Isocrates and the forms of rhetorical discourse (Greek)

Though the Attic rhetorician Isocrates (436–338 B.C.E.) was an influential figure in the early history of rhetoric, little attention has been paid to the details of his rhetorical theory. This dissertation reconstructs Isocrates' conception of the forms of rhetorical discourse. The first chapter of the dissertation reviews scholarly attempts to classify the Isocratean discourses. It is demonstrated that, from the time of Isocrates' career to the present era, theorists have misrepresented his discourses by forcing them into interpretive molds with which they are not compatible. This is symptomatic of widespread misunderstanding of Isocratean rhetorical theory. The second chapter describes Isocrates' complex and interesting conception of rhetorical action. Isocrates' theory of rhetorical composition aimed at the achievement of specified goals. The major goal of the second chapter is to compile and define the goals which Isocrates specified as being legitimate purposes of discourse, including ´ “offering general advice,” “admonishment,” “dissuasion,” “exhortation,” “requesting,” “censure,” “accusation,” “defense,” “praise,” “lamentation,” “introduction,” “exposition,” and “display.” In the third chapter a number of prose forms mentioned or used by Isocrates are described. Isocrates knew of a large number of prose forms, including speeches appropriate for deliver in courts of law and deliberative assemblies, letters, panegyrics, encomia, paraineseis, and essays. The structures of these vehicles are in many places specified by Isocrates; in others places they can be inferred from his practice. In the fourth chapter each of the thirty Isocratean discourses is described as a conventional form which aims at the achievement of a particular purpose or purposes. The dissertation concludes with an appendix in which the various meanings of the Isocratean term for “form,” idea or eidos, are specified.