The Pleasure of the Impossible Ideal: Lacan, Quintilian and Rhetoric as Science

• In Event: Reworking Classical Rhetorical Theory

Abstract

Influenced by the classical rhetorical theory of Quintilian, and Lacan's theories of the obejct-cause of desire, this paper argues for a framing of rhetorical theory as an impossible regualtory ideal in the debates regarding rhetorical agency. I posit Quintilian's categories of the ideal orator and materiam rhetoricae as conterpoints to contemporary framings of the rhetorical agent and the rhetorical object which underwrite modern rhetorical theory. I conclude for an erotics of the rhetorical art, located at the site of pleasure, as an alternative to scientistic tendencies to frame rhetoric as a discipline concerned with disciplining objects.

Author

• Christian O Lundberg, Northwestern University