Essay analysis written by: Weldon B. Durham (Instructor of Speech and Dramatic Art at the University of Arkansas)

Important notes:

The essay was written to submit a new reading of De Quincey's 1828 essay called "rhetoric" or "Elements of Rhetoric" an excursive review suggested to De Quincey by Richard Whartely's Elements of Rhetoric. 4 Essays written by De Quincey regarding :

• Style
• composition
• eloquence
• oratory

(All of these essays have been re-published by Frederick Burkwick.)

• The rhetoric of De Quincey is considered belletristic rather than oratorical.
• His theory is very original and extremely puzzling for the nineteenth century.
• Burwick alludes that several of the essays contain a single coherent, and complete theory of rhetoric or an integral theory of persuasion.
• Weldon feels the essays were written for different purposes, and were composed at various times over a twenty-year period.
• Weldon's key concern with the works of De Quincey were not the essays, but the significance.

Several commentators have tried to extract the tenets of De Quincey's rhetorical theory from his various essays.

Relevant extracts from Commentators

Hoyt Hudson: Examined significant ideas and related them to rhetorical tradition and recent stylistic theory and practice. Concluded that De Qunicey used rhetorical invention as a mode of thinking.

Frederick Haberman: Believed that De Quincey eliminated conviction and appeals to the passions and substituted "intellectual and fantastic play" for the purpose of persuasion. Felt it was a "game of solitaire."

Rene Wellek: Suggest that De Quincey's "curious theory of rhetoric" be forgotten.

Wilbur Samuel Howell: Expressed similar views to those of Wellek.

Paul M. Talley: Felt De Quincey's essays were concerned with the nature of persuasion. "Refection of Emotional Discourse" Also suggested that rhetoric be read as a prologue to "style."

Frederick Burwick: Said the that De Quincey’s "Rhetoric" was "an informal commentary and not a systematic treatise on rhetoric," and that it must be considered a rhetorical act.

De Quincey’s Essay

Falls into two parts: Part one is devoted to the definition of rhetoric. Part two is devoted to a brief and curious history of rhetoricians.

• It examines the prevailing popular belief ideas of rhetoric.
• De Quincey believed the popular ideas of rhetoric lacked precision and unity, but he noted that the more formal definitions of the teachers of rhetoric provided better grounds.
• The teachers agreed that rhetoric was the art of persuasion, but they did not agree on the definition of persuasion.
• De Qunicey cited Aristotle in his essay.
• His rhetorical enthymene dealt with areas of probable cause.
• He called the province of rhetoric the province of opinion.
• He maintained that "Rhetoric is an art of aggrandizing and bringing out into strong relief, by means of various and striking thoughts, some aspects of truth which of itself is supported by no spontaneous feelings, and therefore rests upon artificial aids."
• His essay is concerned primarily with the teleology of rhetoric.
• The secondary purpose of the essay deals with rhetoric as a product.
• He believed that imagery must aggrandize in a special way to be completely rhetorical.
• He substituted imaginative persuasive appeals for the confusing and imprecise idea that persuasion is based on convincing the understanding or swaying the passions.
• He offered a prescription for rhetoric as a kind of mental activity.
• his treatment of the teleology may be summarized in the terms of the four Aristotelian causes.
• Rhetoric is the formal process wherein the ornament embodies the thesis, refreshing and enlivening it.
• He was concerned secondarily with the ontology of rhetoric.