Comments on: Post on the Rhetorics of Post-(Fill-in-the-Blank) http://harlotofthearts.org/blog/2008/07/23/post-on-the-rhetorics-of-post-fill-in-the-blank/ Sat, 31 Dec 2011 22:58:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: David Beard http://harlotofthearts.org/blog/2008/07/23/post-on-the-rhetorics-of-post-fill-in-the-blank/comment-page-1/#comment-48 David Beard Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:04:17 +0000 http://rhetoricalcommons.org/harlot/?p=123#comment-48 This is a fascinating question, at least in part because the variety of prefixes carries nuances of meaning. Latour's answer to the Post-Modern question was that "we have never been modern," and we should, I think, bracket the Post part. But neo-, as in neo-Aristotelian, refers to something like, but not quite, what is being described. Neo-Aristotelian criticism isn't quite Aristotelian, but it looks a lot like it, right, inflected with the contemporary. My own fascination, of course, is with "New." Ezra Pound calling, always, to make it New, at the same time that Richards, Toulmin, Perelman, etc. were developing the New Rhetoric. Unlike Neo-, which glances back to describe today, New starts at a rupture. It severs from the past or defines in opposition to it (Barthes: "The Old Rhetoric: An Aide Memoire"). At least, that's my guess. This is a fascinating question, at least in part because the variety of prefixes carries nuances of meaning.

Latour’s answer to the Post-Modern question was that “we have never been modern,” and we should, I think, bracket the Post part.

But neo-, as in neo-Aristotelian, refers to something like, but not quite, what is being described. Neo-Aristotelian criticism isn’t quite Aristotelian, but it looks a lot like it, right, inflected with the contemporary.

My own fascination, of course, is with “New.” Ezra Pound calling, always, to make it New, at the same time that Richards, Toulmin, Perelman, etc. were developing the New Rhetoric. Unlike Neo-, which glances back to describe today, New starts at a rupture. It severs from the past or defines in opposition to it (Barthes: “The Old Rhetoric: An Aide Memoire”).

At least, that’s my guess.

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