Ties That Bind:
Ancient Epistolography and
Modern Business Communication
JOHN HAGGE
Recently, critics of business communication have claimed that many
principles of the field repeat themselves from one generation to the next (for
example, see Pauly, Moran and Moran, and Selzer). I will argue that these
critics are right: not only have the leading principles of the field been
transmitted through generations of textbooks beginning around 1910, but
several striking parallels between the 2000-year-old Greek and Roman
epistolographic, or letter-writing, tradition and modem business communica-
tion exist. Just as business communication textbooks do today, ancient
epistolographic manuals recommended adaptation to the letter-writer's audi-
ence, natural, everyday speech, and at least three of the so-called "C' s" of
effective communication: conversational tone, clarity, and conciseness. Just
as textbooks do today, these letter-writing manuals took pains to develop
elaborate typologies to classify letters. And just as today business communi-
cation stands at the fringes of the educational establishment, so in the ancient
world epistolography never was fully integrated into the system of classical
education; indeed, much of the ancient world considered epistolographic
instruction vulgar, suited only for the superficially educated.
The Tenets of Business Communication: Modern or Ancient?
The field's tendency toward the repetition of platitudes is not condemned
by those who pioneered the modem teaching of university-level business
communication courses during the first quarter of the twentieth century. In
fact, while trying to legitimize their discipline, they argued exactly the
opposite: that business communication rests on principles hallowed by time
and sanctioned by having been passed along through the generations. A few
of these pioneering business communication teachers tried to trace the rhe-
torical roots of the field back at least to the Renaissance. For instance, in a
1938 article Hugh Sargent argues that" most of the principles we teach in our
modem handbooks of letter writing are 'time-tested'" and traces these
principles, albeit in cursory fashion, to the Renaissance rhetorics of William
Fulwood, Angell Day, Gregorius Macropedius, Christopher Hegendorff,
Vives, and Erasmus (5-6). In his 1940 presidential address to the second
Ancient Epistolography 27
annual convention of the American Business Writing Association (a precur-
sor of ABC), Robert Aurner, who wrote one of the first textbooks in the field,
sounds a similar strain by noting that "business writing is rooted in an
ancestry centuries in length and is founded upon a tradition interesting to
observe"(7). He too refers in passing to Fulwood and Day. And in a classic
defense of the field, William P. Boyd claims that if his were a "500-page
research paper," he would "pause for a look at early Greek letters":
A doctoral dissertation on The Form of the Ancient Greek Letter by a
Norbertine brother in the National Catholic University in the late 1930's
docwnents the pre-Christian letter writer, seated with stylus in hand, as falling
into a fixed pattern of salutation and closing, and also using standard letter-
writing jargon, to convey his message. In the early Christian literature, the
Epistles in the New Testament attest to similar persistent letter forms. Indeed
it was the church' s role as the preserver oflearning that established the modem
five-part letter form. ("Heritage" 7)
Boyd, who never mentions the "Norbertine brother" by name and who
appears to get the work's publication date wrong, must be referring to Francis
X. J. Exler's The Form of the Ancient Greek Letter (Dissertation, Catholic
U ni versity of America, 1923; see Doty 5, n. 3). But although some pioneering
business writing authorities did take a brief glance at the rhetorical roots of
their field, to the best of my knowledge (based on a comprehensive literature
review of the Bulletin and Journal of the Association for Business Commu-
nication since they began publication), little serious scholarship linking the
classical, medieval, or Renaissance rhetorical traditions to principles of
business communication taught today exists. Boyd's cryptic paragraph may
be the only reference to an ancient epistolographic manual in the business
communication literature.
1
Rather than pay lip-service to the rhetorical tradition, pioneering college
business communication instructors like Aumer and Boyd were much more
likely to assert the essential modernity ofthe field's principles when attempt-
ing to defend theirfield (Hagge, "Orphaned Discipline"). Those principles
were legitimate-so the argument went-just because they had been devel-
oped around the tum of the century and had stood the test of time since then.
The work of Jack Menning typifies this tactic. Menning traces the develop-
ment of such chestnuts as conversational tone, you-viewpoint, adaptation,
concrete diction and positive emphasis in two similar articles ("Principles"
and "Half Century"), taking pains to show that "modem" business commu-
nication practice, which incorporates the principles he is investigating, is far
superior to earlier, especially nineteenth-century, methods, and giving 1900
as the beginning of a new kind of business writing:
If you look back over the business-Ietterliterature of 1900-1910, you will see
that the professional letter writers of the day build up a set of principles that
28 Journal of Advanced Composition
are merely made more concrete and specific in later application. What today' s
writers do is retest and confmn what earlier prominent men agreed were the
desirable fundamentals of letter writing. With each test by use and with each
restatement, there is some improvement, some refinement of a principle worth
our attention. ("Principles" 17; see also "Half Century" 4)
It is clear from the conclusion of his article that Menning justifies the
principles he discusses just because they have stood the test of time. Over and
over again in his summary, he points out that the principles of business
communication he considers important date from around 1906 to 1911.
Menning summarizes his position by appealing to a criterion of use:
These principles are not merely the product of thoughtful analysis; they are the
result of a half a century of test-by-use. True, many of them have not been
supported by carefully controlled, formalized research studies. Indeed, much
research needs to be done. But until it is, the correspondent who does not take
advantage of these suggestions is closing his eyes to what experience has
shown, over and over again, is the more desirable procedure.
("Principles" 31)
That such an attitude still lives after nearly thirty years is demonstrated by a
quotation from the 1986 edition of one of the best-selling (Suchan 162)
business communication textbooks on the market today. The sentiments,
even the phraseology, markedly resemble Menning's:
Successful business communication is also the result of a conscious use of
principles that have evolved since the turn of the century. No one would claim
that business communication is an exact and thoroughly developed science,
butprominentbusinesswriters who have experimentedwith letters and memos
for over 80 years have given us a near-scientific framework of empirical
principles as a starting point. (Wilkinson, Wilkinson, and Vik 7; emphasis
added)
In similar attempts to gain credibility for' 'modem" business communi-
cation, other investigators have tried to trace its beginnings to some well-
known early figure in the field. Weeks argues that it was George Burton
Hotchkiss in 1916 "who first emphasized the principle of the 'you' attitude
and talked about the 'five C's' of business writing" (202). Boyd auempts to
show that such often-cited principles as "you-attitude" and the AIDA
scheme for organizing sales letters stem from the work of advertising
psychologist Walter Dill Scott, who published his influential The Theory of
Advertising in 1903 ("Psychological Aspects"). Scott's ideas were quickly
incorporated into the first generation of business communication textbooks
(Boyd, "Psychological Aspects" 8-9). Boyd, like Aurner an ABW A presi-
dent, reworks much of this material again as he searches for antecedents of the
Ancient Epistolography 29
notions of "you-attitude," conversational tone, conciseness, and positive
suggestion in an address given to celebrate the twenty-fIrst aniversary of
ABWA ("Heritage"). Likewise, Daniel attempts to show how "modern"
were the letter-writing principles of direct-mail proponent and advertising
genius Sherwin Cody.
The Ancient Epistolographic Tradition
However, such efforts to legitimize the field are naive, since as I shall
demonstrate, many commonplaces of business communication are not par-
ticularly "modem" but ultimately derive from classicalrhetoric, and specifI-
cally from the ancient epistolographic tradition. That almost all modem
business communication scholarship makes no mention of this tradition,
especially Greek and Roman letter-writing theory, is not surprising. Classi-
cists themselves have tended to concentrate on only part of this tradition:
"literary" letters, many of which were composed by writers considered
interesting for other reasons. Among the most important of these are Plato,
Demosthenes, and Isocrates (whose corpora ofletters some scholars consider
wholly or partially spurious; see Hackforth and Rees). Also important are
Seneca, the younger Pliny, and of course Cicero. And there are Ovid, whose
Heroides are dramatic monologues in letter-form from legendary women like
Medea to absent lovers, and Horace, whose Epistula ad Pisones students of
literary criticism know by another name, the "Art of Poetry. " Finally, there
are Christian epistolographers such as St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, and St.
Gregory Nazianzus, and on the Latin side Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine.
Obviously, philologists also have studied the epistles that make up the bulk
of the New Testament.
Such was the state of epistolographic scholarship until 1897. Then, elec-
trifIed by an astonishing discovery in an obscure Egyptian town, the world of
epistolography changed markedly. The town was Oxyrhynchus. The
discovery: thousands of papyrus fragments, most dating from Hellenistic or
Roman times, preserved since then by desert sands. Among these were
hundreds ofletters written for quotidian, not literary, reasons, many of which
fell under the rubric of "business communications.' '2 The Biblical scholar
Adolf Deissmann immediately realized the importance of these letters for
better understanding the form and structure of the New Testament epistles,
especially those in the theologically important Pauline corpus.
Although his claim that the papyrus letters found in Oxyrhynchus and
elsewhere constitute the "liveliest instantaneous photographs of ancient
life" (228) has been challenged, Deissmann still remains the father of modem
epistolographic studies. In New Testament research, these loom rather large;
for some time, scholars have been interested not only in the papyrus letters
themselves, but in trying to determine to what extent the classical rhetorical
tradition, and especially the few extant ancient letter-writing manuals,
influenced the composition of these letters. Unfortunately, since they also
30 Journal of Advanced Composition
may appear forbiddingly esoteric-often assuming that readers are familiar
with koine Greek, Latin, perhaps Aramaic and Syriac, and several modem
langl;lages-epistolographic studies have remained mostly inaccessible to
scholars researching the history of rhetoric or of business communication.
