ABSTRACT
Rhetorical handbooks cannot give adequate information on their own relationship to the literary practice of a movement. By relating Gottfried August Burgers theory to his practice, this chapter illuminates each by means of the other. It argues that his composition follows the rhetorical technique of enargeia, a technique of vivid verbal representation which embraces a range of subordinate techniques, and uses the lyrical ballad 'Das Lied vom braven Manne' to illustrate this argument. The relationship between Burgers theory and practice is complex. It has the rare characteristic of appearing to retrace the historical route taken by poetry and rhetoric from natura to a systematized ars. His early theory provides a parallel set of precepts whose rhapsodic formulation celebrates their origins in the 'Buch der Natur', but does not obscure their coherence as the rhetorical fundamentals of Volkspoesie.
