A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms [Paperback]

Richard A. Lanham (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520076699 | ISBN-13: 978-0520076693 | Publication Date: December 23, 1991 | Edition: 2

The first edition of this widely used work has been reprinted many times over two decades. With a unique combination of alphabetical and descriptive lists, it provides in one convenient, accessible volume all the rhetorical terms--mostly Greek and Latin--that students of Western literature and rhetoric are likely to come across in their reading or to find useful in their writing. Now the Second Edition offers new features that will make it still more useful:--A completely revised alphabetical listing that defines nearly 1,000 terms used by scholars of formal rhetoric from classical Greece to the present day.--A revised system of cross-references between terms.--Many new examples and new, extended entries for central terms.--A revised Terms-by-Type listing to identify unknown terms.--A new typographical design for easier access.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Richard A. Lanham is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of California, Los Angeles, and President of Rhetorica, Inc., in Los Angeles.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 2 edition (December 23, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520076699
• ISBN-13: 978-0520076693
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #38,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's Just Fun!, February 7, 2003

By 

Stacey Cochran (Raleigh, NC, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (Paperback)

Over the Christmas holidays, I traveled back east to visit my parents. I carried Lanham's "A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms." One night my mom and I sat up talking about everything from Picasso to metaphysics and at some point we got to talking about Shakespeare. I tried to explain to her why Shakespeare is rhetorically reveered, and at one point I climbed downstairs to the guest room and retrieved Lanham's book. She -- like most of us -- hears the word "rhetoric" and thinks of politicians and empty promises, or phrasing so complicated as to render simple fact obscure.

I think the first word in "Handlist" we got a chuckle over was "chiasmus" and some of the examples like "It's not whether grapenuts are good enough for you, but whether you're good enough for grapenuts!" And the famous "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." The one that gave her the best chuckle though was an editor's advice to a young writer "You're writing is both original and interesting; unfortunately the part that's original is not interesting and the part that is interesting is not original."

The great thing about this book is that it gives name to a great many devices we already use in everyday speech, and for a writer this information is invaluable. The better facility a writer has with these devices the better he or she can express our endless human emotions.

A good many of the examples give the Latin or Greek root word, but the definitions are in English. Many of them have example usage along with the definition.

E.g., "Insultatio": derisive, ironical abuse of a person to his face. As Hamlet says to his mother:
Look on this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated on this brow:
Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself...
This was your husband. Look you now what follows.
Here is your husband, like a mildewed ear
Blasting the wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! Have you eyes?
(Hamlett, III, iv)

All in all, I think this handlist -- as much a dictionary as a "handlist" of rhetorical devices -- is a rich resource for writers, law students, political science majors, and young English scholars. Indeed, with this handlist, you could begin your own "Progymnasmata"!

Stacey

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Wordsmith's Wonderland, January 26, 2002

By 

George R Dekle "Bob Dekle" (Lake City, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (Paperback)

Samuel Butler once wrote that "All a rhetorician's rules teach nothing but to name his tools." Classical and Medieval rhetoricians named, renamed, parsed, and cataloged all these tools with a bewildering sesquipedalian nomenclature. "Handlist" almost succeeds in its attempt to make sense of this thorny thicket of jargon.

Chapter 1 of "Handlist" is a dictionary style listing of all the various names of the rhetorical devices. Each name is individually entered, but only the main name is defined. Each of the lesser names simply has cross references. The merely-cross-referenced names outnumber the actually-defined names by about 3 to 1. The actually-defined names should have been set in a bolder type than the merely-cross-referenced names.

Chapter 2 consists of an excellent review of the divisions of rhetoric. Read Chapter 2 first.

Chapter 3 takes the more common rhetorical devices and catalogs them by type, giving brief definitions. It catalogs only one name for each device, and is much more user friendly than Chapter 1. Read Chapter 3 second.

My suggestion for the third edition: Reorder the chapters. Put Chapter 2 first and Chapter 1 last.

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enquire Within Upon Everything, June 8, 2000

By 

Melissa Hardie "mjh1963" (Potts Point, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (Paperback)

It's hard to describe how valuable this book is. Simply put, it changed my life. The title is both perfect and a little misleading: yes, it's a handlist, but that gives little sense of the breadth and scholarship of Lanham's work. Yes, you'll find incredibly useful definitions of the most recondite, as well as the most everyday, tropes and schemes. But embedded within his exposition Lanham gives us an argument for rhetoric: its complexity, historical richness, and value. Lanham's touch is very personal, offering a collection of definitions that are at once eclectic and definitive. If you need to buy one book on rhetoric, this should be it. If it intrigues you as much as it did me, follow up with Lanham's _The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts_. There you'll see the very practical implications of the study of rhetoric framed through historical and theoretical debates. Two thumbs up.