文档介绍：A theory of artistic prose 185
1 Sophists and rhetorical handbooks
A theory of artistic prose is first set forth in Book III of Aristotle's Rhetoric.
That work reflects his teaching of the subject in Plato's Academy in the middle
of the fourth century. The extent to which a conceptualised theory of rhetoric
existed before Aristotle is difficult to define. Plato {Ph. 266d - 7d) gives a survey
of rhetorical handbooks (tekhnai) of the late fifth century which described parts
of ajudicial speech (prooimion, diegesis, etc.), useful for a novice in addressing
a lawcourt, and also outlined how to employ argument from probability. This
survey of what became 'invention' and 'arrangement' in later rhetoric clearly
represents a response to the needs of the democratic state where citizens were
expected to conduct their own litigation before large, popular juries. But Plato
also mentions other works in the same passage which seem to be examples
of diction and style, such as the 'Museums' of Gorgias' pupil Polus. Gorgias
himself was certainly a teacher of rhetoric, including argument and style, but
to judge from Plato's dramatisation of him in the Gorgias he had not analysed
his own views, and so far as we know he taught only by example. Aristotle
complains {Sophistici elenchi 183b37 -4al) that the training offered by Gorgias
was unsystematic, as if shoemaking were taught by showing the student
different kinds of shoes. Yet in his Helen, as discussed in chapter 2, section
2 above, Gorgias advanced a theory of discourse: the view of logos as a tiny
and invisible material force which is a powerful lord, capable of bewitching
an audience.
2 Isocrates
Isocrates (436 - 338 BC) had been a follower both of Gorgias and of Socrates;
he admired rhetoric and gave it an increased conceptual base and an improved
method. In the process he made significant contributions to criticism, rhetoric,
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