Rhetoric and Education

Cicero and Quintilian provide lengthy descriptions of the role of wit in Latin oratory (De Orat. 2.216-290; Institutio Oratoria 6.3). Both treat wit as a tool for persuasion, a perspective that tallies with their backgrounds and goals, but which is unusual in theoretical work on humor. Their view of wit as an instrument for delivering a serious message aligns with other genres in Latin literature: satire especially claims to mock for a purpose.

Despite inroads into folk psychology in the verbal arts (e.g., Snell; Guthrie 1975; Gill 1996, 2006; Schiappa; Long), modern scholarship of ancient understandings of mind still overwhelmingly samples philosophy: the mind in rhetoric and literary theory remains a relatively unknown world. This neglect causes two major distortions. First, a ‘noetic’ distortion: neglecting the mind in literary-critical texts means that historians of philosophy omit a large swath of the historical record on a critical issue.

Quintilian, the Princeps, and the Orator

Title: "Pleasure as Pedagogy in the Essay on the Life and Poetry of Homer"

Gulosi Figurarum: Unruly Students and an Annoyed Teacher in Minor Declamations 308–350

Cornute, Dulcis Amice: Stoic Feelings and Aesthetic Pleasure