Deals with Adam Smith's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, i.e. with the set of lecture notes discovered and published in the twentieth century. The chapter follows Smith's exposition, which starts with poetry and after it illustrates prose in its main forms, namely history, didactic writing, oratory. The relationship of Smith's treatment of rhetoric and literature with important aspects of his subsequent thought is illustrated.
Keywords: comedy, eloquence, literature, oratory, persuasion, poetry, prose, rhetoric, style, tragedy