The concept of "rhetoric" includes the theory of speech and oratory, i.e. the speaker's speech technique. Unfortunately, this art is mastered only by a select few. The reason, apparently, is that rhetoric as an art of speech is not studied in schools. This science is the oldest of the branches of linguistics. Academician D.S. Likhachev noted that "the greatest value of a nation is its language, the language in which it writes, speaks, thinks. Thinks! It is necessary to understand... in all the meaningfulness of this fact". A person's language is his worldview and his behavior. To form the ability to make expressive and literate speech is the basis of modern teaching; one of the ways is to work with samples of classical Russian literature from the point of view of linguocultural analysis.