Defninig rhetorical analysis as a means of studying writer/audience relationships allowing both intrinsic and extrinsic analysis, the author discusses the three sections of Levertov's poem, "From a Notebook: October '68--May '69." Section 1 is the speaker's personal comparison of her associations with life and death, comparison of…

Investigates the rhetorical implications of Sydney Pollack's translation of Isak Dinesen's autobiographical texts. Argues that Pollack's film uses strategies of transference, redefinition, antithesis, and displacement to renarrate Dinesen's writings, resulting in a depoliticized romantic adventure. Finds that these strategies misrepresent Dinesen,…

Critical discussions of reader reaction are often only disguised discussions of author intention. (JH)

Working from both literary and composition theory, this book argues that American composition theory and pedagogy of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is founded on the Platonic view that invention is a solitary act in which the individual, drawing upon innate knowledge and mental structures, searches for the truth, using introspective self…

The implications of ghostwritten speeches for rhetorical studies. (CH)

Contrasts the rhetoric of Communist pamphlets in the periods before and after 1935. Examines the Third Period's advocacy of violent overthrow of the government and the Popular Front's appeal to cooperation and unity in opposition to fascism. Analyzes the lack of success of both movements in the United States. (JMF)

Details a review of collaborative styles of professional writers. Notes that some Society of Technical Communication members reported an often hierarchical collaborative process, whereas respondents within the Modern Language Association seemed suspicious of collaboration. Reveals, however, that a dialogic collaborative mode subverting the status…

This paper attempts to extract and summarize the truth-, fact-, and reality-bases of Chaim Perelman's and Mme. L. Olbrechts-Tyteca's "The New Rhetoric." This paper considers: the four basic factors which the theorist needs to take into account when interpreting "The New Rhetoric"; the descriptive characteristics of the…

To show how Hugh Blair's treatise on rhetoric helped shape the patriarchal context in which women write and to suggest some considerations for modern teachers of writing, it will be useful to look at the ways 18th-century belletristic rhetoric responded to the disruption occasioned by women's entry into public discourse. Blair's work, the most…

Shows how the rhetoric of selected woman humorists from 1820 to 1880 exemplifies the operation of various comic literary reference frames. Asserts that their comic frame disintegrated because these writers were unable to foster identification between females and males and failed to provide a world view that could accommodate social change. (MM)

Molefi K. Asante's Afrocentric methodology was used in analysing the rhetoric of Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, writer Toni Morrison, and sociologist Robert Staples on the women's movement. Three conclusions were drawn from this analysis: (1) that the three rhetors noted more differences than similarities between black and white females; (2) that…

Theodore H. White's "The Making of the President 1960" is widely acknowledged to be a classic of contemporary political history. Using the concepts of Northrop Frye, a study examined the narrative structure of White's work and contends that the book's power derives from its form as a quest story in a high mimetic mode. As such, the book…

To study any social movement is ultimately to examine an intricate social drama. With the publication of "The Jungle" in 1906, Upton Sinclair emerged from the stormy background of the muckraking movement to become one of that movement's principal actors. But in the 1920s, long after the Progressive reformers dusted and put away their…

Earlier African novels, addressed to a Western audience, defend the traditional culture of the authors and attack the hypocrisy of the West. Later novels, written after 1960, are addressed to an African audience, and present balanced appraisals of Western culture and religion. Discusses rhetorical devices and other aspects of African novels. (BJV)

Analyzes "The Great Auction Sale of Slaves, at Savannah, Georgia" (1859), a popular work by Mortimer Neal Thompson, an American humorist better known by his pseudonym, Q.K. Philander Doesticks, P.B. The book is one of the most readable, credibly authentic accounts of the abuses of slavery. (BJV)