Abstract
This chapter discusses five questions concerned with the structure and organisation of a text. The questions relate to the way the text presents its plan to the reader, the way in which the text is in fact structured, the number of the parts and the function of each, the purpose of the text, the ending, and the final impression left on the audience. The chapter brings out the implications of the questions by considering the progymnasmata (Greek writing exercises), Agricola, Booth, examples from poetry and oratory, tragedy and comedy, the organisation of dramatic scenes, and the rhetorical doctrine of teaching, moving, and pleasing. The chapter ends with an analysis of Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella, Sonnet 45 in relation to structure, argument, style, and tone.
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References
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Mack, P. (2017). Structure and Disposition. In: Rhetoric's Questions, Reading and Interpretation. Early Modern Literature in History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60158-8_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60158-8_3
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