Product Description

This new edition of George A. Kennedy's highly acclaimed translation and commentary offers the most faithful English version ever published of On Rhetoric. Based on careful study of the Greek text and informed by the best modern scholarship, the second edition has been fully revised and updated. As in the first edition, Kennedy makes the work readily accessible to modern students by providing an insightful general introduction, helpful section introductions, a detailed outline, extensive explanatory notes, and a glossary of Aristotle's rhetorical terms. Striving to convey a sense of Aristotle's distinctive way of thinking, Kennedy preserves the meaning and technical language of the original text, explaining it in detail as opposed to simplifying it as other translations do.
Updated and expanded in light of recent scholarship, the second edition features:
* A revised introduction with two new sections: "The Strengths and Limitations of On Rhetoric" and "Aristotle's Original Audience and His Audience Today"
* A more user-friendly format: running heads now include book and chapter numbers
* An updated bibliography
* Revised appendices that provide translations of new supplementary texts--Socrates' Critique of Sophistic Rhetoric; Lysias' Speech Against the Grain Dealers; two selections from Isocrates (from Against the Sophists and from the Antidosis); selections from Rhetoric for Alexander; and Demosthenes' Third Philippic--and an extensive revision of George A. Kennedy's essay "The Earliest Rhetorical Handbooks"

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52162 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review

Praise for the previous edition:
"[This book] is much more than a translation; it is a guide to the literature, a mini-commentary, and a do-it-yourself manual to understanding Aristotle. . . . [It] deserves to be the standard translation for decades to come."--Quarterly Journal of Speech
"George Kennedy has taken on a difficult job--providing a scholarly edition of the Rhetoric that will also serve as a textbook for students--and has succeeded admirably. His introduction gives an excellent overview of Aristotle's work and is a pleasure to read. The chapter-by-chapter outline is magnificent."--Erika Lindemann, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
"Easy-to-read, trustworthy, and has the added distinction of bringing out more clearly than any other translation the way Aristotle's reasoning works. It will improve the general state of Aristotle studies in the English-speaking world."--Thomas Conley, University of Illinois
"Kennedy's extensive use of footnotes and careful editing allow students access to Aristotle's writings as few other translations are able to do. This book is a must for any contemporary study of classical rhetorical theory."--James J. Tarbox, Oregon State University

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Greek

About the Author
George A. Kennedy is at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Emeritus).

Customer Reviews

The most scholarly & readable translation of the "Rhetorica"
Aristotle's treatise "On Rhetoric" has been the seminal work in the field since it was written. There is a very real sense in which there is nothing new under the sun since Aristotle's day, and that the rhetorical constructs of Burke, Toulmin and every other rhetorical theorist are simply Aristotle's concepts dressed up in new terms. Certainly no one has been as comprehensive in cataloguing all the available means of persuasion. The study of rhetoric begins in earnest with Aristotle's volume. While there are numerous translations of "On Rhetoric" available, this remarkable translation by George A. Kennedy is the one worth owning. Kennedy has studied classical rhetorical for over three decades and he brings his knowledge of what rhetoric meant in the time of Aristotle to his translation. By the time you get to the first sentence of this translation--"Rhetoric is an antisrophos to dialectic"--you have ample evidence that Kennedy is the ideal translator for this text. You will have gone through a Prooemion, an Introductory essay, a synopsis of the first three chapters of Book 1 before you get to that first sentence, which contains two footnotes detailing the contemporary meanings of "rhetoric" and "antistrophos." More than any other scholar to tackle this project, Kennedy is as well versed in the subject matter as he is the original language. Kennedy's translation also benefits from the fact that it is eminently readable.

Additionally, this volume includes only a glossary and bibliography, but two excellent appendixes. The first consists of Supplementary Texts: (A) Gorgias' "Encomium on Helen," the showcase speech by the leader of the Sophists; (B) Aristotle on "Art as an Intellectual Virtue" from his "Nicomachean Ethics"; (C) "An Introduction to Dialectic" from Aristotle's "Topics"; (D) Cicero's "Description of Aristotle's Synagoge Tekhnon"; (E) Aristotle on "Word Choice and Metaphor" from his "Poetics"; and (F) Kennedy's note on "The Concept of the Enthymeme as Understood in the Modern Period." The second appendix features three Supplementary Essays: (A) "The Composition of the 'Rhetoric'"; (B) "The History of the Text After Aristotle"; and (C) "The Strengths and Limitations of the 'Rhetoric.'" The supplemental works alone would make this the translation to own. Every teacher or student of rhetorical theory/criticism needs to own Kennedy's translation of Aristotle's "On Rhetoric."

relevant even today!
Aristotle is amazing in his insight into the human nature. "Aristotle on rhetoric" focuses on what people like, how to talk to them, and how to act around them. However, be forewarned that the reading is not light, many hours can be spent on each chapter. If you are interested in finding out that people are the same today as they were in ancient Greece, read this book!

Great footnotes
The footnotes on this text are great. A lot of the wording can be heavy for a first read-through of Aristotle, and Kennedy does his best to make Aristotle more accessible to people who are new to Rhetoric.