ABSTRACT
The bottom line of this chapter is that ancient rhetoric throughout antiquity provided a conceptual toolkit indispensable for literary production; and that for us today it consequently provides the central tools to appreciate the intellectual dynamics underlying ancient literature at different levels of its conceptualization (inventio, dispositio, elocutio). We show that ancient rhetoric, originally the art of speaking persuasively, throughout antiquity developed into a broad conceptual tradition of thinking about reading and writing that fundamentally impacted both literary production and literary criticism. We explain that ancient rhetoric and poetics adopted the same conceptual language in order to describe and prescribe discourse and that this language pervaded ancient literature at large. Special attention is drawn to the crucial role that education played both in incorporating and in stimulating the intertwinement of rhetoric and literature. Both progymnasmata and declamations engaged with literary traditions at various levels and in turn contributed themselves to creating literature. Our central text is Horace’s Ars Poetica, verses 38–138; we use it to illustrate/pinpoint some of the aspects that are discussed in the chapter: invention/dispositio/ elocutio, logos/êthos/pathos, and the importance of tradition.