In addition, epistolography, as a latecomer to scholarship, still suffers the
woes of all new disciplines. Doty points out that "up to the present time
epistolary research has remained scattered and fragmentary. There are few
if any comprehensive treatments of epistle in English ... " (ix; also see
Malherbe 3). The work of Doty and Malherbe themselves, as well as that of
others such as Kim, Stowers, and White, go far in rectifying this lack. Yet the
enterprising researcher in the history of rhetoric or business communication
will find the area of ancient epistolography still quite uncharted, and thus an
immensely fruitful territory.
The great Greek and Roman rhetoricians refer to letter-writing techniques
only tangentially, perhaps because epistolographic instruction was consid-
ered rather vulgar, a point to which I will return later. Aristotle does not
mention Jetter-writing per se. Cicero shows "many points of contact with
Greek letter theory, but his comments on the types of letters are not the basis
for an epistolographic system, nor are they part of such a system" (Malherbe
6). Seneca, too, knows the traditional typological descriptions of letters but
like Cicero displays little systematic epistolographic knowledge; and Quin-
tilian refers only causally to letter-writing systems (Malherbe 6-7; Kennedy,
Roman World 487-514 and 615-616). Thus, we need to tum to the lesser-
known rhetorical theorists for accounts of ancient letter-writing technique.
The treatise De Elocutione, once thought to be the work of Demetrius of
Phalerum, contains the first fully formulated account. This treatise, most
famous for its discussion of the four rhetorical styles-plain, grand, elegant,
and forceful-was written in Greek, perhaps in the first century A.D.
(Malherbe 4; Schenkeveld 135-48), although scholars dispute the date.
3
Pseudo-Demetrius's views on letter-writing occur as a short excursus (sec-
tions 223-35) at the end of his discussion of the plain style, the highlights of
which follow:
• The letter resembles one side of a dialogue, but should be written more
carefully, since dialogue imitates impromptu conversation but a letter is a
piece of writing sent to someone as a gift, so disjointed clauses and
sentences are out of place in it.
• The letter should be written in propria persona; a writer's character shines
forth nowhere more than in a letter.
• Letters should not be too long nor too dignified in style. Letters are not
treatises but expressions of one's friendly feelings, one's "affection and
courtesy."
• Thus, a letter should be written "in simple language," in a mixture of the
elegant and the plain styles, although writers of letters' 'must adjust them
to the personage to whom they are addressed." (Grube 111-13)
Ancient Epistolography 31
Later authorities on letter-writing embellish and emend Demetrius's
advice. Two important epistolographic handbooks are anonymous. The first,
Typoi Epistolikoi (Epistolary Types), is said-most likely without good
cause-to have been written by Demetrius of Phalerum, also the supposed
author of De Elocutione. The second, Epistolimaioi Charakteres (Epistolary
Styles), has been attributed either to Libanius or to Proclus the Neoplatonist,
again most likely without foundation. Dates for the former work range from
200 B.C. to A.D. 300 and for the latter from between the fourth and sixth
centuries A.D. (texts in Foerster, Weichert; texts and translations in Malherbe).
Julius Victor was a Latin rhetorician of the fourth century A.D. whose Ars
Rhetorica included a section, de epistolis, concerning the proper style of
letters (text in Balm; partial text and translations in Malherbe). Flavius
Philostratus (third century A.D.), better known for his account of the Second
Sophistic,Lives of the Sophists, and the author of a collection of homoerotic
letters (Bowersock), also composed a short letter-writing manual in Greek:
De Epistulis (texts in Kayser, Malherbe). Finally, St. Gregory Nazianzus, one
of the Four Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church, left letters noted for their
graceful, witty style; one covers letter-writing techniques (texts in Gallay,
Malherbe). Although these authors make up a rather heterogeneous collec-
tion, most of them agree quite uniformly that letters should be composed in
certain ways, ways that jibe remarkably well with the precepts of "modem"
business communication textbooks.
Audience Adaptation
One leading idea of "modem" business communication is audience ad-
aptation. Menning connects this principle with the development of applied
psychology at the beginning of the twentieth century ("Principles" 20).
Sherwin Cody strongly advocated audience adaptation in his Success in
Letter Writing, Business and Social (1906; Menning "Principles" 21).
Menning also argues that "in 1916, Hotchkiss and Drew stressed the
necessity of adaptation to the character and language of the reader" (' 'Prin-
ciples" 21) and adaptation "to the mood of the reader" (22). "Every day,"
Menning writes in conclusion, "some successful letter writer confirms and
supplements this basic principle. And remember: It has been tested for over
forty years" (22).
But the idea of audience adaptation had not been extant for only about
forty years when Menning penned his rather naive words in 1960. In fact,
James Willis Westlake suggested adaptation to readers' various moods as
early as 1876 in his How to Write Letters, a long-ignored work that anticipates
many "modern," twentieth-century developments in business communica-
tion.4 (For a more complete treatment, see Hagge, "Spurious. ") Moreover,
the concept of audience adaptation cannot be "modem" because it is one of
the cornerstones of the classical and medieval rhetorical traditions. Ancient
epistolographers certainly advocated audience adaptation. As we have seen,
32 Journal oj Advanced Composition
the De Elocutione recommends that letters should be adapted to their
audiences. Several other authorities agree that' 'letters must be adapted to the
circumstances and mood of their addressees" (Malherbe 16). The intoduc-
tion to the Typoi Epistolikoi argues that although letters "can be composed
from a great number ofspecific types of style," they "take their shape from
among those which always fit the particular circumstance to which they are
addressed" (Malherbe 29).
Cicero and Philostratus also agree that letter-writers should adapt to their
readers (Malherbe 16), while Gregory of Nazianzus goes a step further and
suggests that "the best and most beautiful letter is the one that is persuasive
to the uneducated and educated alike, appearing to the former as written on
the popular level, and to the latter as above that level, a letter which is
furthermore understood at once" (Malherbe 57). The last quotation sounds
a surprisingly "modem" note with its advice on adapting a document to
multiple groups of readers, some of whom have a greater degree of knowledge
than others; for instance, Mathes and Stevenson's Designing Technical
Reports, often cited as a locus classicus for contemporary ideas on audience
adaptation in professional writing, offers similar advice.
Stylistic Norms
Stylistic norms also are similar in the ancient epistolographic and "modem"
business communication traditions. The few writers who have tried to trace
the development of business communication principles agree that the dictum
that business prose should be written in a simple, natural, conversational style
is a "modem," twentieth-century advance over beknighted earlier practices
(for example, see Daniel "Cody" 10; Menning, "Principles" 18; Menning,
"Half Century" 4-5). Pioneering business communication textbook writers
often praised their own work for its tendency to break away from what they
considered the stilted, unnatural, fusty style of nineteenth-century business
writing. Cody, for instance, inveighs against the "peculiar language em-
ployed in business letters only": telegraphic, stereotyped locutions like' 'beg
to advise," "in regard to same," and the like. These give "a stiff, formal,
meaningless cast to a letter, which takes away its winning quality" (26).
Instead, "the style in which a business letter ought to be written is that of a
simple, natural conversation" (27). Likewise, George Burton Hotchkiss,
whose principles of business communication can be traced "from his 1916
book [Business English, Principles and Practice, written with Celia Anne
Drew] down to the latest editions of some of our current popular textbooks"
(Weeks 202), stressed the "modem" notion of conversational tone as
opposed to the supposedly unnatural style of business communications in the
previous century. In his Business English (1911). moreover, Hotchkiss
includes a chapter entitled "Smith Sees the Light," in which the General
Manager of the (fictional) Washington Knitting Works exhorts his letter
writer Smith to abjure the worn-out and hackneyed locutions with which he
Ancient Epistolography 33
is wont to write in favor of "simple, straight-from-the-shoulder language
with no words that might not be used in conversation" (32).
But the claim that early twentieth-century business communication
textbook writers like Hotchkiss invented the concept of simple, natural,
conversational language for practical correspondence is largely, I believe, a
self-promoting myth. S Again, James Willis Westlake anticipated this idea by
at least thirty years in his book on letter-writing (78,83,84). George Douglas
has shown that at least some nineteenth-century business writing was forth-
right, simple, and direct. And again, advocacy of a simple, natural, conver··
sational style antedates what happened in nineteenth-century America by two
millennia. It is another leading precept of ancient letter-writing manuals. For
instance, De Elocutione suggests that letters should be written in the plain
style: "the style oftetter-writing ... requires the simple manner" (section
223; Grube 111). The content of the letter and its style should match: a "letter
should be a brief expression of one's friendly feelings, expressing a simple
topic in simple language" (section 231; Grube 113). Pseudo-Demetrius also
opts for natural syntax-' 'The structure of the letter should be loose " (section
229; Grube 112)-and for natural, perhaps even earthy, diction. He also
warns that letters should not be preachy or "too dignified in language"
(section 228; Grube 112). However, he does caution that letters should not be
overly spontaneous or conversational (sections 226 and 224).
Other ancient epistolographic manuals and rhetorical treatises agree by
and large with this analysis. In passing, Quintilian yokes the genres of
dialogue and letter, which, he says, have a "looser texture" (soluta), whereas
other forms of discourse prefer a style' 'closely welded and woven together"
(vincta atque contexta; 9, 4,19; trans. Butler 517). Seneca makes no bones
about his preference for the conversational style in letters (Ad Lucilium
Epistulae Morales, 75, 1 [Gum mere 137]). Cicero concurs that letters should
be written in everyday speech (Ad Familiares9, 21,1). S1. Gregory advises
letter-writers to "avoid prose-like style so far as possible, and rather incline
towards the conversational [to lalikon]" (Malherbe 57). But as do other
epistolographic authorities, Gregory takes pains to forestall any misunder-
standing of what he means by "conversational," for letters also need to be
charming. So Gregory appears to recommend a middle way between a stark,
simple, Stoic style and that reserved for other, more literary types of discourse
(Malherbe 57). Other theorists also recommend a moderate style (Malherbe
16-17). Thus, the idea that correspondence should be written in a fairly
conversational style is not a principle of communication discovered by
twentieth-century business writing pioneers but a leading precept of the
ancient rhetorical and epistolographic traditions.
