.
POSTSCRIPT: April 29, 2008
--Thurber's "Catbird Seat." We considered some of the various strategies (including the reliance on third-person limited point of view and the shift to third-person objective, characters' names, metonymy, accumulation, and the extended metaphor of the courtroom) employed to manipulate the reader's sympathies. Btw, Thurber retells a similar story in fable form in "The Unicorn in the Garden." His most famous tale is "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty."

--Rhetoric of the Image.   As you prepare for next Tuesday's final exam, please review the revised ad analyses submitted back in February by you and your colleagues.

--Logos. Please review the basic principles of rhetorical logic at this Rhetorica page.

--Sample Student Essays. As you prepare for next Tuesday's final exam, be sure to re-read the sample (good) student papers that I've been handing out since midterm along with the texts analyzed in each.

--Review for Final Exam. As one way of reviewing key rhetorical strategies in context, have a look at these short passages (several of which were assigned earlier in the term):
-Hypotaxis in James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son
-Hyperbole in Dave Barry's "Revenge of the Pork Person"
-Lists & Anaphora in Bill Bryson's Neither Here Nor There
-Parenthetical Details in Capote's Place Description
-Absolutes & Appositives in Frank Conroy's Midair
-Ian Fraziers List of Reasons in Great Plains
-Lists & Anaphora in Nikki Giovanni's "View of Home"
-Personification in Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn
-Subordination in Bernard Malamud's A New Life
-Polysyndeton in Julie Myerson's "Sad-Grand Moment"
-Susan Orlean's Extended Metaphor
-The Copia of S.J. Perelman's Comic Prose
-Parataxis in Steinbeck's "Paradox and Dream"
-Sentence Variety in Thurber's Life and Hard Times
-E.B. White's Diction and Metaphors in "Death of a Pig"
-Examples in E.B. White's "Progress and Change"
-Fitzgerald's New York in the 1920s
-Toni Morrison's New York in the 1920s
-E.B. White's New York in the 1940s
-Joan Didion's New York in the 1950s
-Kerouac's New York in the 1950s
 

PREVIEW: April 29, 2008
POSTSCRIPT: April 22 and 24, 2008

--IDENTIFICATION, KENNETH BURKE & CONTEMPORARY RHETORIC.  The traditionally agonistic view of rhetoric has been challenged by recent theorists such as Kenneth Burke, who has defined rhetoric as "the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that respond to symbols" (A Grammar of Motives, 1955).   It's Burke, of course, who has provided us with the concept of identification--an expansion of the classical notion of ethopoeia (see preview below for April 22 and 24). Though I've not given him nearly enough credit, the version of classical rhetoric studied in this course and the forms of rhetorical analysis that we've been conducting have all been profoundly influenced by Burke.  (Purely optional: An excellent follow-up to this course would be a detailed study of Burke's writings, beginning--I'd suggest--with Counter-Statement. You might also want to check out this extensive list of links to online writings on Burke.)

--Thurber's "Catbird Seat." We'll continue our discussion of this short story at the start of Tuesday's class. Purely optional 1:  see what you think of Karen Bernardo's analysis of "A Catbird Seat." Purely optional 2: see "A Semiotic Reading of James Thurber's 'The Catbird_Seat,'" an excellent online lecture by Professor Scott Simpkins of the University of Toronto.  Among other things, you'll find that much of the language and many of the concerns of semiotics have sources in classical rhetoric.

--REVIEWING RHETORICAL TERMS. To conduct the rhetorical analysis for your final project and to be prepared for the final exam, you should be thoroughly familiar with the rhetorical terms you learned earlier in the semester. This would be a good time to review the examples submitted by your colleagues. In addition, check out these review quizzes: top 20, slogans, and terms.

--IDENTIFYING WRITERS BY RHETORICAL ANALYSIS (optional review for final exam). Here are a few of the writers we've looked at this term whose work you should be able to identify through careful rhetorical and stylistic analysis.
--JAMES THURBER. Here are a couple of short passages from other works by Thurber: (a) a paragraph from My Life and Hard Times, and (b) the fable "The Unicorn in the Garden."
--JOAN DIDION. See preview below for April 22 and 24.
--MARK TWAIN.  You'll find several short pieces by Twain linked at our PASSAGES page--and much more here. 
--JEAN SHEPHERD.  If you'd care for another short dose of Shepherd (and another look at his distinctive prose style), check out "When Schwartz Wiggled His Ears, That Was History."  If you'd like to hear (and see) the late Mr. Shepherd talk about his mother, go here and click on the video clip.  Some of his best short writings (including "The Endless Streetcar Ride") are collected in In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash.
--KATE CHOPIN.  This semester you read two short stories by Kate Chopin, "The Story of an Hour" and "The Storm," along with a student's analysis of "The Storm."  She is best known for the novel The Awakening (1899).  Interested in reading more by Chopin?  Check out her short story "A Respectable Woman."
--ABRAHAM LINCOLN.  This semester we've studied Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.  If you'd care to experience another example of the president's oratory, read his brief Speeches to Ohio Regiments.
--E.B. WHITE. We've read two essays by White, "The Ring of Time" and "Death of a Pig." For another example of White's prose, see this paragraph from the essay "Progress and Change" and a few paragraphs from his essay "Once More to The Lake."
--SOJOURNER TRUTH.  Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" speech (studied earlier this term) is so well known that many people are unaware of her other speeches.  Purely optional: have a look at this short speech delivered by Sojourner Truth in 1867 at the first meeting of the American Equal Rights Association.  
--E. A. ROBINSON.  As we saw in the short poem "Richard Cory," irony is a characteristic trait of Robinson's best known works.  Purely optional: if you're interested in reading a little more by E. A. Robinson, see "Miniver Cheevy" and "Mr. Flood's Party."
--MARTIN LUTHER KING, Jr.  "I Have a Dream" was not the only speech delivered by Dr. King.  Purely optional: have a look at the Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech that he delivered in December 1964. 
--JANE AUSTEN.  We've seen how irony dominates at least one chapter of Austen's fiction.  Purely optional: the irony begins with Chapter One of Pride and Prejudice. 
--GEORGE ORWELL.  Orwell's prose style (as we saw in "A Hanging") is distinctive and often praised.  Purely optional: for another well-known example of Orwell's prose, see his essay "Marrakech."

