This book aims to help readers interpret and reflect on their reading more effectively. It
presents doctrines of ancient and renaissance rhetoric (an education in how to write well) as
questions or categories for interpreting one's reading. The first chapter presents the
questions. Later chapters use rhetorical theory to bring out the implications of and suggest
possible answers to the questions: about occasion and audience (chapter 2) structure and
disposition (3) narrative (4) argument (5) further elements of content such as descriptions
comparisons proverbs and moral axioms dialogue and examples (6) and style (7). Chapter
eight describes ways of gathering material formulating arguments and writing about the texts
one reads. The conclusion considers the wider implications of taking a rhetorical approach to
reading. The investigation of rhetoric's questions is interspersed with analyses of texts by
Chaucer Sidney Shakespeare Fielding and Rushdie using the questions. The text is intended
for university students of literature especially English literature and rhetoric and their
teachers.
