Rhetoric (Aristotle) - Neo-Aristotelian Theory

Neo-Aristotelian Theory

Rhetorical theory and criticism in the first half of the 20th century was dominated by neo-Aristotelian criticism, the tenets of which were grounded in the Rhetoric and summed up most clearly in 1925 by Herbert Wichelns. The dominance of neo-Aristotelian criticism was "virtually unchallenged until the 1960s" and even now is considered not only as one of many approaches to criticism, but as fundamental for understanding other theoretical and critical approaches as they "developed largely in response to strengths and weaknesses."