HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Loading...

No title (2010)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
305585,653 (4.09)1
Rhetoric is among the most ancient academic disciplines, and we all use it every day whether expertly or not. This book is a lively set of lessons on the subject. It is about rhetorical figures: practical ways of applying old and powerful principles--repetition and variety, suspense and relief, concealment and surprise, the creation of expectations and then the satisfaction or frustration of them--to the composition of a simple sentence or a complete paragraph. --from publisher description.… (more)
Member:
Title:
Authors:
Info:
Collections:
Rating:
Tags:None

Work Information

Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric by Ward Farnsworth (2010)

None
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 1 mention

Showing 5 of 5
As he did in The Practicing Stoic, the author has written a summary that consists mostly of an organized collection of quotations, here to show examples of figures of speech used in spoken and written rhetoric. Each chapter is about a different figure of speech and these are divided into three categories: repetition of words and phrases, structural matters, and dramatic devices. The figures of speech are defined in English and by their Greek name as in “Simple Repetition of Words and Phrases: Epizeuxis…”
I think this work might be dull for someone without a particular interest in the topic. Even so, I found it frequently entertaining because of the many great example quotations. Farnsworth uses quotes from Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Webster, Thomas Paine, Herman Melville, The King James Bible, William Shakespeare, Arthur Conan Doyle, GK Chesterton, and many others. I enjoyed many of these, both as an example of the use of a particular figure of speech and in general.

Here are two examples:
1. For Litotes:
She was not quite what you call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot. Mark Twain

2. For Prolepsis:
"Although the fate of Poland stares them in the face, there are thoughtless dilettanti or purblind worldlings who sometimes ask us: "What is it that Britain and France are fighting for?" To this I answer: "If we left off fighting you would soon find out." Winston Churchill ( )
  markm2315 | Jul 1, 2023 |
Hard going!
  TedMacD | Nov 22, 2021 |
To be an effective guide to rhetoric, this book should have been shorter, with not so many examples. As it is, I found myself reading it mainly as a quotation book--and spending lots of time looking things up in Wikipedia to see what the hell they were actually talking about. As an educated person, I find myself using these rhetorical devices from time to time, but I could have never told you their names. They are just ways that educated, thinking people write, and why we choose one way over another is hard to say. Perhaps there are some who sit down and ask themselves, "What type of rhetorical device will be most effective from the speech I'm about to give." But I'm not too sure of that. Certainly after reading this book, however, even more of these devices are likely to creep into my speech and writing. Many of the example quotes are interesting, and a few of them are funny. They come from literature, the law, and politics mostly. Lots of Lincoln, Dickens, G.K. Chesterton, Edmund Burke, Churchill, and many, many others. Especially lots of Irish politicians. The author is very well read. This isn't something you'll be able to read straight through. A few pages at a time works best. Your mileage may vary. ( )
  datrappert | Jan 2, 2021 |
I have been looking for something like this for many years. A text which clearly explains how rhetorical figures are used in English and provides compelling examples for each. Here's a list of just Part III:

DRAMATIC DEVICES:
13. Saying things by not saying them: Praeteritio, p. 166
14. Breaking off in midstream: Aposiopesis, p. 182
15. Correcting oneself: Metanoia, p. 194
16. Rhethorical uses of the negative: Litotes, p. 204
17. Rhetorical questions: Erotema, p. 212
18. Asking questions and answering them: Hypophora
Anticipating objections and meeting them: Prolepsis, p. 226

There are marvelous examples from Lincoln, Twain, Dickens, Pitt, de Quincy, Melville, Hawthorne, Churchill, Shakespeare, Burke, Chesterton, Fielding, Richardson, Adams, Scott, Johnson, Gladstone, Shelley, Shaw, Byron, Stevenson, Trollope, and the Scriptures. Moreover, the books does not have to be read in a linear fashion, one can flip through it as one pleases. I'm grateful to Mr. Farnsworth for his efforts. I only wish the book were longer. ( )
1 vote William345 | Jun 11, 2014 |
Showing 5 of 5
Although the bulk of the book consists of examples, Mr. Farnsworth's interleaved commentary is valuable. He explains, for instance, polysyndeton: It is the repeated use of a conjunction, as in Mark Twain's "a German daily is the slowest and saddest and dreariest of the inventions of man." In addition, Mr. Farnsworth gives us six reasons to use it, including a certain artless effect, which "may enhance the speaker's credibility." When it comes to asyndeton—the omission of conjunctions, as in Twain's "Munich did seem the horriblest place, the most desolate place, the most unendurable place"—he offers seven such reasons. This is done with modest brevity rather than in a labored and didactic fashion.
 
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
For Annie and Sam
First words
(Preface): Everyone speaks and writes in patterns.
Repetition is one of the most important general ideas in rhetoric, and later chapters consider a wide range of ways in which it can be used: repetition of words and phrases at the beginning or end of successive sentences or clauses, or repetition of sentence structure, of conjunctions, and so forth.
Quotations
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (1)

Rhetoric is among the most ancient academic disciplines, and we all use it every day whether expertly or not. This book is a lively set of lessons on the subject. It is about rhetorical figures: practical ways of applying old and powerful principles--repetition and variety, suspense and relief, concealment and surprise, the creation of expectations and then the satisfaction or frustration of them--to the composition of a simple sentence or a complete paragraph. --from publisher description.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (4.09)
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3 2
3.5 1
4 9
4.5
5 4

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 204,201,322 books! | Top bar: Always visible