The "C's" of Good Writing
Finally, some of the well-known "C's" of "modern" business commu-
nication also may be found as precepts repeated in ancient epistolographic
34 Journal of Advanced Composition
works. Weeks (202) credits George Burton Hotchkiss with first talking about
"five C's" of effective communication in his 1916 textbook, co-authored by
Celia Anne Drew. However, it can easily be shown that the' 'C' s' , (of which,
seven or eight-Conciseness, Clarity, Correctness, Conversational Tone,
Character, Correctness, Completeness, and Coherence-often appear in the
literature) developed rather earlier than that. Hotchkiss mentions most of the
"C's" in his 1911 textbook. Sherwin Cody used many of the ideas later
known as the "C's" as early as 1906, although he did not connect them as
coherently as did Hotchkiss orin vent the alliterating "C' s' , mnemonic. Cody
considered clarity a cardinal virtue for correspondence, recommended con-
ciseness in letters, and emphasized grammatical correctness (23-24 and 29).
Commercial Correspondence and Postal! nformation by Carl Lewis Altmaier
(1904) also contains clear references to some of the "C's." In the third
chapter, "The Composition of a Business Letter," Altmaier lists the "ele-
ments" of that genre as "clearness," "terseness," "coherency," "com-
pleteness," "exactness," "method," and "courtesy" (vii-vii and 44-55).
Weeks mentions Altmaier's book, although he omits its date of publication
and says nothing about its references to the "C's." Boyd, Daniel, and
Menning do not cite it at all. Finally, in How to Write Letters, Westlake lists
three of the "C's": "The chief requisites of a business letter are clearness,
correctness, and conciseness" (108). (For a more complete discussion of the
development of the "C's," see Hagge, "Spurious.")
Ancient epistolography, as we have seen, recognized the concept of
, 'con versational tone" as a desideratum for the writing ofletters in a way that
appears strikingly to resemble the dicta of "modem" business communica-
tion textbooks. The ancient epistolographic manuals also address clarity and
conciseness in terms that sound as if they might have come directly from a
twentieth-century business communication text. Malherbe summarizes what
the epistolographic tradition says about such stylistic stipulations:
Letters must be concise.
Brevity is highly desirable ... but a reaction against overly brief letters can
be detected .... The subject matter should determine length, and clarity, above
all, should not be sacrificed for conciseness.
Letters must be clear in what they say.
Clarity is already a presupposition for other prescriptions in Demetrius (De
Elocutione 226), and is stressed by later theorists .... (16)
Doty agrees that conciseness, clarity, and conversational tone were
leading concepts in the presentation of epistolographic style: "as far as style
is concerned, we can list brevity as the key" (14); "clarity was especially
required"; and" language used in letters was supposed to be modeled on the
everyday speech of educated men, without slipping into vulgarities" (15).
These stylistic norms for ancient epistolographic communication most likely
Ancient Epistolography 35
derive from Aristotle's discussion of style in Rhetoric III. Aristotle's
development there of the concept of the virtues of style provides the basis for
virtually all subsequent treatments in classical rhetoric, although inconsisten-
cies in Aristotle's presentation do occur (Kennedy, Persuasion in Greece
104). Besides, Aristotle's concrete pronouncements on how one achieves a
clear, pure style are not particularly helpful: besides a "subtle" account of
metaphor (Kennedy, Persuasion in Greece 107), Aristotle's advice boils
down to use of the proper nouns and verbs, use of appropriate connectives,
selection of specific rather than general words, avoidance of ambiguities, and
observance of proper gender of nouns and number of verbs. Theophrastus,
whose treatment of style-derived mainly from Aristotle--was highly influ-
ential (Kennedy, Persuasion in Greece 273), lists four cardinal virtues of
sty Ie: purity, clarity, propriety, and ornamentation. These stylistic desiderata
are repeated with few changes in Cicero and Quintilian. Conciseness or
brevity, while part of this scheme (for example, see Cicero,De Oratore 3.49)
generally falls as a subcategory under clarity. The Stoics appear responsible
for adding brevity as another master stylistic category (Kennedy, Persuasion
in Greece 294, 329).
But in the epistolographic tradition, conciseness and clarity often are
linked: obviously, a letter that must convey much content may be fairly
lengthy; otherwise, undue compression of the material will result in unclear-
ness. Julius Victor links the virtues of conciseness and clarity (as well as what
might be called "conversational tone") in his advice on writing "official"
letters:
Characteristic of this type are weighty statements, clarity of diction, and
special effort at terse expression, as well as the rules of oratory, with one
exception, that we prune away some of its great size and let an appropriate
familiar style govern the discourse. (Malherbe 59).
Victor also links brevity and clarity in his account of personal letters.
Other writers appeal to the classical notion of the mean as they link clarity and
conciseness. On this Philostratus and Pseudo-Libanius, author of the Epis-
tolimaioi Charakteres, agree:
Philostratus of Lemonos says it best: ... 48. One should adorn the letter, above
all, with clarity, and with moderate conciseness and with archaism in style
... .49. In any case, one should not destroy clarity with conciseness or chatter
on immoderately while being attentive (to the need for) clarity, but should aim
at moderation by imitating accurate archers. A man who is clever and skilled
at hitting the target does not far overshoot the target and so widely miss what
is at hand .... In the same way, an eloquent man does not chatter on
unbecomingly, nor does he cling to terseness in speech because he is at a loss
(as to how to express himself) to the point that he obscures the clarity of his
letters .... 50. The length of the letter must be determined by its subject matter ,
36 Journal 0/ Advanced Composition
and in no way should fulness of treatment be regarded as a fault. It is, indeed,
occasionally necessary 10 draw out certain letters as need demands.
(Malherbe 69)
St Gregory makes the same point using almost exactly the same imagery
(Epistulae 51, 1-2; Malherbe 57).
Clearly, ancient epistolography was, for all intents and purposes, of one
mind. Its extremely uniform precepts were known as commonplaces to most
literate writers, even though they may not have had formal training in letter-
writing. Thus, Pliny can advise, "be brief and employ simple vocabulary in
a direct style" (L. 7.9.8.; Stowers 35). To anyone who has taught a business
communication course, these commonplaces in the ancient epistolographic
manuals should seem extremely familiar. It would appear to be a fair
statement, then, to say that those who claim that business communication
instruction rests on "modern" principles first developed at the beginning of
the twentieth century are either disingenuous or deluded. Many principles of
business communication are no more than rhetorical commonplaces passed
on almost unthinkingly from the author of one letter-writing manual-whether
ancient or modern-to another. Nor are these principles "scientific," as
Wilkinson, Wilkinson, and Vik and others have claimed; these principles
have not been validated by use because their employment has always been
taken/or granted. Thus, the evidence I have presented suggesting a number
of parallels between allegedly "modern" business communication prin-
ciples and the epistolary desiderata espoused in several ancient letter-writing
manuals gives additional force to the claim that many fundamental principles
of business communication rest on "folk wisdom based on tradition and blind
faith" (Moran and Moran 313, 315).
Generic Typologies
In addition, there are other ways in which' 'modern" business communi-
cation resembles the ancient epistolographic tradition. Both, for example,
developed elaborate generic typologies under which all the various kinds of
letters are supposed to fall. A glance at any contemporary business commu-
nication textbook will show that this is so. Chapter by chapter, these
textbooks proceed. dividing their material into categories that have been
repeated through the generations back to around 1915. Letters of inquiry,
claims. adjustments, credit collections. applications-the list remains uni-
form from one textbook to the next. One would expect the ancients, who often
display a well-known predilection for categorization, to have used a similar
scheme. And indeed they did. Julius Victor, as we have seen, distinguishes
between official and personal letters (litterae negotiales et /amiliares), and
Cicero uses at least two classificatory methods. The first scheme divides
letters into public and private (Pro Fiacco 37; Malherbe 15). Anotherdivides
letters into those that relate factual information and those that convey the
Ancient Epistolography 37
mood of the writer; the latter category divides again into the genus familiare
et iocosum and the genus severum et grave (Malherbe 15).
But two other works put these simple typologies to shame. The Epistolary
Types of Pseudo-Demetrius puts letters into twenty-one stylistic categories:
"friendly, commendatory, blaming, reproachful, consoling, censorious,
admonishing, threatening, vituperative, praising, advisory, supplicatory,
inquiring, responding, allegorical, accounting, accusing, apologetic, con-
gratulatory, ironic, thankful" (Malherbe 29). Although these letter-types do
not correspond in a one-to-one fashion with' 'modem" classificatory schemes,
some obvious parallels exist. More important, in both the ancient and modem
schemes, the dominant means of classification appears to be the aim of the
writer to accomplish some sort of rhetorico-pragmatic goal-not some
equally plausible organizing principle like structure. That is, both letters in
both the ancient and "modem" systems are categorized by speech-act type:
to inquire, to condole, to congratulate, to complain, and so on. Pseudo-
Libanius also uses such a classificatory scheme in his Epistolary Styles, in
which letters fall into an overwhelming forty-one types (Malherbe 63). Such
classificatory schemes may strike modem readers as silly and jejune. Yet a
moment's reflection should establish that "modem" business communica-
tion textbooks do exactly the same thing.
