Philip Melanchthon
Elementorum Rhetorices libri duo (Wittenberg, 1531)
Rhetoric Timeline
Primary Source Synopses

See also Melanchthon's earlier rhetorical treatise, Institutiones Rhetorices (1519 or 1521).

Book One
De Officiis Oratoris (A8v-B1r)
     Inventio
     Dispositio
     Elocutio
     Memoria
     Pronunciatio / Actio
Discrimen Dialecticae et Rhetoricae (B1r-B2v)
De Tribus Generibus Caussarum (B2v-B4v, 4 pages)
     Demonstratiuum (laus & vituperatio)
     Deliberatiuum (suadendo & dissuadendo)
     Iudicale (controversias forenses)
     Didascalico (which he adds from Dialectic and is of ecclesiastical value)
Ad Quid Conducat Nosse Genus Causae (B4v-B6v)
De Genere Didascalico (B6v-C1r)
     (This category, derived from Dialectic, is oriented towards proper teaching)

Third Order of Figures: Amplification

Melanchthon innovates an arrangement of figures here by grouping them beneath topics of invention, showing a strong relationship between the topics and the figures.

Topic of Invention
Associated Figures of Amplification
Ex definitione (D4r)

auxesis
tapinosis/meiosis
interpretatio (synonymia)
expolicio
Ex divisione (E3v)

distributio (merismus)
dialysis
congeries (synathroesmus)
incrementum

Ex causis (E4v)
aitiologia
dicaeologia
anangeon
translatio (metastasis)
color
gradatio (climax)
Ex contrariis
contentio (antithesis)
commutatio (antimetabole)
inversio
communicatio (synoeciosis)
correctio (epanorthosis)
reiectio (apodioxis)
occupatio (procatalepsis)
concessio (paromologia)
paradiastole
Forma respondendi
     anthypophora
     antisagoge
Ex similibus
comparatio
prosopopoeia
sermocinatio (dialogismus)
A genere
sententia (gnome, chreia)
epiphonema
noema
Ex circunstantiis & signis hypotyposis



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Gideon O. Burton, Brigham Young University
Please cite "Silva Rhetoricae" (rhetoric.byu.edu)


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