Background
Kennedy, George Alexander was born on November 26, 1928 in Hartford, Connecticut, United States. Son of George and Ethel (Hall) Kennedy.
(Since its original publication by UNC Press in 1980, this...)
Since its original publication by UNC Press in 1980, this book has provided thousands of students with a concise introduction and guide to the history of the classical tradition in rhetoric, the ancient but ever vital art of persuasion. Now, George Kennedy offers a thoroughly revised and updated edition of Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition. From its development in ancient Greece and Rome, through its continuation and adaptation in Europe and America through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, to its enduring significance in the twentieth century, he traces the theory and practice of classical rhetoric through history. At each stage of the way, he demonstrates how new societies modified classical rhetoric to fit their needs. For this edition, Kennedy has updated the text and the bibliography to incorporate new scholarship; added sections relating to women orators and rhetoricians throughout history; and enlarged the discussion of rhetoric in America, Germany, and Spain. He has also included more information about historical and intellectual contexts to assist the reader in understanding the tradition of classical rhetoric.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807847690/?tag=2022091-20
( The Description for this book, History of Rhetoric, Vol...)
The Description for this book, History of Rhetoric, Volume I: The Art of Persuasion in Greece, will be forthcoming.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691060088/?tag=2022091-20
( George Kennedy's three volumes on classical rhetoric ha...)
George Kennedy's three volumes on classical rhetoric have long been regarded as authoritative treatments of the subject. This new volume, an extensive revision and abridgment of The Art of Persuasion in Greece, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, and Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors, provides a comprehensive history of classical rhetoric, one that is sure to become a standard for its time. Kennedy begins by identifying the rhetorical features of early Greek literature that anticipated the formulation of "metarhetoric," or a theory of rhetoric, in the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e. and then traces the development of that theory through the Greco-Roman period. He gives an account of the teaching of literary and oral composition in schools, and of Greek and Latin oratory as the primary rhetorical genre. He also discusses the overlapping disciplines of ancient philosophy and religion and their interaction with rhetoric. The result is a broad and engaging history of classical rhetoric that will prove especially useful for students and for others who want an overview of classical rhetoric in condensed form.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/069100059X/?tag=2022091-20
( The Description for this book, History of Rhetoric, Vol...)
The Description for this book, History of Rhetoric, Volume III: Greek Rhetoric Under Christian Emperors, will be forthcoming.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691035652/?tag=2022091-20
(New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism...)
New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism provides readers of the Bible with an important tool for understanding the Scriptures. Based on the theory and practice of Greek rhetoric in the New Testament, George Kennedy's approach acknowledges that New Testament writers wrote to persuade an audience of the truth of their messages. These writers employed rhetorical conventions that were widely known and imitated in the society of the times. Sometimes confirming but often challenging common interpretations of texts, this is the first systematic study of the rhetorical composition of the New Testament. As a complement to form criticism, historical criticism, and other methods of biblical analysis, rhetorical criticism focuses on the text as we have it and seeks to discover the basis of its powerful appeal and the intent of its authors. Kennedy shows that biblical writers employed both "external" modes of persuasion, such as scriptural authority, the evidence of miracles, and the testimony of witnesses, and "internal" methods, such as ethos (authority and character of the speaker), pathos (emotional appeal to the audience), and logos (deductive and inductive argument in the text). In the opening chapter Kennedy presents a survey of how rhetoric was taught in the New Testament period and outlines a rigorous method of rhetorical criticism that involves a series of steps. He provides in succeeding chapters examples of rhetorical analysis, looking closely at the Sermon on the Mount, the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus' farewell to the disciples in John's Gospel, the distinctive rhetoric of Jesus, the speeches in Acts, and the approach of Saint Paul in Second Corinthians, Thessalonians, Galatians, and Romans.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080784120X/?tag=2022091-20
(This volume contains the Greek text, textual apparatus, a...)
This volume contains the Greek text, textual apparatus, and first published English translation of two treatises on rhetoric, with introductory material and notes. Once attributed to Hermogenes of Tarsus, these treatises are now believed to be by unknown authors writing in the second or third century C.E. or later. The first treatise, entitled On Invention, is a handbook for students providing formulas to aid them in the composition of declamations on assigned themes. The second treatise, On the Method of Forcefulness, discusses prose style with special attention to figures of speech. Extensive notes interpret the often-difficult content and relate it to other writing on rhetoric. The Greek text is that of Hugo Rabe (1913).
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(This study is concerned with collecting and examining the...)
