A Rhetoric of Reading (From the History of 20th Century Academic Ideas)

The revival of rhetoric in the second half of the 20th century made necessary a new definition of this discipline within the contemporary humanities. Over the course of this work, an unusual communicative perspective was outlined for it: traditional rhetoric was productive, modern rhetoric becomes receptive; the former expounded on writing, the latter has turned its attention to reading. Searches for such a new definition can be traced in the works of Roland Barthes, Chaim Perelman, Umberto Eco, Gerard Genette, Paul de Man, Wayne Booth, Sergey Averintsev, Alexander V. Mikhailov, Yuri Lotman, Paul Ricoeur and other scholars.