Academic Status
Likewise, both ancientepistolography and "modem" business commu-
nication have struggled to gain acceptance into the educational establishment
of their respective eras. For example, I have demonstrated elsewhere how
twentieth-century business communication instructors from 1936 to the
present have indicated time and time again that they consider their discipline
a "step-child" or "orphan," to be shunted from one department to another
in the university community ("Orphaned Discipline"). Two national reports
on education have been highly critical of business comm unication instruction
(Johnson and Hartley, Gordon and Howell), much to the distress of members
of the field. Even relatively recently, academics in the field of business
communication have felt the need to write articles such as "Explaining
Business Communication Courses to English Departments" (David) and
"Making Business Communication Courses Academically Respectable"
(Locker). Another article by David published as recently as 1982 demon-
strates that business communication is almost alone among university fields
of study in not having one uniform departmental home: over half the business
courses in her survey were placed in a business department, less than one-fifth
in an English department, and the rest distributed among departments of
business education, vocational and career development, office administra-
tion, and secretarial science (' 'Report' '). Perhaps most telling of all: a 1983
opinion piece by Daniel argues that business communication professors
should be content with their "secondary" status in the academic world, give
38 Journal of Advanced Composition
up any pretensions towards developing a true research-oriented discipline,
and get back to teaching students how to write effective business communi-
cations (' 'Remembering' ').
Ancient epistolography also seems to have been a field without a
permanent home in the educational system of the day, and perhaps more
important, a field little respected by cultivated, literate persons. Malherbe
reports that it is "clear that letter writing was of interest to rhetoricians, but
it appears only gradually to have attached itself to their rhetorical systems"
(7). Stowers is even more blunt:
Letter writing remained only on the fringes of formal rhetorical education
throughout antiquity. It was never integrated into the rhetorical systems and
thus does not appear in the standard handbooks. This means that there were
never any detailed systematic rules for letters, as there were for standard
rhetorical forms. (34)
When letter-writing was included in the rhetorical curriculum, it enjoyed
a secondary status at best. Those who gave epistolary instruction were
business-school teachers who trained people in such things as stenography
and letter writing as preparation especially for the civil service (Stowers 33).
The two handbooks that contain elaborate classification typologies, Typoi
Epistolikoi and the Epistolimaioi Charakteres, "were designed for the less
educated in learning how to write letters" (Malherbe 11). This we know just
because these handbooks do stress classificatory schemes and present model
letters to illustrate each scheme. As Stowers notes, "Like most other
instruction in antiquity, letter writing was taught by the imitation of models
rather than through theory and comprehensive rules" (33). Since they
stressed the imitation of models rather than elaborating a more theoretical
approach to their subject, these handbooks appear to Doty as "particularly
'vulgar' and intended for quick reference" (11). The form of most of the
papyrus letters indicates that they "mostly originated in and reflect the
concerns of the lower societal strata, rather than upper class society as
reflected in the literary letters" (Doty 3); these persons from the lower and
middle classes, then, were those to whom the epistolographic manuals were
directed. Malherbe also points out that the bilingual Bologna Papyrus (third
or fourth century A.D.), apparently a set of exercises composed by a student
following an epistolographic handbook, "witnesses to the modest level of
literary culture of users of some of the handbooks" (10). In short, "most of
these letters are written in the kind of school language used by persons of
average, superficial education, who painfully attempt to write in an educated
manner" (Malherbe 13).
Ancient Epistolography 39
Conclusion
To summarize, ancient instruction in letter-writing appears to resemble
that promulgated by the field of "modem" business communication in a
number of ways. In both cases, such instruction is accorded only a secondary
status in the curriculum. Both kinds of instruction are highly vocationalized;
both attract students who learn by working with model letters that are
laboriously categorized by type, not by assimilating much theoretical know l-
edge. Even the most' 'modem" textbooks contain many models that students
are encouraged to discuss and emulate; checklists rigidly outlining the
features of each letter type complete the educational method-training which
when juxtaposed to ancient rhetorical training appears not quite as "modem"
as apologists for business communication would lead one to believe. And as
I have showed at length. many of the leading stylistic principles of the ancient
epistolographic tradition are claimed as fundamental maxims for the field of
business communication.
Finally, just as many business communicators today write without the
"benefit" of having a course in business communication, it appears that to a
great degree ancient epistolographic teaching was largely ignored by most
writers, as Welles flatly states in writing about the composition of the official
letter (xlii). Doty agrees that the influence of the epistolographic handbooks
was weak at best: "On the basis of the few pure examples of the handbook
types found in the papyri, it seems that the guides were not very influential"
(10). Only what the handbooks classified as the letter of introduction is
represented to any great extent in the papyrus letter-collections; "other types
are sparsely represented, but all in all the guidebooks do not seem to have had
much direct influence" (Doty 11).
In a subsequent article, I hope to analyze some of these papyrus letters in
light of the findings of contemporary linguistic pragmatics and discourse
analysis. I will argue that ancient writers of papyrus letters. more than likely
with little if any formal training in "composition," produced understandable,
useable prose on the basis of their discourse competence. If this is so, the
implications for contemporary business communication appear clear: in-
struction in the field should concentrate on how to help students make the
competence with language they already possess apply explicitly to business
communications instead of recapitulating a 2000-year-old rhetorical tradi-
tion that is as little respected now as it was in the ancient world.
6
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa
40 Journal of Advanced Composition
Notes
1 Hildebrandt (' 'Precursor") does discuss the rhetoric of Angell Day in the
recent Studies in the History of Business Writing (Douglas and Hildebrandt),
and Dickson writes on Erasmus, Vives, Macopedius, Hegendorff, and other
Renaissance rhetoricians in the same anthology. More recently, Hildebrandt
has traced the influence of Greek and Roman oral rhetorical treatises on
medieval and Renaissance letter-writing manuals ("Influences").
2See Deissmannpassim,Doty 5 ff., Stowers 31, White "Body" 10, White
"Official Petition" passim. The Oxyrhynchus papyri and other finds are
important not only for their treasure-trove of letters. Classical and Biblical
studies have been immeasurably enriched by the discovery under the Egyp-
tian sands of important literary finds like lost portions of Pindar, Menander,
and Callimachus and of religious texts like early copies of parts of the New
Testament and the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas.
3Grube, whose translation of De Elocutione is considered authoritative,
puts the date at "not much later the 270 B.C." (56). Kennedy also prefers an
earlier date, of c. 350-280 B.C. (Persuasion in Greece 284). For a recent
discussion of Demetrius and the plain style in business communication, see
Mendelson.
4" Adaptation.-The style of a letter should be adapted to the person and
the subject. To superiors it should be respectful and deferential; to inferiors,
courteous; to friends, familiar; to relations, affectionate; to children, simple
and playful; on important subjects it should be forcible and impressive; on
lighter subjects, easy and sprightly; in condolence, tender and sympathetic;
in congratulations, lively and joyous" (Westlake 83).
5George Douglas appears to agree with that characterization: "It is one of
the popular myths of present teachers of business writing that the business-
man of a hundred years ago was a terrible writer, that he filled his letters and
reports with fustian, cast-iron locutions, and rodomontade" (125).
6Preparation of the article was aided by a continuing Research Assign-
ment, Iowa State University; it was completed during the 1988 Faculty
Improvement Leave. Thanks to my research assistant Alane Fitzgerald and
to the Interlibrary Loan staff at the Parks Library for help in locating and
procuring editions of early business communication textbooks.
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Hagge. John. "Business Communication, the Orphaned Discipline: A Historical
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Moran, Mary Hurley and Michael G. Moran. "Business Letters, Memoranda, and
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Selzer, Jack. "Emphasizing Rhetorical Principles in Business Writing." Teaching
Business Writing: Approaches. Plans. Pedagogy. Research. Ed. Jeanne W.
Halpern. Urbana, IL: American Business Communication Association, 1983. 3-
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-. "Readability is a Four-Letter Word. " Journal of Business Communication 18.4
(1981): 23-34,_
Stowers, Stanley K. Letter-Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity. Philadelphia:
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Suchan, James. "Four Major Business Communication Texts: How Well Do They
TeachReadability?" Teaching English in the Two-Year College 10(1983): 161-
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Weeks, Francis W. "The Teaching of Business Writing at the Collegiate Level, 1900-
1920." Douglas and Hildebrandt. 201-215.
Welles, Charles Bradford. Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period. New
Haven: Yale UP, 1934.
Westlake, James Willis. How to Write Letters: A Manual of Correspondence.
Showing the Correct Structure. Punctuation. Formalities. and Uses of the
Various Kinds of Letters. Notes. and Cards. Philadelphia: Sower, 1876.
Weichert, Valentin. Demetrii et Libanii quiferunt ' 7ypoi Epistolikoi" et "Epistoli-
44 Journal of Advanced Composition
maioi Charakleres". Leipzig: Teubner, 1910.
White, Jolm Lee. The Form and Function of the Body of the Greek Letter: A Study
of the Letter-Body in the Non-Literary Papyri and in Paul the Apostle. 2nd ed.,
corrected. Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series, 2. Missoula, MT:
Scholars P, 1972.
-. The FormandFunction of the OfficialPetition:AStudy in GreekEpistolograph y.
Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series, 5. Missoula, MT: Scholars P,
1978.
