The present exhibition is a transcription of a seminar given at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes during the academic year 1964-1965. At the beginning - or on the horizon - of this seminar, there was, as always, the modern text, that is: the text that does not yet exist. One way to approach this new text is to seek where it starts and what it opposes, and therefore to compare the new semiotics of writing with the ancient practice of literary language that has been called rhetoric for centuries. Hence the idea of a seminar on ancient rhetoric: ancient does not mean that there is a new rhetoric today; ancient rhetoric primarily opposes this new thing that may not have happened yet: the world is incredibly rich in ancient rhetoric.