This study is concerned with collecting and examining the fictional creations by some of the most famous French, English, and American writers. I welcome the opportunity to write a preface to this work, which I find truly remarkable. It manages at once to be scholarly and entertaining. Let's admit it: most scholarly books are instructive but far from entertaining; in fact, they usually make hard, demanding reading. This work is different in this crucial respect that it is both interesting and pleasurable for the reader. I would like to begin by saying a little about how the book came into being for I think that to be apprised of its genesis will help readers better to understand and appreciate it. Its author, George A. Kennedy, has had a most distinguished career as a classicist. He is preeminent above all in the field of rhetoric in which he has for long been acknowledged as the leading, world-renowned scholar. He served for many years as chair of the Classics department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a department that he turned into one of the best in the United States, and he was also chair of the University's Faculty Council. But he did not limit himself to the Classical period; George Kennedy has also regularly engaged in a personal program of reading in modern literature. Because of the breadth of his interests and his knowledge he was appointed chair of the Curriculum of Comparative Literature. In this position, too, he showed the distinction characteristic of all his endeavors; the wise changes he instituted laid the foundations for the Curriculum's current program, especially its educationally sound balance of the history of literary criticism, modern theory, and textual analysis. What Professor Kennedy calls his "leisure" reading forms the basis for the present book. Over the years he repeatedly noticed the recurrence of the theme of imaginary novelists and imaginary novels in French, English, and American fiction from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century. These meticulously collected observations have been developed into the material of the original book he has now written. I know of no other work like it. In German literary criticism there is a well-defined and popular type of narrative (to which Professor Kennedy refers) called the "Kunstlerroman," i.e., novels that portray artists, but it includes artists in all media (painters, sculptors, composers, etc. ). It has no direct counterpart in other literatures; the nearest approximation is the Bildungsroman (the term has been appropriated into English), the story of a young man's (or, more rarely, girl's) quest for selfhood and vocation. The Bildungsroman may, of course, overlap in some instances with the Kunstlerroman, but on the whole its concern is broader in nature. The work before us here, with its pronounced focus on imaginary novelists and imaginary novels, is, therefore, important in filling a gap in our knowledge of modern Western literature. As a result of his prodigiously wide-ranging reading over a lifetime, Professor Kennedy became uniquely qualified to compile this book. His span is phenomenal, extending from Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy", published between 1760 and 1767, right up to the 1990s and into the opening years of our century. If such mastery were not more than sufficient, he reaches back, too, to Classical Antiquity in order to give the background to the theme's earliest antecedents. What is more, he succeeds in doing all this without overwhelming readers with the rebarbative technical jargon typical of much literary criticism nowadays or even assuming our familiarity with the works he discusses. Carrying his own dazzling erudition lightly, he consistently shows utmost consideration for his readers by carefully explicating the - at times complex - ins and outs of the plots of the fictions he is dealing with. This approach makes the book readily accessible and very readable, despite the fact that it is obviously the fruit of extensive research and great ingenuity. With a modesty unusual in a scholar of his standing, Professor Kennedy has firmly resisted the temptation of showiness through a mere display of erudition for its own sake. The work will also appeal to readers through the urbane, polished manner in which it is written. Professor Kennedy explores the importance of imaginary novels and novelists in the diverse works in which they feature. He examines the bearing of the motif on the plot development with particular attention to its function and significance in the overall context. A good example of his method can be found in the very first fiction he discusses, Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy", notorious for its profusion of interpolated tales, which disrupt the main narrative line, but all of which contribute to the ironic humor of this highly eccentric work that so brilliantly exploits the apparently innocent but actually very ambiguous theme of the nose. A parallel though different instance of the role of an imaginary text is afforded by A. S. Byatt's "Possession: A Romance" (1990) whose entire plot hangs on the pursuit of drafts of letters by an imaginary Victorian poet to a woman who is eventually discovered to be a lesser known, also imaginary poet. Here the tracking down of these imaginary figures and their writings assumes the form of a detective story in which the alleged manuscripts from the past (of which extensive excerpts are included in the novel) cause considerable emotional havoc among the protagonists in the present. Yet another function of an imaginary novel is fulfilled in Edgar Allan Poe's famous story "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839), by the reading of the romance "Mad Trist" that is identified as "a vehicle for locating and intensifying the fearful effect of the dire sounds in the house that lead to Roderick's breakdown, Poe's climax, and the literal fall of the House of Usher" (p. 23). It is such astute insights that make the reading of this book so rewarding and indeed exciting. As merely a glance at the table of contents will reveal, the work gives a most valuable introduction to many of the greatest writers of the past three centuries on both sides of the Atlantic. While many readers will undoubtedly already be fairly well acquainted with some of the writers, such as Dickens, Thackeray, and Trollope, and certainly with the major American ones, such as Hawthorne, Melville, and Henry James, many of even the foremost European fiction writers, including Balzac, Proust, and even some British writers, such as Walpole, Somerset Maugham, and Anthony Powell are read all too little and remain relatively unknown unless their works have enjoyed diffusion through film, as in the case of Byatt's lengthy and complicated "Possession".Professor Kennedy therefore does a real service to today's readers by directing their attention to a variety of writers central to the Western tradition. The "overview" in the initial chapter as well as the summation in chapter twenty-three supplement the writers discussed in greater detail in the chapters devoted to them, thereby opening up even larger vistas and possibilities. The work has a concrete usefulness too as a fine source for a further reading list; I shall myself certainly draw on it for this purpose. A website on the topic is also mentioned. Although this is unquestionably a serious study, it has its amusing aspects too since the author possess a wry, impish sense of fun and humor. The idea of imaginary titles on dummy books covering doors is rather comical, and so are some of the literary hoaxes that Professor Kennedy enumerates. The notion of what he denotes as "scriptotherapy" crops up throughout the book in many examples that bridge the serious and the comical. As might be expected from a classicist, Professor Kennedy has a strong sense of history. The novels and stories discussed, arranged in chronological order, are, whenever relevant, contextualized in relation to the circumstances both of their period and of their authors' lives. Such historical siting strengthens the book, and is most helpful to readers' comprehension. Finally, this book allows us a glimpse behind the scenes into the writer's studio, and perhaps mind. As readers we are bound to have an interest too in the processes of creativity. How does the novelist set about the shaping of his/her work? How does it relate to previous works? The urge to refer to, and at times even to appropriate other novels is food for reflection on our part as readers. In short, this informative book's combination of the highest scholarly standards with the cosmopolitanism of its broad perspective temporally and spatially assures its appeal to a wide readership.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0773462511/?tag=2022091-20
(Comparative Rhetoric is the first book to offer a cross-c...)
