Rhetoric is the ancient discipline that provided the conceptual framework and technical vocabulary for all formal poetic composition in the French tradition from the Middle Ages through the 17th century. The trivium's three arts of grammar, rhetoric, and logic supplied poets with the tools of versification, figurative language, and argumentative structure. French Renaissance poetics explicitly grounded itself in classical rhetoric. The great Rhétoriqueurs of the 15th century made rhetorical virtuosity the explicit aim and content of their poetry. Even as Romantic and modern poets react against rhetoric, their reactions are defined by and in relation to the rhetorical tradition that preceded them.

Rhétorique is foundational to French literary study, especially because much pre-modern poetry was consciously shaped through rhetorical training rather than spontaneous self-expression. Students should understand rhetoric not simply as persuasion, but as the disciplined art of structuring language for beauty, emotional effect, memorability, and argument. French poetic analysis frequently relies on rhetorical terminology such as antithèse, chiasme, litote, and gradation. Medieval Rhétoriqueurs even treated rhetorical virtuosity as a poetic ideal. Mastery of rhétorique is essential for historically informed close reading.