Theory and History of Rhetoric

This website is devoted to the historical development of rhetoric, that according to Aristotle is a counterpart (antistrophos) of dialectic (Rhetorica I. 1.1) and according to Heidegger "a first part of logic rightly understood" (Martin Heidegger, "History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena", Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1985, p. 264).

I will begin with some bibliographies, that are the foundation of every research:

General works: Theory of rhetoric; Argumentation theory; rhetoric and philosophy; Critical thinking; Feminist rhetoric; Bibliographies of dictionaries and encyclopedias of rhetoric.

History of rhetoric:

Greek rhetoric: General histories of rhetoric; Early rhetorical theory; Protagoras and Gorgias; Isocrates; Plato (Gorgias and Phaedrus); Aristotle (Rhetoric, Poetics, Topics and Sophistical refutations); Rhetoric to Alexander; Attic Orators: Lysias, Demostenes, Aeschines, Hellenistic rhetoric, Theophrastus, Later Peripatetics, Demetrius, On Style; the Stoics; other philosophical Schools; Hermagoras and Stasis Theory: Asianism; Atticism.

Roman rhetoric: Early Roman rhetoric; Cato the Elder: Roman Orators; Cicero; Rhetoric in Augustan Rome; Second Sophistic; Christian rhetoric

Middle Ages: Augustine of Hippo; Ars poetriae; Ars dictaminis; Ars predicandi

Renaissance: Classical Rhetoric in Italy; Lorenzao Valla, Juan Luis Vives; Rudolph Agricola; Erasmus of Rotterdam, Philip Melanchthon; Petrus Ramus, Bartholomäus Keckermann.

Modern era: Giambattista Vico, George Campbell; Joseph Priestly; Bernard Lamy; François Fénélon; Adam Smith; Hugh Blair.

Comparative rhetoric: Overviews; Methodologies; African; African-Americans; Pre-Columbian America; Ancient Egyptian; Jewish; Arabic; Syriac; Celtic; Near Eastern; Asian; Chinese; Japanese.

Vocalulary of rhetoric: key terms of rhetoric: enthymeme, epideictic, ethos, logos, pathos, pisteis.

Currently this site is in an early stage of development: only few sections are available; if you are interested, please be patient: in the next future I will add more pages.

Last Update: January 30th, 2026.