-. "The New Testament Epistolary Literature in the Framework of Ancient Epis-
tolography.' , Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt: Geschichte und
Kultur Rom im Spiegel der neueren F orschung. Teil2, Band 25. Berlin and New
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Wilkinson, Clark W., Dorothy C. Wilkinson, and Gretchen N. Vik. Communicating
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A Conference: Writing Histories of Rhetoric
The Center for Rhetorical and Critical Theory will host a conference,
"Writing Histories of Rhetoric," in Arlington, Texas, from Oct. 12 to IS,
1989. The conference will explore how histories ofrhetoric have been and
might be written from a variety of critical-historiographical (or 'rhetorical')
perspectives. The conference fonnat consists of small groups and infonnal
exchanges. No papers will be read; only brief position statements will be
made by the panelists.
Panelists will include James Berlin, Robert Connors, William Covino,
Sharon Crowley, Richard Leo Enos, S. Michael Halloran, James Murphy,
Stephen M. North, John Schilb, Kathleen Welch, and others.
Formore information, write: Victor J. Vitanza, Director; Center for Rhetori-
cal and Critical Theory; English Department, Box 19035; University of
Texas; Arlington, TX 76019.
doc_169845354.pdf
Ancient Epistolography and
Modern Business Communication
JOHN HAGGE
Recently, critics of business communication have claimed that many
principles of the field repeat themselves from one generation to the next (for
example, see Pauly, Moran and Moran, and Selzer). I will argue that these
critics are right: not only have the leading principles of the field been
transmitted through generations of textbooks beginning around 1910, but
several striking parallels between the 2000-year-old Greek and Roman
epistolographic, or letter-writing, tradition and modem business communica-
tion exist. Just as business communication textbooks do today, ancient
epistolographic manuals recommended adaptation to the letter-writer's audi-
ence, natural, everyday speech, and at least three of the so-called "C' s" of
effective communication: conversational tone, clarity, and conciseness. Just
as textbooks do today, these letter-writing manuals took pains to develop
elaborate typologies to classify letters. And just as today business communi-
cation stands at the fringes of the educational establishment, so in the ancient
world epistolography never was fully integrated into the system of classical
education; indeed, much of the ancient world considered epistolographic
instruction vulgar, suited only for the superficially educated.
The Tenets of Business Communication: Modern or Ancient?
The field's tendency toward the repetition of platitudes is not condemned
by those who pioneered the modem teaching of university-level business
communication courses during the first quarter of the twentieth century. In
fact, while trying to legitimize their discipline, they argued exactly the
opposite: that business communication rests on principles hallowed by time
and sanctioned by having been passed along through the generations. A few
of these pioneering business communication teachers tried to trace the rhe-
torical roots of the field back at least to the Renaissance. For instance, in a
1938 article Hugh Sargent argues that" most of the principles we teach in our
modem handbooks of letter writing are 'time-tested'" and traces these
principles, albeit in cursory fashion, to the Renaissance rhetorics of William
Fulwood, Angell Day, Gregorius Macropedius, Christopher Hegendorff,
Vives, and Erasmus (5-6). In his 1940 presidential address to the second
Ancient Epistolography 27
annual convention of the American Business Writing Association (a precur-
sor of ABC), Robert Aurner, who wrote one of the first textbooks in the field,
sounds a similar strain by noting that "business writing is rooted in an
ancestry centuries in length and is founded upon a tradition interesting to
observe"(7). He too refers in passing to Fulwood and Day. And in a classic
defense of the field, William P. Boyd claims that if his were a "500-page
research paper," he would "pause for a look at early Greek letters":
A doctoral dissertation on The Form of the Ancient Greek Letter by a
Norbertine brother in the National Catholic University in the late 1930's
docwnents the pre-Christian letter writer, seated with stylus in hand, as falling
into a fixed pattern of salutation and closing, and also using standard letter-
writing jargon, to convey his message. In the early Christian literature, the
Epistles in the New Testament attest to similar persistent letter forms. Indeed
it was the church' s role as the preserver oflearning that established the modem
five-part letter form. ("Heritage" 7)
Boyd, who never mentions the "Norbertine brother" by name and who
appears to get the work's publication date wrong, must be referring to Francis
X. J. Exler's The Form of the Ancient Greek Letter (Dissertation, Catholic
U ni versity of America, 1923; see Doty 5, n. 3). But although some pioneering
business writing authorities did take a brief glance at the rhetorical roots of
their field, to the best of my knowledge (based on a comprehensive literature
review of the Bulletin and Journal of the Association for Business Commu-
nication since they began publication), little serious scholarship linking the
classical, medieval, or Renaissance rhetorical traditions to principles of
business communication taught today exists. Boyd's cryptic paragraph may
be the only reference to an ancient epistolographic manual in the business
communication literature.
1
Rather than pay lip-service to the rhetorical tradition, pioneering college
business communication instructors like Aumer and Boyd were much more
likely to assert the essential modernity ofthe field's principles when attempt-
ing to defend theirfield (Hagge, "Orphaned Discipline"). Those principles
were legitimate-so the argument went-just because they had been devel-
oped around the tum of the century and had stood the test of time since then.
The work of Jack Menning typifies this tactic. Menning traces the develop-
ment of such chestnuts as conversational tone, you-viewpoint, adaptation,
concrete diction and positive emphasis in two similar articles ("Principles"
and "Half Century"), taking pains to show that "modem" business commu-
nication practice, which incorporates the principles he is investigating, is far
superior to earlier, especially nineteenth-century, methods, and giving 1900
as the beginning of a new kind of business writing:
If you look back over the business-Ietterliterature of 1900-1910, you will see
that the professional letter writers of the day build up a set of principles that
28 Journal of Advanced Composition
are merely made more concrete and specific in later application. What today' s
writers do is retest and confmn what earlier prominent men agreed were the
desirable fundamentals of letter writing. With each test by use and with each
restatement, there is some improvement, some refinement of a principle worth
our attention. ("Principles" 17; see also "Half Century" 4)
It is clear from the conclusion of his article that Menning justifies the
principles he discusses just because they have stood the test of time. Over and
over again in his summary, he points out that the principles of business
communication he considers important date from around 1906 to 1911.
Menning summarizes his position by appealing to a criterion of use:
These principles are not merely the product of thoughtful analysis; they are the
result of a half a century of test-by-use. True, many of them have not been
supported by carefully controlled, formalized research studies. Indeed, much
research needs to be done. But until it is, the correspondent who does not take
advantage of these suggestions is closing his eyes to what experience has
shown, over and over again, is the more desirable procedure.
("Principles" 31)
That such an attitude still lives after nearly thirty years is demonstrated by a
quotation from the 1986 edition of one of the best-selling (Suchan 162)
business communication textbooks on the market today. The sentiments,
even the phraseology, markedly resemble Menning's:
Successful business communication is also the result of a conscious use of
principles that have evolved since the turn of the century. No one would claim
that business communication is an exact and thoroughly developed science,
butprominentbusinesswriters who have experimentedwith letters and memos
for over 80 years have given us a near-scientific framework of empirical
principles as a starting point. (Wilkinson, Wilkinson, and Vik 7; emphasis
added)
In similar attempts to gain credibility for' 'modem" business communi-
cation, other investigators have tried to trace its beginnings to some well-
known early figure in the field. Weeks argues that it was George Burton
Hotchkiss in 1916 "who first emphasized the principle of the 'you' attitude
and talked about the 'five C's' of business writing" (202). Boyd auempts to
show that such often-cited principles as "you-attitude" and the AIDA
scheme for organizing sales letters stem from the work of advertising
psychologist Walter Dill Scott, who published his influential The Theory of
Advertising in 1903 ("Psychological Aspects"). Scott's ideas were quickly
incorporated into the first generation of business communication textbooks
(Boyd, "Psychological Aspects" 8-9). Boyd, like Aurner an ABW A presi-
dent, reworks much of this material again as he searches for antecedents of the
Ancient Epistolography 29
notions of "you-attitude," conversational tone, conciseness, and positive
suggestion in an address given to celebrate the twenty-fIrst aniversary of
ABWA ("Heritage"). Likewise, Daniel attempts to show how "modern"
were the letter-writing principles of direct-mail proponent and advertising
genius Sherwin Cody.
The Ancient Epistolographic Tradition
However, such efforts to legitimize the field are naive, since as I shall
demonstrate, many commonplaces of business communication are not par-
ticularly "modem" but ultimately derive from classicalrhetoric, and specifI-
cally from the ancient epistolographic tradition. That almost all modem
business communication scholarship makes no mention of this tradition,
especially Greek and Roman letter-writing theory, is not surprising. Classi-
cists themselves have tended to concentrate on only part of this tradition:
"literary" letters, many of which were composed by writers considered
interesting for other reasons. Among the most important of these are Plato,
Demosthenes, and Isocrates (whose corpora ofletters some scholars consider
wholly or partially spurious; see Hackforth and Rees). Also important are
Seneca, the younger Pliny, and of course Cicero. And there are Ovid, whose
Heroides are dramatic monologues in letter-form from legendary women like
Medea to absent lovers, and Horace, whose Epistula ad Pisones students of
literary criticism know by another name, the "Art of Poetry. " Finally, there
are Christian epistolographers such as St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, and St.
Gregory Nazianzus, and on the Latin side Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine.
Obviously, philologists also have studied the epistles that make up the bulk
of the New Testament.
