A twelve-volume textbook on the theory and practice of rhetoric

The Oxford Handbook of Quintilian aims to trace Quintilian's influence on the theory and practice of rhetoric and education up to the present. Chapters cover topics including Quintilian's Institutio oratoria, his views on education and literary criticism, and his reception and influence.

Quintilian on the Teaching of Speaking and Writing, edited by James J. Murphy and Cleve Wiese, offers scholars and students insights into the pedagogies of Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (ca. 35–ca. 95 CE), one of Rome’s most famous teachers of rhetoric. Providing translations of three key sections from Quintilian’s important and influential Institutio oratoria (Education of the Orator), this volume outlines the systematic educational processes that Quintilian inherited from the Greeks, foregrounding his rationale for a rhetorical education on the interrelationship between reading, speaking, listening, and writing, and emphasizing the blending of moral purpose and artistic skill. Translated here, Books One, Two, and Ten of the Institutio oratoria offer the essence of Quintilian’s holistic rhetorical educational plan that ranges from early interplay between written and spoken language to later honing of facilitas, the readiness to use language in any situation. Along with these translations, this new edition of Quintilian on the Teaching of Speaking and Writing contains an expanded scholarly introduction with an enhanced theoretical and historical section, an expanded discussion of teaching methods, and a new analytic guide directing the reader to a closer examination of the translations themselves. A contemporary approach to one of the most influential educational works in the history of Western culture, Quintilian on the Teaching of Speaking and Writing provides access not only to translations of key sections of Quintilian’s educational program but also a robust contemporary framework for the training of humane and effective citizens through the teaching of speaking and writing.

The art of persuasion, as practised today in political debate as well as in the courts of law, has been developed in the rhetorical tradition, but its authors have disappeared from view. One of them was Quintilian, who wrote his Institutio oratoria at the end of the first century AD. This book is special because it contains one of the fullest surveys of rhetorical insights ever written and because it has come down to us in its entirety. Quintilian's rhetorical system has been used in teaching rhetoric at universities since the Middle Ages. The purpose of 'Quintilian and the Law' is to reintroduce Quintilian's Institutio oratoria to modern readers, and to show that the topics discussed in it are still very much alive today. To that end, modern experts of law and rhetoric present their views on the Institutio oratoria, each dealing with one of the twelve books of which it consists. The authors were free to choose their own way of working, so that some books are described in their entirety, others are discussed from one particular point of view, and others still are treated only with regard to a particular section. In Roman times, the shortest way to a political career was by working in the law courts. There, one could acquire a reputation for having a thorough knowledge of the law and for being able to speak well in public. In his Institutio oratoria, Quintilian not only formulated important insights in juridical argumentation, in the art of speech-writing, and in the performative aspects of advocacy, he also discussed the ethical problems involved. Because Quintilian larded his instructions with numerous examples from practice, his book takes us back into the Roman law courts and helps us experience their exciting atmosphere. The essays in this book reflect the wide range of subjects discussed by Quintilian. They deal with (one of) six themes: (1) the ideal orator in a historical perspective, (2) his education, (3) rhetoric and communication, (4) argumentation, (5) Roman law in the Institutio oratoria, and (6) emotions in the courtroom. However, in honour of its author, they are arranged in the order of the Institutio oratoria.

Offers a radical re-appraisal of rhetoric's relation to literature, with fresh insights into rhetorical sources and their reception in Roman poetry.

Imitation was central to Roman culture, and a staple of Latin poetry. But it was also fundamental to prose. This book brings together two monuments of the High Empire, Quintilian's Institutio oratoria ('Training of the orator') and Pliny's Epistles, to reveal a spectacular project of textual and ethical imitation. As a young man Pliny had studied with Quintilian. In the Epistles he meticulously transforms and subsumes his teacher's masterpiece, together with poetry and prose ranging from Homer to Tacitus' Dialogus de oratoribus. In teasing apart Pliny's rich intertextual weave, this book reinterprets Quintilian through the eyes of one of his sharpest readers, radically reassesses the Epistles as a work of minute textual artistry, and makes a major intervention in scholarly debates on intertextuality, imitation and rhetorical culture at Rome. The result is a landmark study with far-reaching implications for how we read Latin literature.