>Ezio Raimondi is undoubtedly one of the scholars who have most contributed to the contemporary rediscovery of rhetoric in the field of literary studies. In this short text he offers a brief guide to rhetoric which - by touching on philology, art history, anthropology and political theory, philosophy and literature - highlights the potential and the tasks of the art of the word.

The volume is organised into four chapters. The first outlines the history of rhetoric as a discipline that has been handed down to us through the centuries. In the second chapter Raimondi reviews the exemplary cases of Aby Warburg and Ernst Robert Curtius, stressing their topicality and identifying the essential features of their applied metaphorology. The third chapter focuses on the evolution of the idea of rhetoric as a necessary hermeneutics of human society. The final chapter examines selected recent attempts to revive both the technical potential and the philosophical nuances and values of rhetoric. The volume also includes an interview in which Raimondi sums up his ideas on rhetoric.

Ezio Raimondi used to teach Italian Literature in the Faculty of Letters in the University of Bologna.