Such was the state of epistolographic scholarship until 1897. Then, elec-
trifIed by an astonishing discovery in an obscure Egyptian town, the world of
epistolography changed markedly. The town was Oxyrhynchus. The
discovery: thousands of papyrus fragments, most dating from Hellenistic or
Roman times, preserved since then by desert sands. Among these were
hundreds ofletters written for quotidian, not literary, reasons, many of which
fell under the rubric of "business communications.' '2 The Biblical scholar
Adolf Deissmann immediately realized the importance of these letters for
better understanding the form and structure of the New Testament epistles,
especially those in the theologically important Pauline corpus.
Although his claim that the papyrus letters found in Oxyrhynchus and
elsewhere constitute the "liveliest instantaneous photographs of ancient
life" (228) has been challenged, Deissmann still remains the father of modem
epistolographic studies. In New Testament research, these loom rather large;
for some time, scholars have been interested not only in the papyrus letters
themselves, but in trying to determine to what extent the classical rhetorical
tradition, and especially the few extant ancient letter-writing manuals,
influenced the composition of these letters. Unfortunately, since they also
30 Journal of Advanced Composition
may appear forbiddingly esoteric-often assuming that readers are familiar
with koine Greek, Latin, perhaps Aramaic and Syriac, and several modem
langl;lages-epistolographic studies have remained mostly inaccessible to
scholars researching the history of rhetoric or of business communication.
In addition, epistolography, as a latecomer to scholarship, still suffers the
woes of all new disciplines. Doty points out that "up to the present time
epistolary research has remained scattered and fragmentary. There are few
if any comprehensive treatments of epistle in English ... " (ix; also see
Malherbe 3). The work of Doty and Malherbe themselves, as well as that of
others such as Kim, Stowers, and White, go far in rectifying this lack. Yet the
enterprising researcher in the history of rhetoric or business communication
will find the area of ancient epistolography still quite uncharted, and thus an
immensely fruitful territory.
The great Greek and Roman rhetoricians refer to letter-writing techniques
only tangentially, perhaps because epistolographic instruction was consid-
ered rather vulgar, a point to which I will return later. Aristotle does not
mention Jetter-writing per se. Cicero shows "many points of contact with
Greek letter theory, but his comments on the types of letters are not the basis
for an epistolographic system, nor are they part of such a system" (Malherbe
6). Seneca, too, knows the traditional typological descriptions of letters but
like Cicero displays little systematic epistolographic knowledge; and Quin-
tilian refers only causally to letter-writing systems (Malherbe 6-7; Kennedy,
Roman World 487-514 and 615-616). Thus, we need to tum to the lesser-
known rhetorical theorists for accounts of ancient letter-writing technique.
The treatise De Elocutione, once thought to be the work of Demetrius of
Phalerum, contains the first fully formulated account. This treatise, most
famous for its discussion of the four rhetorical styles-plain, grand, elegant,
and forceful-was written in Greek, perhaps in the first century A.D.
(Malherbe 4; Schenkeveld 135-48), although scholars dispute the date.
3
Pseudo-Demetrius's views on letter-writing occur as a short excursus (sec-
tions 223-35) at the end of his discussion of the plain style, the highlights of
which follow:
• The letter resembles one side of a dialogue, but should be written more
carefully, since dialogue imitates impromptu conversation but a letter is a
piece of writing sent to someone as a gift, so disjointed clauses and
sentences are out of place in it.
• The letter should be written in propria persona; a writer's character shines
forth nowhere more than in a letter.
• Letters should not be too long nor too dignified in style. Letters are not
treatises but expressions of one's friendly feelings, one's "affection and
courtesy."
• Thus, a letter should be written "in simple language," in a mixture of the
elegant and the plain styles, although writers of letters' 'must adjust them
to the personage to whom they are addressed." (Grube 111-13)
Ancient Epistolography 31
Later authorities on letter-writing embellish and emend Demetrius's
advice. Two important epistolographic handbooks are anonymous. The first,
Typoi Epistolikoi (Epistolary Types), is said-most likely without good
cause-to have been written by Demetrius of Phalerum, also the supposed
author of De Elocutione. The second, Epistolimaioi Charakteres (Epistolary
Styles), has been attributed either to Libanius or to Proclus the Neoplatonist,
again most likely without foundation. Dates for the former work range from
200 B.C. to A.D. 300 and for the latter from between the fourth and sixth
centuries A.D. (texts in Foerster, Weichert; texts and translations in Malherbe).
Julius Victor was a Latin rhetorician of the fourth century A.D. whose Ars
Rhetorica included a section, de epistolis, concerning the proper style of
letters (text in Balm; partial text and translations in Malherbe). Flavius
Philostratus (third century A.D.), better known for his account of the Second
Sophistic,Lives of the Sophists, and the author of a collection of homoerotic
letters (Bowersock), also composed a short letter-writing manual in Greek:
De Epistulis (texts in Kayser, Malherbe). Finally, St. Gregory Nazianzus, one
of the Four Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church, left letters noted for their
graceful, witty style; one covers letter-writing techniques (texts in Gallay,
Malherbe). Although these authors make up a rather heterogeneous collec-
tion, most of them agree quite uniformly that letters should be composed in
certain ways, ways that jibe remarkably well with the precepts of "modem"
business communication textbooks.
Audience Adaptation
One leading idea of "modem" business communication is audience ad-
aptation. Menning connects this principle with the development of applied
psychology at the beginning of the twentieth century ("Principles" 20).
Sherwin Cody strongly advocated audience adaptation in his Success in
Letter Writing, Business and Social (1906; Menning "Principles" 21).
Menning also argues that "in 1916, Hotchkiss and Drew stressed the
necessity of adaptation to the character and language of the reader" (' 'Prin-
ciples" 21) and adaptation "to the mood of the reader" (22). "Every day,"
Menning writes in conclusion, "some successful letter writer confirms and
supplements this basic principle. And remember: It has been tested for over
forty years" (22).
But the idea of audience adaptation had not been extant for only about
forty years when Menning penned his rather naive words in 1960. In fact,
James Willis Westlake suggested adaptation to readers' various moods as
early as 1876 in his How to Write Letters, a long-ignored work that anticipates
many "modern," twentieth-century developments in business communica-
tion.4 (For a more complete treatment, see Hagge, "Spurious. ") Moreover,
the concept of audience adaptation cannot be "modem" because it is one of
the cornerstones of the classical and medieval rhetorical traditions. Ancient
epistolographers certainly advocated audience adaptation. As we have seen,
32 Journal oj Advanced Composition
the De Elocutione recommends that letters should be adapted to their
audiences. Several other authorities agree that' 'letters must be adapted to the
circumstances and mood of their addressees" (Malherbe 16). The intoduc-
tion to the Typoi Epistolikoi argues that although letters "can be composed
from a great number ofspecific types of style," they "take their shape from
among those which always fit the particular circumstance to which they are
addressed" (Malherbe 29).
Cicero and Philostratus also agree that letter-writers should adapt to their
readers (Malherbe 16), while Gregory of Nazianzus goes a step further and
suggests that "the best and most beautiful letter is the one that is persuasive
to the uneducated and educated alike, appearing to the former as written on
the popular level, and to the latter as above that level, a letter which is
furthermore understood at once" (Malherbe 57). The last quotation sounds
a surprisingly "modem" note with its advice on adapting a document to
multiple groups of readers, some of whom have a greater degree of knowledge
than others; for instance, Mathes and Stevenson's Designing Technical
Reports, often cited as a locus classicus for contemporary ideas on audience
adaptation in professional writing, offers similar advice.
Stylistic Norms
Stylistic norms also are similar in the ancient epistolographic and "modem"
business communication traditions. The few writers who have tried to trace
the development of business communication principles agree that the dictum
that business prose should be written in a simple, natural, conversational style
is a "modem," twentieth-century advance over beknighted earlier practices
(for example, see Daniel "Cody" 10; Menning, "Principles" 18; Menning,
"Half Century" 4-5). Pioneering business communication textbook writers
often praised their own work for its tendency to break away from what they
considered the stilted, unnatural, fusty style of nineteenth-century business
writing. Cody, for instance, inveighs against the "peculiar language em-
ployed in business letters only": telegraphic, stereotyped locutions like' 'beg
to advise," "in regard to same," and the like. These give "a stiff, formal,
meaningless cast to a letter, which takes away its winning quality" (26).
Instead, "the style in which a business letter ought to be written is that of a
simple, natural conversation" (27). Likewise, George Burton Hotchkiss,
whose principles of business communication can be traced "from his 1916
book [Business English, Principles and Practice, written with Celia Anne
Drew] down to the latest editions of some of our current popular textbooks"
(Weeks 202), stressed the "modem" notion of conversational tone as
opposed to the supposedly unnatural style of business communications in the
previous century. In his Business English (1911). moreover, Hotchkiss
includes a chapter entitled "Smith Sees the Light," in which the General
Manager of the (fictional) Washington Knitting Works exhorts his letter
writer Smith to abjure the worn-out and hackneyed locutions with which he
Ancient Epistolography 33
is wont to write in favor of "simple, straight-from-the-shoulder language
with no words that might not be used in conversation" (32).
But the claim that early twentieth-century business communication
textbook writers like Hotchkiss invented the concept of simple, natural,
conversational language for practical correspondence is largely, I believe, a
self-promoting myth. S Again, James Willis Westlake anticipated this idea by
at least thirty years in his book on letter-writing (78,83,84). George Douglas
has shown that at least some nineteenth-century business writing was forth-
right, simple, and direct. And again, advocacy of a simple, natural, conver··
sational style antedates what happened in nineteenth-century America by two
millennia. It is another leading precept of ancient letter-writing manuals. For
instance, De Elocutione suggests that letters should be written in the plain
style: "the style oftetter-writing ... requires the simple manner" (section
223; Grube 111). The content of the letter and its style should match: a "letter
should be a brief expression of one's friendly feelings, expressing a simple
topic in simple language" (section 231; Grube 113). Pseudo-Demetrius also
opts for natural syntax-' 'The structure of the letter should be loose " (section
229; Grube 112)-and for natural, perhaps even earthy, diction. He also
warns that letters should not be preachy or "too dignified in language"
(section 228; Grube 112). However, he does caution that letters should not be
overly spontaneous or conversational (sections 226 and 224).
