ABSTRACT
The relation between rhetoric and memory is an intriguingly reciprocal one; memoria may form part of, be a capacity or skill of, the rhetorician. Rhetorical interests, while they constitute only part of the rich domain of memory as cultural practice, may motivate many of the organizational programs of memorizing. The truly central motive for rhetoric’s interest in memory, however, lies in the strong, ineluctable connection of rhetoric with the problematic of time. Martin Heidegger’s definition in Being and Time – “rhetoric is the first fundamental hermeneutic of the everydayness of being-with-others” – not only ties rhetoric to his own philosophy of time, but insists on its investigational skills, hence implies that rhetoric must be seen as hermeneutic, as inquiry. The memoir is a generic response to the vital task of designing memory and employs rhetorical values and procedures to fulfill this task.
