Description
Book SynopsisReassesses the genre of epideictic rhetoric from antiquity to the Renaissance by looking at a series of texts that exploit the potential of praise to undermine consensus and to challenge the normative values of society. The authors covered range from Isocrates, Plato, and Aristotle to Erasmus, Machiavelli, and Montaigne
Trade Review“MacPhail uses the notion of praise (especially praise that turns to blame) as an interpretive key to explain the culture of the Renaissance, a demonstration that is both brilliant and convincing. Since the authors taken into account have been extensively studied, MacPhail builds on the results of modern scholarship: the novelty of his book is to take an unexpected and fruitful look at already known texts and also to draw attention to lesser-known sources.”
—Laurent Pernot,author of The Subtle Subtext: Hidden Meanings in Literature and Life
“MacPhail's provocative study will appeal to specialists of the classical tradition in early modernity, and scholars of rhetoric and the history of philosophy. In addition, it adds perspectives to our understanding of Machiavelli and Montaigne. Since the late 1990s there has been a serious revival of the study of rhetoric and the analysis of literature in rhetorical terms; this book sheds light on a subversive counter-tradition within the history of praise.”
—Ullrich Langer,Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison
“Readers will profit from MacPhail’s provocation as well as from the serious scholarship that underwrites it.”
—Kathy Eden Erasmus Studies
