A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms

by Richard A. Lanham

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520076699
• ISBN13: 9780520076693
• Release Date: December 1991
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.5" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

little book of dynamite

I opened this book and it exploded in my face! No, not from some terrorist device, but from the contents. I have not been able to put it down, and as a student of classical rhetoric, this book is absolutely invaluable. The quips and quotes are marvellous and the terms put into the Greek and Latin I also found to be excellent. I highly reccomend this book to anyone for any reason. Books like this are valuable for reasons other than just rhetoric. You learn something new on every page, and often it can have meaning outside the rhetorical topic.

More than a textbook

This book--this excellent book--puts a name on just about every literary device, rhetorical term, and classical trope a writer could ever use, and by doing so allows writers and fans of the English language an opportunity to become more aware of what they write and more attuned to how their writing can be improved. If you fancy yourself a writer, you need this. Get it. Now. The book is well-organized, easily acccessible, loaded with great quotes, and a treasure trove of unique terms and devices. Some of these you've no doubt used and will be happy to hear these labeled and defined. Others will be new to you but will certainly be of use to you in the future. Chiasmus, anyone? This was assigned as a textbook for Jerome Shea's classical tropes class at the University of New Mexico, but I would never even consider selling this back at the end of the year. Having been introduced to this, I can no more imagine my writing den without it than I can imagine it without a dictionary or a thesaurus or a hidden drawer full of treats.

It's Just Fun!

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 earBlasting 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

Enquire Within Upon Everything

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.

great desk reference

I keep 5 reference books on writing w/in arms reach of my desk; this is one of them. The book catalogs every rhetorical flourish I've ever heard of, provides vivid examples of each, and witty and insightful commentary on many of them.