from the later Roman Empire to early Middle Ages. Also my own paper is concerned with a Latin text, but not with a Latin author: indeed I tried to show how George of Trebizond, the Greek immigrant who never went back to his country, couples Greek and Latin sources to compose an interesting section of his Latin handbook. Last, but not least, Antonino Milazzo’s paper deals with a very important rhetorical exercise: the paraphrase in prose from poetical texts.