Ars Rhetorica is a course of study in the art of rhetoric.
Ars Rhetorica teaches rhetoric as a liberal art, the art of finding the available means of persuasion. It follows Aristotle chiefly, with Cicero, Augustine, and Gregory the Great.
It starts with what rhetoric is and how it is the counterpart of dialectic. Then it covers the three kinds of speech (deliberative, forensic, and epideictic), the three proofs (logos, ethos, and pathos), and the issue on which a case turns. Under invention, students study the enthymeme, the example, the topics, and the passions, such as anger, fear, pity, and shame. Next come the parts of an oration, from the exordium through narration, division, proof, and refutation to the peroration. After that it covers style and figures, and it closes with Augustine’s Christian orator and Gregory on his hearers.
Students study real speeches by Antiphon, Gorgias, Thucydides, and Cicero. They name the parts and passions, spot figures, supply missing premises, and judge paired debates.
It begins at Act I, What Rhetoric Is, with the opening card The counterpart of dialectic. That study presents the definition, the three means of persuasion (ethos, pathos, and logos), and the three kinds of speech.
Open Ars Rhetorica a course in the art of rhetoric
With that, all three arts have been begun. The next page, The Three Arts Together, sets them side by side and is meant to be consulted again whenever a difficulty arises.