Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric

by Ward Farnsworth

Overview

Masters of language can turn unassuming words into phrases that are beautiful, effective, and memorable. What are the secrets of this alchemy? Part of the answer lies in rhetorical figures: practical ways of applying great aesthetic principles¿repetition and variety, suspense and relief, concealment and surprise¿to a simple sentence or paragraph. Farnsworth¿s Classical English Rhetoric recovers this knowledge for our times. It amounts to a tutorial on eloquence conducted by Churchill and Lincoln, Dickens and Melville, Burke and Paine, and more than a hundred others. The book organizes a vast range of examples from those sources into eighteen chapters that illustrate and analyze the most valuable rhetorical devices with unprecedented clarity. The result is an indispensable source of pleasure and instruction for all lovers of the English language.

Editorial Reviews

The Wall Street Journal

The most immediate pleasure of this book is that it heightens one's appreciation of the craft of great writers and speakers. Mr. Farnsworth includes numerous examples from Shakespeare and Dickens, Thoreau and Emerson, Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln. He also seems keen to rehabilitate writers and speakers whose rhetorical artistry is undervalued; besides his liking for Chesterton, he shows deep admiration for the Irish statesman Henry Grattan (1746-1820), whose studied repetition of a word ("No lawyer can say so; because no lawyer could say so without forfeiting his character as a lawyer") is an instance, we are told, of conduplicatio. But more than anything Mr. Farnsworth wants to restore the reputation of rhetorical artistry per se, and the result is a handsome work of reference--(Henry Hutchings)

Barnes and Noble Review.com

A catalogue of rhetorical devices—with abundant examples of each figure of speech culled from oratory and literature—Ward Farnsworth's sparkling compendium is a handbook of eloquence that will delight readers of a certain ilk (you know who you are). Anaphora, epistrophe, isocolon, chiasmus, asyndeton, praeteritio, litotes, and other ghosts of linguistic glory are explained and resurrected in the words of writers like Edmund Burke and Winston Churchill, Herman Melville and Charles Dickens, Chesterton and Conan Doyle. Priceless.

Library Journal

This book, despite its broad title, treats only one part of rhetoric: the word patterns that skilled speakers and writers use in order to heighten the impact of their messages. Farnsworth (law & assoc. dean for academic affairs, Boston Univ. Sch. of Law) defines and exemplifies 18 patterns, such as chiasmus (structural reversal, as in JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country") and anaphora (initial repetition, as in Churchill's "we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight...in the air"). Farnsworth's guide is similar to Richard A. Lanham's A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms but covers fewer topics, in more depth and with more examples. The inclusion of the author's name in the title, as though the work has gained the status of a classic simply by being published, is part of a regrettable trend in language guidebooks.Verdict An engaging and accessible guide, valuable to all who wish to improve their rhetorical skills or better appreciate the abilities of others.—Lisa Richmond, Wheaton Coll. Lib., IL

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169578881
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	10/03/2011
Edition description:	Unabridged

Related Subjects

• Religion
• Philosophy
• Education
• Reference
• Linguistics & Semiotics
• English Language Reference
• Rhetoric
• Rhetoric - English Language