Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. Classical rhetoricians such
as Aristotle and Quintilian organized the methods and tools of
persuasion and theorized that a rhetorical discourse should consist
of "invention" (developing arguments), "disposition" (organizing
one's subject), and "style" (the means of persuasion). "Style"
included the use of figurative language, which in modern literary
criticism is generally separated from its old context as an element
of rhetoric. This glossary organizes figurative language into
two categories:
1. "figures of speech" (rhetorical figures, or schemes), which
deviate from normal language mainly in the order of words (syntax);
and
2. "figures of thought" (tropes), which deviate from common usage
mainly in the meaning of words.
