Article Text
Statistics from Altmetric.com
The Gloucester Book Club met to discuss ‘The Elements of Eloquence’ by Mark Forsyth, bringing together familiar faces1 with some new joiners who knew2 little of what lay ahead.
The book defines and describes dozens of rhetorical devices.3 It covers, in 39 chapters, techniques ranging from anaphora to zeugma, each illustrated by Forsyth using a vast4 array of diverse examples, from Dickens to Die Hard.
To read or not to read?5 Everyone enjoyed the book, praising his wit, clear explanations and that each chapter cleverly introduced the next throughout the book. There was much discussion on whether it was useful. A few thought that the book acts as, and at times feels like, a classroom workbook. For some, the text aids analysis, understanding and appreciation of others’ work. Most believed, as …
Footnotes
X @charlie_nye
Contributors CJSN is the sole author of this work.
Funding The author has not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.