Rhetoric's Agons

Why do Plato's, Aristotle's, Saint Augustine's, and Kenneth Burke's and others' ideas about language, rhetoric, and writing still matter to historians and schjolars? Rhetoric's Agons attempts to answer this question. Prtofessor Arrington's book explores the provocative, and often hidden, struggles of some of the keenest minds in Western culture to invent "theories" of rhetoric and, later, composition out of the ideas and images of both predecesors and rivals. Professor Arrington's book traces these intellectual struggles, or "agons," across two millenia, arguing that the very best thinkers on how human beings exploit langauge are often striving to change the very language others have used to explain rhetoric. These strivings Professor Arrington believes, have made and continue to make some of these thinkers ideas more essential than others.