Other ancient epistolographic manuals and rhetorical treatises agree by
and large with this analysis. In passing, Quintilian yokes the genres of
dialogue and letter, which, he says, have a "looser texture" (soluta), whereas
other forms of discourse prefer a style' 'closely welded and woven together"
(vincta atque contexta; 9, 4,19; trans. Butler 517). Seneca makes no bones
about his preference for the conversational style in letters (Ad Lucilium
Epistulae Morales, 75, 1 [Gum mere 137]). Cicero concurs that letters should
be written in everyday speech (Ad Familiares9, 21,1). S1. Gregory advises
letter-writers to "avoid prose-like style so far as possible, and rather incline
towards the conversational [to lalikon]" (Malherbe 57). But as do other
epistolographic authorities, Gregory takes pains to forestall any misunder-
standing of what he means by "conversational," for letters also need to be
charming. So Gregory appears to recommend a middle way between a stark,
simple, Stoic style and that reserved for other, more literary types of discourse
(Malherbe 57). Other theorists also recommend a moderate style (Malherbe
16-17). Thus, the idea that correspondence should be written in a fairly
conversational style is not a principle of communication discovered by
twentieth-century business writing pioneers but a leading precept of the
ancient rhetorical and epistolographic traditions.
The "C's" of Good Writing
Finally, some of the well-known "C's" of "modern" business commu-
nication also may be found as precepts repeated in ancient epistolographic
34 Journal of Advanced Composition
works. Weeks (202) credits George Burton Hotchkiss with first talking about
"five C's" of effective communication in his 1916 textbook, co-authored by
Celia Anne Drew. However, it can easily be shown that the' 'C' s' , (of which,
seven or eight-Conciseness, Clarity, Correctness, Conversational Tone,
Character, Correctness, Completeness, and Coherence-often appear in the
literature) developed rather earlier than that. Hotchkiss mentions most of the
"C's" in his 1911 textbook. Sherwin Cody used many of the ideas later
known as the "C's" as early as 1906, although he did not connect them as
coherently as did Hotchkiss orin vent the alliterating "C' s' , mnemonic. Cody
considered clarity a cardinal virtue for correspondence, recommended con-
ciseness in letters, and emphasized grammatical correctness (23-24 and 29).
Commercial Correspondence and Postal! nformation by Carl Lewis Altmaier
(1904) also contains clear references to some of the "C's." In the third
chapter, "The Composition of a Business Letter," Altmaier lists the "ele-
ments" of that genre as "clearness," "terseness," "coherency," "com-
pleteness," "exactness," "method," and "courtesy" (vii-vii and 44-55).
Weeks mentions Altmaier's book, although he omits its date of publication
and says nothing about its references to the "C's." Boyd, Daniel, and
Menning do not cite it at all. Finally, in How to Write Letters, Westlake lists
three of the "C's": "The chief requisites of a business letter are clearness,
correctness, and conciseness" (108). (For a more complete discussion of the
development of the "C's," see Hagge, "Spurious.")
Ancient epistolography, as we have seen, recognized the concept of
, 'con versational tone" as a desideratum for the writing ofletters in a way that
appears strikingly to resemble the dicta of "modem" business communica-
tion textbooks. The ancient epistolographic manuals also address clarity and
conciseness in terms that sound as if they might have come directly from a
twentieth-century business communication text. Malherbe summarizes what
the epistolographic tradition says about such stylistic stipulations:
Letters must be concise.
Brevity is highly desirable ... but a reaction against overly brief letters can
be detected .... The subject matter should determine length, and clarity, above
all, should not be sacrificed for conciseness.
Letters must be clear in what they say.
Clarity is already a presupposition for other prescriptions in Demetrius (De
Elocutione 226), and is stressed by later theorists .... (16)
Doty agrees that conciseness, clarity, and conversational tone were
leading concepts in the presentation of epistolographic style: "as far as style
is concerned, we can list brevity as the key" (14); "clarity was especially
required"; and" language used in letters was supposed to be modeled on the
everyday speech of educated men, without slipping into vulgarities" (15).
These stylistic norms for ancient epistolographic communication most likely
Ancient Epistolography 35
derive from Aristotle's discussion of style in Rhetoric III. Aristotle's
development there of the concept of the virtues of style provides the basis for
virtually all subsequent treatments in classical rhetoric, although inconsisten-
cies in Aristotle's presentation do occur (Kennedy, Persuasion in Greece
104). Besides, Aristotle's concrete pronouncements on how one achieves a
clear, pure style are not particularly helpful: besides a "subtle" account of
metaphor (Kennedy, Persuasion in Greece 107), Aristotle's advice boils
down to use of the proper nouns and verbs, use of appropriate connectives,
selection of specific rather than general words, avoidance of ambiguities, and
observance of proper gender of nouns and number of verbs. Theophrastus,
whose treatment of style-derived mainly from Aristotle--was highly influ-
ential (Kennedy, Persuasion in Greece 273), lists four cardinal virtues of
sty Ie: purity, clarity, propriety, and ornamentation. These stylistic desiderata
are repeated with few changes in Cicero and Quintilian. Conciseness or
brevity, while part of this scheme (for example, see Cicero,De Oratore 3.49)
generally falls as a subcategory under clarity. The Stoics appear responsible
for adding brevity as another master stylistic category (Kennedy, Persuasion
in Greece 294, 329).
But in the epistolographic tradition, conciseness and clarity often are
linked: obviously, a letter that must convey much content may be fairly
lengthy; otherwise, undue compression of the material will result in unclear-
ness. Julius Victor links the virtues of conciseness and clarity (as well as what
might be called "conversational tone") in his advice on writing "official"
letters:
Characteristic of this type are weighty statements, clarity of diction, and
special effort at terse expression, as well as the rules of oratory, with one
exception, that we prune away some of its great size and let an appropriate
familiar style govern the discourse. (Malherbe 59).
Victor also links brevity and clarity in his account of personal letters.
Other writers appeal to the classical notion of the mean as they link clarity and
conciseness. On this Philostratus and Pseudo-Libanius, author of the Epis-
tolimaioi Charakteres, agree:
Philostratus of Lemonos says it best: ... 48. One should adorn the letter, above
all, with clarity, and with moderate conciseness and with archaism in style
... .49. In any case, one should not destroy clarity with conciseness or chatter
on immoderately while being attentive (to the need for) clarity, but should aim
at moderation by imitating accurate archers. A man who is clever and skilled
at hitting the target does not far overshoot the target and so widely miss what
is at hand .... In the same way, an eloquent man does not chatter on
unbecomingly, nor does he cling to terseness in speech because he is at a loss
(as to how to express himself) to the point that he obscures the clarity of his
letters .... 50. The length of the letter must be determined by its subject matter ,
36 Journal 0/ Advanced Composition
and in no way should fulness of treatment be regarded as a fault. It is, indeed,
occasionally necessary 10 draw out certain letters as need demands.
(Malherbe 69)
St Gregory makes the same point using almost exactly the same imagery
(Epistulae 51, 1-2; Malherbe 57).
Clearly, ancient epistolography was, for all intents and purposes, of one
mind. Its extremely uniform precepts were known as commonplaces to most
literate writers, even though they may not have had formal training in letter-
writing. Thus, Pliny can advise, "be brief and employ simple vocabulary in
a direct style" (L. 7.9.8.; Stowers 35). To anyone who has taught a business
communication course, these commonplaces in the ancient epistolographic
manuals should seem extremely familiar. It would appear to be a fair
statement, then, to say that those who claim that business communication
instruction rests on "modern" principles first developed at the beginning of
the twentieth century are either disingenuous or deluded. Many principles of
business communication are no more than rhetorical commonplaces passed
on almost unthinkingly from the author of one letter-writing manual-whether
ancient or modern-to another. Nor are these principles "scientific," as
Wilkinson, Wilkinson, and Vik and others have claimed; these principles
have not been validated by use because their employment has always been
taken/or granted. Thus, the evidence I have presented suggesting a number
of parallels between allegedly "modern" business communication prin-
ciples and the epistolary desiderata espoused in several ancient letter-writing
manuals gives additional force to the claim that many fundamental principles
of business communication rest on "folk wisdom based on tradition and blind
faith" (Moran and Moran 313, 315).
Generic Typologies
In addition, there are other ways in which' 'modern" business communi-
cation resembles the ancient epistolographic tradition. Both, for example,
developed elaborate generic typologies under which all the various kinds of
letters are supposed to fall. A glance at any contemporary business commu-
nication textbook will show that this is so. Chapter by chapter, these
textbooks proceed. dividing their material into categories that have been
repeated through the generations back to around 1915. Letters of inquiry,
claims. adjustments, credit collections. applications-the list remains uni-
form from one textbook to the next. One would expect the ancients, who often
display a well-known predilection for categorization, to have used a similar
scheme. And indeed they did. Julius Victor, as we have seen, distinguishes
between official and personal letters (litterae negotiales et /amiliares), and
Cicero uses at least two classificatory methods. The first scheme divides
letters into public and private (Pro Fiacco 37; Malherbe 15). Anotherdivides
letters into those that relate factual information and those that convey the
Ancient Epistolography 37
mood of the writer; the latter category divides again into the genus familiare
et iocosum and the genus severum et grave (Malherbe 15).
