There is definitely an unnerving aspect in writing a review for a book dedicated to the regard rhétorique, or the “rhetorical gaze,” which consists, according to the author Francis Goyet, in the possibility acquired through the knowledge and familiarity with ancient rhetoric to grasp a work of any kind in its totality. Goyet invites us to explore this rhetorical perspective by examining a great diversity of works: plays, poems, essays, oratory, and legal speeches. Thankfully, Goyet never addresses directly the genre of the book review, relieving this reviewer from undue pressure.

Goyet’s Regard rhétorique is the fourth work in Classique Garnier’s series dedicated to L’Univers rhétorique. This book is a great opportunity for the reader to discover or to reacquaint him- or herself with Goyet’s research since the book mainly consists of rewritings of texts already published elsewhere. One could say, in the spirit of the rhetorical gaze, that this book gives us the opportunity to see a glimpse of Goyet’s scholarship as a whole. Goyet’s book has, by the author’s own admission, a fairly simple thesis: rhetoric proves to be the most effective when it succeeds at revealing an argument as a whole. The introduction of the demonstration deals with a theoretical exploration of the notions of omnia and totum, as they are mainly conceptualized in Aristotle’s, Cicero’s, and Quintilian’s works. Through Goyet’s subtle readings and extensive knowledge of ancient rhetoric, the true rhetorical gaze should be defined as the synthetic vision of the work has a whole (totum), and not only as the simple sum of its parts (omnia).

The first chapter breaks away from the abstract and highly theoretical tone of the introduction by giving the reader a more manageable case study of the binary opposition between the exploitation of the notions of omnia and totum in the construction of fictional character. But before exposing the radical opposition between omnia and totum, Goyet leads us through a convincing exploration of the concept of vision as exposed in rhetorical terms, through the figures of hypotyposis and diatyposis, making the case once again in the valorization of totum. Goyet pursues his demonstration with the help of Racine’s characters Athalie and Joas, the comparison of Cicero’s Marcellus with the character of Draces in Virgil’s Aeneid, and, finally, with an analysis of Hamlet’s famous “To be or not to be” speech. The second, fascinating chapter succeeds in filling the gap between literary and judicial cultures in the exploitation of argumentation based on “global perspective” through the analysis of legal pleadings from the eighteenth and sixteenth centuries. The first is a scandalous case of appeal for a marriage annulment, pleaded by the star lawyer Henri Cochin (1687–1747), and the second is a case of jurisprudence exposed by Anne Robert, a famous lawyer at the Paris Parlement, who is known for his 1596 Rerum Judicatarum Libri IVI, translated in French in 1611 as Quatre livres des arrêts et choses jugées par la Cour. The third chapter sends us back to the literary sphere, with the idea of “co-construction” introducing the role of the reader in the creation of the text as a coherent whole. First with Joachim Du Bellay’s Regrets, through the notion of loci, Goyet problematizes the dispositio of the collection of sonnets. Finally, with Montaigne’s Essays, which, according to the author, misleadingly appear to the modern reader as challenging the notion of whole with its “marqueterie mal jointe” (“poorly attached marquetry”), by soliciting the synergy of the collaboration with his reader to produce a work as “solid as bronze.”

Goyet’s book is definitely a demanding one conceptually, and is probably not for neophytes, but his tone and style, always unassuming and unaffected, manage to sustain the attention of the reader. The sheer exposure to such a level of rhetorical analysis should be beneficial to students of rhetoric and experts alike. The author’s mastery of ancient rhetoric is evident and worthy of the highest praise, but the motivations for his constant chronological jumps back and forth in his demonstration should be more clearly articulated for the sake of his less sophisticated readers more prone to the hazards of the omnia than of the totum.