Loeb Library Volumes: Rhetoric
Aristotle. Translated by J. H. Freese. Revised by Gisela Striker. Art of Rhetoric (Loeb Classical Library 193, Aristotle XXII). Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press, 2020. 528 Pages. Cloth. $28.00. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674997325
Menander Rhetor and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Edited and translated by William H. Ars Rhetorica (Loeb Classical Library 539). Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press, 2019. 539 Pages. Cloth. $28.00. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674997226
Somebody should have told me about the Loeb Classical Library.
No, the photo above is not in my home or study at church. It is my dream now...
I wasn't a Classics major, but I should have been. And I've been wasting my time on inferior English editions in paperback.
The two notable volumes below are both worth your money, time, shelf space, and effort. That's the highest compliment I know after publishing book reviews since 2004.
Aristotle comes first.
Aristotle (384–322 BC), the great Greek thinker, researcher, and educator, ranks among the most important and influential figures in the history of philosophy, theology, and science. He joined Plato’s Academy in Athens in 367 and remained there for twenty years. After spending three years at the Asian court of a former pupil, Hermeias, he was appointed by Philip of Macedon in 343/2 to become tutor of his teenaged son, Alexander. After Philip’s death in 336, Aristotle became head of his own school, the Lyceum at Athens, whose followers were known as the Peripatetics. Because of anti-Macedonian feeling in Athens after Alexander’s death in 323, he withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322.
Aristotle wrote voluminously on a broad range of subjects analytical, practical, and theoretical. Rhetoric, probably composed while he was still a member of Plato’s Academy, is the first systematic approach to persuasive public speaking based in dialectic, on which he had recently written the first manual.
This edition of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, which replaces the original Loeb edition by John Henry Freese, supplies a Greek text based on that of Rudolf Kassel, a fresh translation, and ample annotation fully current with modern scholarship. (Publisher's Website)
As a student of rhetoric, I've read the original Loeb edition and other translations enough to appreciate the need for an updated translation and to appreciate this particular new translation.
Comparing both LCL 193s, I note the addition of "Revised by GISELA STRIKER" on the front cover, "Art of Rhetoric" instead of merely "Rhetoric" on the spine, and a nearly equivalent page count. There is an explanation of the "why" behind the revised edition, the 1976 Kassel Greek text, and a new introduction. The pages inside have an updated feel, font, and formatting, yet still a classic Loeb look.
Let's consider a common quote of Aristotle found online:
For argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are people whom one cannot instruct.
Let the reader understand that the latter phrase is quite popular, and undoubtedly true.
The Frese translation renders this as:
For scientific discourse is concerned with instruction (Footnote c: Almost equivalent to demonstration or strictly logical proof.), but in the case of such persons instruction is impossible;
The revision we consider today renders this without a footnote as:
For scientific discourse is instruction, but in the case of such persons this is impossible;
That is my overall assessment of Gisela Striker's work here.
The refreshed Loeb Classical Library translation of The Art of Rhetoric by Aristotle retains the beauty of the Frese translation, yet with the clarity, pithiness, and scholarship one expects from those entrusted with the Loeb legacy.
My experience with Menander may be modest, but it is far from zero. One of the blessings of the summer of 2019 was a trip to Chicago for the Conference of the Consortium for Classical Lutheran Education. A side trip to a classical Lutheran school was the occasion of a gift, a 1921 Menander collection of The Principal Fragments. That volume now sits next to our second new Loeb.
This volume contains three rhetorical treatises dating probably from the reign of Diocletian (AD 285–312) that provide instruction on how to compose epideictic (display) speeches for a wide variety of occasions both public and private. Two are attributed to one Menander Rhetor of Laodicea (in southwestern Turkey); the third, known as the Ars Rhetorica, incorrectly to the earlier historian and literary critic Dionysius of Halicarnassus. These treatises derive from the schools of rhetoric that flourished in the Roman Empire from the 2nd through 4th centuries AD in the Greek East. Although important examples of some genres of occasional prose were composed in the 5th and 4th centuries BC by Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, and especially Isocrates, it was with the flowering of rhetorical prose during the so-called Second Sophistic in the second half of the 2nd century AD that more forms were developed as standard repertoire and became exemplary.
Distinctly Hellenic and richly informed by the prose and poetry of a venerable past, these treatises are addressed to the budding orator contemplating a civic career, one who would speak for his city’s interests to the Roman authorities and be an eloquent defender of its Greek culture and heritage. They provide a window into the literary culture, educational values and practices, and social concerns of these Greeks under Roman rule, in both public and private life, and considerably influenced later literature both pagan and Christian.
This edition offers a fresh translation, ample annotation, and texts based on the best critical editions. (Publisher's Website)
Rev. Paul J Cain is Senior Pastor of Immanuel, Sheridan, Wyoming, Headmaster of Martin Luther Grammar School and Immanuel Academy, a member of the Board of Directors of the Consortium for Classical Lutheran Education, First Vice-President of the Wyoming District of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and a member of its Board of Directors, Rhetoric Teacher for Wittenberg Academy, and Editor of Lutheran Book Review. He has served as an LCMS Circuit Visitor, District Worship Chairman, District Evangelism Chairman, District Education Chairman/NLSA Commissioner, and District Secretary. A graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Rev. Cain is a contributor to Lutheran Service Book, Lutheranism 101, the Hymnal Companion hymn and liturgy volumes, and is the author of 5 Things You Can Do to Make Our Congregation a Caring Church. He is an occasional guest on KFUO radio. He has previously served Emmanuel, Green River, WY and Trinity, Morrill, NE. Rev. Cain is married to Ann and loves reading and listening to, composing, and making music.
