Thesis (Ph.D.)-- Erlangen, 1900. / Vita. "Index librorum": p. [58]-59.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College. Dept. of Classics, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--New York University, 1910. / "Bibliography of the chief works consulted": p. IX.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--New York University, 1910. / "Bibliography of the chief works consulted": p. IX.

Hyperbole has a varied and contentious history, and its forms and functions are largely ignored and dismissed today. Often misunderstood, hyperbole nevertheless offers critical insights into our understandings of epistemology and ontology that cannot go unexplored. In order to recover and reinvigorate a theory of hyperbole within the field of rhetorical theory and criticism, I explore the history of this critical trope from ancient to modern times. I then offer two functions and one meta-function of hyperbole based on this historical survey: moving through impossibility towards possibility, asserting a lie on the side of truth(s), and re-orienting one’s perspective through disorientation. Derived from a historical survey of hyperbole, these two functions and one meta-function are vital for understanding and constructing a theory of hyperbole that is productive and useful for current theoretical discussion. Using these functions, I offer a variety of examples under the purview of the epideictic and grotesque genres and show how hyperbole might be employed within rhetorical theory and criticism. Overall, this project seeks to respond to the gap that exists within current rhetorical theory regarding hyperbole, to explore why hyperbole is often dismissed as a tropological expression of excess and exaggeration, and to revitalize interest in hyperbole for critical use in areas such as rhetoric, theology, and philosophy.

This dissertation explores how antiquity and some of its early modern admirers understand the notion of certainty, especially as it is theorized in Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, a first-century educational manual for the aspiring orator that defines certainty in terms of consensus. As part of a larger discussion of argumentative strategies, Quintilian turns to the “nature of all arguments,” which he defines as “reasoning which lends credence to what is doubtful by means of what is certain” (ratio per ea quae certa sunt fidem dubiis adferens: quae natura est omnium argumentorum, V.10.8). These certainties, he later specifies, include not matters of scientific demonstration or objective fact, but the agreements of various communities: the laws of cities, local customs, and other forms of consensus. As the foundation of persuasive rhetoric, these consensus-based certainties situate argumentation as the practice of crafting agreements rather than demonstrating necessary conclusions. Taking as its point of departure Quintilian's novel understanding of certainty, this study looks to some of Quintilian's intellectual forebears as well as his later readers to show how his work is both a nexus of earlier intellectual developments as well as an important inspiration for later accounts of certainty, even into the early modern period. After illustrating in the first chapters of this dissertation how Quintilian's manual incorporates elements from Aristotelian notions of dialectic and rhetoric as well as from Ciceronian skeptical approaches to epistemology, I show how Quintilian's curriculum for the orator shapes the thought of Italian humanists, especially that of Lorenzo Valla (1406–1457), a reformer of scholastic logic and dialectic, and Giambattista Vico (1668–1744), an influential Neapolitan jurist. Adopting Quintilian's rendering of certainty as a matter of agreements and conventions, these later authors elaborate their own novel approaches to various fields—including law, language, and logic—through this ancient understanding of certum. Contrary to modern notions of certainty as objective or scientific fact, Quintilian's humanist readers continue to root this concept in consensus, both within the courtroom and without.

The nature and extent of classical rhetoric's influence on subsequent ages has been the focus of much recent study. Scholars have been concerned with how classical authors, particularly Cicero and Quintilian, emerged in educational and rhetorical theories of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and later centuries. Despite this flurry of research, a great deal of Quintilian's enduring legacy remains unknown, particularly in seventeenth-century England. "Quintilian's Influence on Obadiah Walker," then, extends our knowledge of Quintilian's influence into the seventeenth century by looking at one seventeenth-century thinker in particular, Obadiah Walker. More specifically, this thesis compares and analyzes the authors' primary works: Quintilian's Institutio oratoria and Walker's Some Instructions Concerning the Art of Oratory and Of Education, Especially of Young Gentlemen. This study investigates Quintilian's and Walker's similarities and differences within three comparable areas: their educational systems, their theories and placement of rhetoric in their systems, and their educational purposes. Within these areas, this study questions how and to what extent did Walker appropriate Quintilian's ideas when crafting his two educational/rhetorical treatises? The comparison of the primary texts manifests some specific and general conclusions. There are two specific conclusions. First, Walker is heavily indebted to Quintilian; he liberally adopts and modifies Quintilian's ideas in nearly every facet of his works. Second, Walker offers a seventeenth-century student a digest and modern version of Quintilian's Institutio. Moreover, this study offers some general conclusions. First, it demonstrates that Quintilian's influence extends into the late seventeenth century, at least in the works of one writer of the era. Next, it argues that if Quintilian's treatise lost favor, at least it did not do so completely. And finally, it contributes another story to classical rhetoric's incomplete history. / Graduation date: 1996

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio State University, 1951. / Includes bibliographical references. Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

In the last 50 years, the trend in the field of composition pedagogy has turned away from traditional grammar instruction, condemning pedagogical practices that focus on preventing and remediating error. In the early 1960s, Richard Braddock, Richard Lloyd-Jones, and Lowell Schoer invoked the death sentence on traditional grammar instruction: "The teaching of formal grammar has a negligible or, because it usually displaces some instruction and practice in actual composition, even a harmful effect on the improvement of writing" (37-38). Having been enlightened by this scholarship, the field refocused instruction to emphasize elements like writing process, collaboration, modeling, and prewriting, pushing grammar instruction to the side. As a result of this shift in pedagogies, we are helping our students to see writing differently. We're teaching them that "good writing" is more than correct spelling and well-placed commas,which is correct. But grammar is still an important part of language, and an integral part of rhetoric. Recent scholars like Cheryl Glenn, Virginia Tufte, T.R. Johnson, Constance Weaver, Martha Kolln, and Nora Bacon have recognized this oversight in the sharp move away from grammar instruction, and have developed different strategies to rewrite the tradition so that grammar instruction can be an effective part of writing instruction. I will add to their efforts by identifying the shift in theoretical principles that makes what we refer to as traditional grammar instruction so ineffective, by using the Greco-Roman curriculum (specifically Quintilian's imitatio) as a framework for understanding where these new grammar instructions come from, and by synthesizing this new understanding into a new curriculum for the writing classroom that more effectively integrates grammar instruction.

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