But two other works put these simple typologies to shame. The Epistolary
Types of Pseudo-Demetrius puts letters into twenty-one stylistic categories:
"friendly, commendatory, blaming, reproachful, consoling, censorious,
admonishing, threatening, vituperative, praising, advisory, supplicatory,
inquiring, responding, allegorical, accounting, accusing, apologetic, con-
gratulatory, ironic, thankful" (Malherbe 29). Although these letter-types do
not correspond in a one-to-one fashion with' 'modem" classificatory schemes,
some obvious parallels exist. More important, in both the ancient and modem
schemes, the dominant means of classification appears to be the aim of the
writer to accomplish some sort of rhetorico-pragmatic goal-not some
equally plausible organizing principle like structure. That is, both letters in
both the ancient and "modem" systems are categorized by speech-act type:
to inquire, to condole, to congratulate, to complain, and so on. Pseudo-
Libanius also uses such a classificatory scheme in his Epistolary Styles, in
which letters fall into an overwhelming forty-one types (Malherbe 63). Such
classificatory schemes may strike modem readers as silly and jejune. Yet a
moment's reflection should establish that "modem" business communica-
tion textbooks do exactly the same thing.
Academic Status
Likewise, both ancientepistolography and "modem" business commu-
nication have struggled to gain acceptance into the educational establishment
of their respective eras. For example, I have demonstrated elsewhere how
twentieth-century business communication instructors from 1936 to the
present have indicated time and time again that they consider their discipline
a "step-child" or "orphan," to be shunted from one department to another
in the university community ("Orphaned Discipline"). Two national reports
on education have been highly critical of business comm unication instruction
(Johnson and Hartley, Gordon and Howell), much to the distress of members
of the field. Even relatively recently, academics in the field of business
communication have felt the need to write articles such as "Explaining
Business Communication Courses to English Departments" (David) and
"Making Business Communication Courses Academically Respectable"
(Locker). Another article by David published as recently as 1982 demon-
strates that business communication is almost alone among university fields
of study in not having one uniform departmental home: over half the business
courses in her survey were placed in a business department, less than one-fifth
in an English department, and the rest distributed among departments of
business education, vocational and career development, office administra-
tion, and secretarial science (' 'Report' '). Perhaps most telling of all: a 1983
opinion piece by Daniel argues that business communication professors
should be content with their "secondary" status in the academic world, give
38 Journal of Advanced Composition
up any pretensions towards developing a true research-oriented discipline,
and get back to teaching students how to write effective business communi-
cations (' 'Remembering' ').
Ancient epistolography also seems to have been a field without a
permanent home in the educational system of the day, and perhaps more
important, a field little respected by cultivated, literate persons. Malherbe
reports that it is "clear that letter writing was of interest to rhetoricians, but
it appears only gradually to have attached itself to their rhetorical systems"
(7). Stowers is even more blunt:
Letter writing remained only on the fringes of formal rhetorical education
throughout antiquity. It was never integrated into the rhetorical systems and
thus does not appear in the standard handbooks. This means that there were
never any detailed systematic rules for letters, as there were for standard
rhetorical forms. (34)
When letter-writing was included in the rhetorical curriculum, it enjoyed
a secondary status at best. Those who gave epistolary instruction were
business-school teachers who trained people in such things as stenography
and letter writing as preparation especially for the civil service (Stowers 33).
The two handbooks that contain elaborate classification typologies, Typoi
Epistolikoi and the Epistolimaioi Charakteres, "were designed for the less
educated in learning how to write letters" (Malherbe 11). This we know just
because these handbooks do stress classificatory schemes and present model
letters to illustrate each scheme. As Stowers notes, "Like most other
instruction in antiquity, letter writing was taught by the imitation of models
rather than through theory and comprehensive rules" (33). Since they
stressed the imitation of models rather than elaborating a more theoretical
approach to their subject, these handbooks appear to Doty as "particularly
'vulgar' and intended for quick reference" (11). The form of most of the
papyrus letters indicates that they "mostly originated in and reflect the
concerns of the lower societal strata, rather than upper class society as
reflected in the literary letters" (Doty 3); these persons from the lower and
middle classes, then, were those to whom the epistolographic manuals were
directed. Malherbe also points out that the bilingual Bologna Papyrus (third
or fourth century A.D.), apparently a set of exercises composed by a student
following an epistolographic handbook, "witnesses to the modest level of
literary culture of users of some of the handbooks" (10). In short, "most of
these letters are written in the kind of school language used by persons of
average, superficial education, who painfully attempt to write in an educated
manner" (Malherbe 13).
Ancient Epistolography 39
Conclusion
To summarize, ancient instruction in letter-writing appears to resemble
that promulgated by the field of "modem" business communication in a
number of ways. In both cases, such instruction is accorded only a secondary
status in the curriculum. Both kinds of instruction are highly vocationalized;
both attract students who learn by working with model letters that are
laboriously categorized by type, not by assimilating much theoretical know l-
edge. Even the most' 'modem" textbooks contain many models that students
are encouraged to discuss and emulate; checklists rigidly outlining the
features of each letter type complete the educational method-training which
when juxtaposed to ancient rhetorical training appears not quite as "modem"
as apologists for business communication would lead one to believe. And as
I have showed at length. many of the leading stylistic principles of the ancient
epistolographic tradition are claimed as fundamental maxims for the field of
business communication.
Finally, just as many business communicators today write without the
"benefit" of having a course in business communication, it appears that to a
great degree ancient epistolographic teaching was largely ignored by most
writers, as Welles flatly states in writing about the composition of the official
letter (xlii). Doty agrees that the influence of the epistolographic handbooks
was weak at best: "On the basis of the few pure examples of the handbook
types found in the papyri, it seems that the guides were not very influential"
(10). Only what the handbooks classified as the letter of introduction is
represented to any great extent in the papyrus letter-collections; "other types
are sparsely represented, but all in all the guidebooks do not seem to have had
much direct influence" (Doty 11).
In a subsequent article, I hope to analyze some of these papyrus letters in
light of the findings of contemporary linguistic pragmatics and discourse
analysis. I will argue that ancient writers of papyrus letters. more than likely
with little if any formal training in "composition," produced understandable,
useable prose on the basis of their discourse competence. If this is so, the
implications for contemporary business communication appear clear: in-
struction in the field should concentrate on how to help students make the
competence with language they already possess apply explicitly to business
communications instead of recapitulating a 2000-year-old rhetorical tradi-
tion that is as little respected now as it was in the ancient world.
6
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa
40 Journal of Advanced Composition
Notes
1 Hildebrandt (' 'Precursor") does discuss the rhetoric of Angell Day in the
recent Studies in the History of Business Writing (Douglas and Hildebrandt),
and Dickson writes on Erasmus, Vives, Macopedius, Hegendorff, and other
Renaissance rhetoricians in the same anthology. More recently, Hildebrandt
has traced the influence of Greek and Roman oral rhetorical treatises on
medieval and Renaissance letter-writing manuals ("Influences").
2See Deissmannpassim,Doty 5 ff., Stowers 31, White "Body" 10, White
"Official Petition" passim. The Oxyrhynchus papyri and other finds are
important not only for their treasure-trove of letters. Classical and Biblical
studies have been immeasurably enriched by the discovery under the Egyp-
tian sands of important literary finds like lost portions of Pindar, Menander,
and Callimachus and of religious texts like early copies of parts of the New
Testament and the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas.
3Grube, whose translation of De Elocutione is considered authoritative,
puts the date at "not much later the 270 B.C." (56). Kennedy also prefers an
earlier date, of c. 350-280 B.C. (Persuasion in Greece 284). For a recent
discussion of Demetrius and the plain style in business communication, see
Mendelson.
4" Adaptation.-The style of a letter should be adapted to the person and
the subject. To superiors it should be respectful and deferential; to inferiors,
courteous; to friends, familiar; to relations, affectionate; to children, simple
and playful; on important subjects it should be forcible and impressive; on
lighter subjects, easy and sprightly; in condolence, tender and sympathetic;
in congratulations, lively and joyous" (Westlake 83).
5George Douglas appears to agree with that characterization: "It is one of
the popular myths of present teachers of business writing that the business-
man of a hundred years ago was a terrible writer, that he filled his letters and
reports with fustian, cast-iron locutions, and rodomontade" (125).
6Preparation of the article was aided by a continuing Research Assign-
ment, Iowa State University; it was completed during the 1988 Faculty
Improvement Leave. Thanks to my research assistant Alane Fitzgerald and
to the Interlibrary Loan staff at the Parks Library for help in locating and
procuring editions of early business communication textbooks.
Works Cited
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A Conference: Writing Histories of Rhetoric
The Center for Rhetorical and Critical Theory will host a conference,
"Writing Histories of Rhetoric," in Arlington, Texas, from Oct. 12 to IS,
1989. The conference will explore how histories ofrhetoric have been and
might be written from a variety of critical-historiographical (or 'rhetorical')
perspectives. The conference fonnat consists of small groups and infonnal
exchanges. No papers will be read; only brief position statements will be
made by the panelists.
Panelists will include James Berlin, Robert Connors, William Covino,
Sharon Crowley, Richard Leo Enos, S. Michael Halloran, James Murphy,
Stephen M. North, John Schilb, Kathleen Welch, and others.
Formore information, write: Victor J. Vitanza, Director; Center for Rhetori-
cal and Critical Theory; English Department, Box 19035; University of
Texas; Arlington, TX 76019.
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