George Campbell's rhetorical theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

George Campbell's rhetorical theory - Essay Example As an admirer of the classics, Campbell reminded his theological students to immerse themselves in such specific works as Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, Cicero's De Inventione and De Oratore, the Ad Herennium, Longinus' On the Sublime, and the critical essays of Dionysius. What he liked most of all was the classical emphasis on rules as an art form. In his Lectures on Pulpit Eloquence, Campbell taunted his contemporaries for their inability to extend the highly artistic approach to rhetoric developed by the ancients. "As to the rhetorical art itself," he said, "in the particular the moderns appear to me to have made hardly any advance or improvement upon the ancients. I can say, at least, of most of the performances in the way of institute, which I have had an opportunity of reading on the subject, either in French or English, every thing valuable is servilely copied from Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian." Underlying Campbell's philosophy was the idea that rhetoric is a dynamic, developing process.