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New rhetoric — newest rhetoric
Ernst-Robert Curtius, Chaim Perelman, Ernesto Grassi, Michel Meyer and what now?
pp. 453-467
Abstract
Everything that is called "new" is subjected to an intrinsic dialectic: not only is it distinguished from the "old", but it creates the "old". Thus, since antiquity, every treatise on rhetoric proclaims a new rhetoric superseding an older form. We are reminded of this dialectic by the appearance of the neoteroi, the "new poets", the neologists, like the young Virgil, in Hellenistic antiquity, soon to be called poetae novi disdainfully by the antiqui or maiores (see Cic. Att. 7,2,1; Orat. 161; Alfonsi; Pinborg). We are also reminded of the juxtaposition of moderni and antiqui used already in late antiquity in the description of styles and Christian doctrine alike; similarly of the via antiqua and the via moderna during the later Middle Ages and in the universities of the 14th and 15th centuries when speaking of the development of a new logic on the basis of the doctrine of argumentation in classical rhetoric. Finally, we are reminded of Charles Perrault's replique Paralléle des Anciens et des Modernes (1688) against Nicolas Boileau's critique in the famous "Querelles des Anciens et des Modernes". Since then the debate between the old and the new has been continued into the present in many permutations (see Curtius 256 ff.; Veit 2005; Kortum). We are dealing with dialectic as an instrument which preserves within the new the continuation of the old.
Publication details
Published in:
Magerski Christine, Savage Robert, Weller Christiane (2007) Moderne begreifen: zur Paradoxie eines sozio-ästhetischen Deutungsmusters. Wiesbaden, Deutscher Universitätsverlag.
Pages: 453-467
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-8350-9676-9_34
Full citation:
Veit Walter (2007) „New rhetoric — newest rhetoric: Ernst-Robert Curtius, Chaim Perelman, Ernesto Grassi, Michel Meyer and what now?“, In: C. Magerski, R. Savage & C. Weller (eds.), Moderne begreifen, Wiesbaden, Deutscher Universitätsverlag, 453–467.