Document Type
Article
Date of Original Version
2025
Department
Writing and Rhetoric
Abstract
Over the past few decades, Plato’s Phaedrus has become an important text for scholars interested in tracing new materialist approaches to the history of rhetoric and writing. Drawing on rhetoric and plant studies scholarship, this essay contributes to this conversation by arguing that trees disclose an important layer of irony in the dialogue, producing a deep, if not ambivalent, unity that brings together rhetoric, writing, and discourse. Through a study of trees in the dialogue, this essay demonstrates how the Phaedrus offers rich connections between spatial, nonhuman, and ecological dimensions of writing, rhetoric, and discourse.
Publication Title, e.g., Journal
Rhetoric Review
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Jones, M. (2025). “Sylvan Rhetoric in the Planes of Plato’s Phaedrus,” Rhetoric Review, 44(1), Forthcoming.