The Art of Rhetoric

"The Art of Rhetoric" is the earliest systematic work of rhetoric and literary criticism in the English. This work, which brought into English the procedures of Ciceronian rhetoric-invention, disposition, style, memory, and delivery-the core of the academic curriculum in Renaissance England, went through eight editions between 1553 and 1585. At the time, its appeal was both practical and academic. Today it gives a unique insight into the formal training of such authors as Shakespeare, Spenser, Jonson, and Milton.