Comparative Rhetoric is the first book to offer a cross-cultural overview of rhetoric as a universal feature of expression, composition, and communication. It begins with a theory of rhetoric as a form of mental and emotional energy which is transmitted from a speaker or writer to an audience or reader through a speech or text. In the first part of the book, George Kennedy explores analogies to human rhetoric in animal communication, possible rhetorical factors in the origin of human speech, and rhetorical conventions in traditionally oral societies in Australia, the South Pacific, Africa, and the Americas. Topics discussed include forms of reasoning, the function of metaphor, and the forms and uses of formal language. The second part of the book provides an account of rhetoric as understood and practiced in early literate societies in the Near East, China, India, Greece, and Rome, identifying unique or unusual features of Western discourse in comparison to uses elsewhere. The concluding chapter summarizes the results of the study and evaluates the validity of traditional Western rhetorical concepts in describing non-Western rhetoric. Addressing both what is general or common in all rhetorical traditions and what is unique or unusual in the Western tradition, Comparative Rhetoric is ideally suited for courses in rhetoric, rhetoric theory, the history of rhetoric, intercultural communication, linguistic anthropology, and comparative linguistics.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195109333/?tag=2022091-20
Kennedy, George Alexander was born on November 26, 1928 in Hartford, Connecticut, United States. Son of George and Ethel (Hall) Kennedy.
Kennedy received his Doctor of Philosophy in classics from Harvard University in 1954 with a dissertation entitled "PROLEGOMENA AND COMMENTARY TO QUINTILIAN VIII (Puerto Rico & 1-3)".
Instructor, Harvard University, 1955-1958; assistant professor classics, Haverford (Pennsylvania) College, 1958-1963; associate professor, Haverford (Pennsylvania) College, 1963-1965; professor, U. Pittsburgh, 1965-1966; professor, U. North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1966-1972; department chairman classics, U. North Carolina, 1966-1976; Paddison professor classics, U. North Carolina, 1972-1995; chairman curriculum comparative literature, U. North Carolina, 1989-1993; chairman university faculty, U. North Carolina, 1985-1988; Paddison professor classics emeritus, U. North Carolina, since 1995; member, National Humanities Council, 1980-1987. Lewin distinguished visiting professor Washington University, St. Louis, Spring 1988, senior fellow Center for Hellenic Studies, 1990-1995. Visiting professor Colorado State University, fall 1995.
(Since its original publication by UNC Press in 1980, this...)
(This volume contains the Greek text, textual apparatus, a...)
(Comparative Rhetoric is the first book to offer a cross-c...)
(New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism...)
(This study is concerned with collecting and examining the...)
( The Description for this book, History of Rhetoric, Vol...)
( The Description for this book, History of Rhetoric, Vol...)
( A concern for the art of persuasion, as rhetoric was an...)
( George Kennedy's three volumes on classical rhetoric ha...)
( The Description for this book, History of Rhetoric, Vol...)
(A revised and expanded edition of Professor Kennedy's bio...)
(Second Edition, Revi)
Fellow American Academy Arts and Sciences. Member American Phlos. Society, American Philological Association (president 1979, award of merit 1975), Speech Communications Association (Golden Anniversary award 1972, Wichelons-Winans award 1980, Distinguished Scholar award 1992), Railway and Locomotive History Society, International Society for History of Rhetoric (president 1983-1985), Phi Beta Kappa.
Married Mary Lee Hunnicutt, March 25, 1955. 1 child, Claire Alexandra.