Figuratively speaking: rhetoric and culture from quintilian to the twin towers (classical inter/faces)

Although Rhetoric Is A Term Often Associated With Lies, This Book Takes A Polemical Look At Rhetoric As A Purveyor Of Truth. Its Purpose Is To Focus On One Aspect Of Rhetoric, Figurative Speech, And To Demonstrate How The Treatment Of Figures Provides A Common Denominator Among Western Cultures From Cicero To The Present. The Central Idea Is That, In The Western Tradition, Figurative Speech – The ‘flowers’ Of Rhetoric – Provides A Fundamental Way For Language To Articulate Concerns That Define A Culture Or Community. In This Study Sarah Spence Identifies Embedded Tropes For Four Periods In Western Culture: Roman Antiquity, The High Middle Ages, The Age Of Montaigne, And Our Present, Post-9/11 Moment. In So Doing She Reasserts The Fundamental Importance Of Rhetoric, The Art Of Speaking Well.–book Jacket. Weapons Of Mass Creation : Repetition Versus Replication — Looking Back : Figures Of Speech And Thought In The Roman World — Dwelling On A Point : Rhetoric And Love In The Middle Ages — The Chiastic Page : The Rhetoric Of Montaigne’s Essais. Sarah Spence. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 135-140) And Index.