--RHETORIC TODAY.  Here are some of the texts mentioned over the past two weeks as representative of some of the diverse forms of contemporary studies in rhetoric:
I.  New Directions in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies
-Comparative Rhetoric: An Historical and Cross-Cultural Introduction, by George Kennedy.
-Feminist Rhetorical Theories, Foss, Foss, & Griffin.
-We Are Coming: The Persuasive Discourse of 19th-Century Black Women, Shirley W. Logan.
-Metaphor: A Practical Introduction, Kovecses.
-New Approaches to Rhetoric, Sullivan & Goldzwig.
II. Interdisciplinary Reinventions and Reapplications of Rhetoric
-Political Communication: Rhetoric, Government, and Citizens, Hahn.
-Persuasion in Society, Simons.
-Social Semiotics, Hodge & Kress.
-The Rhetorical Presidency, Tulis.
-On Signs, Blonsky.
-Propaganda and Persuasion, Jowett & O'Donnell.
III.  Rhetoric & Cultural Studies
-Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman.
-Deadly Persuasion: Why Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power of Advertising, Kilbourne.
-Communicating Unreality: Modern Media and the Reconstruction of Reality, Weimann.
-The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue, Tannen.
-Unspoken: A Rhetoric of Silence, Glenn.
IV.  Rhetoric Reduced, Rebaked, Repackaged, & Utterly Simplified (self-help books)
-The Persona Principle: How to Succeed in Business with Image Marketing, Armstrong and Yu.
-Instant Persuasion: How to Change Your Words to Change Your Life, Puhn.
-Secrets of Power Persuasion: Everything You'll Ever Need to Get Anything You'll Ever Want, Dawson.
-How to Attract Anyone, Anytime, Anyplace: The Smart Guide to Flirting, Rabin.


PREVIEW: April 22 and 24, 2008
POSTSCRIPT: April 15 and 17, 2008
--RHETORICAL LOGIC and logical fallacies will be a primary topic this week (April 22 and 24). See Mike McGuire's PowerPoint presentation "A Closer Look at Logos: Syllogism, Enthymeme, and Logical Fallacies" (click on "Download file").  See also Professor Banks's page on The Appeals: Logos.

--FINAL PROJECT: By now you've had plenty of time to study some examples of good rhetorical analyses conducted by past students of English 5730. This week, to guide you in the final revision and editing of your own projects, we'll take a quick look at a few excerpts from some truly bad papers (empty summaries, inconsequential squeezes, and a particularly sorry specimen of plagiarism).

--JEAN SHEPHERD.  Purely optional: If you'd care for another short dose of Shepherd (and another look at his distinctive prose style), check out "When Schwartz Wiggled His Ears, That Was History."  If you'd like to hear Shepherd relate a few tales, go here for the audio clips. Some of his best short writings (including "The Endless Streetcar Ride") are collected in In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash.

--JOAN DIDION.  This week we'll be analyzing Joan Didion's prose style and rhetorical voice(s) in three short pieces--two essays composed in the late 1960s and the first chapter of a memoir published in 2005.  We'll begin our analysis of Joan Didion's essays with particular attention to what might be called her stylistic tics.  After you have reached some conclusions of your own about Didion's style (according to a New York Times reviewer, Didion provides "a rich display of some of the best prose written today in this country"), I encourage you to jump to this online article by Barbara G. Harrison (skip down to the sixth paragraph), in which she criticizes Didion's style as "a bag of tricks."  (You might also want to consider whether the distinctive style of any writer, good or bad, might also be characterized as "a bag of tricks.")   Finally, I encourage you to have a quick look at other (short) examples of Didion's prose: opening excerpts from "Why I Write" and a few paragraphs from "Sojourns."   Purely optional: If you have an interest in Didion's essays, you'll find her earliest ones collected in Slouching Toward Bethlehem and The White Album.  Some of her more recent writings appear (in whole or in part) in Vintage Didion.

--FRANCIS BACON (English scholar, statesman, and spy, 1561-1626). Make sure that you can identify the specific, distinctive characteristics of Bacon's prose style. Compare "Of Studies" with another short essay by Bacon, "Of Negotiating."

--RHETORIC TIMELINE.  Using the handout distributed on April 17, we'll have a quick look at the history of rhetorical studies from the 19th century to the present.

--CONTEMPORARY RHETORIC.  Though the decline of rhetorical studies in the first part of the 20th century is sometimes attributed to the rising "confidence in scientific thinking," a more concrete cause was the changing nature of western universities, which marginalized the study of speech, de-emphasized the study of classical literature and thought, and divided English studies into the often competing camps of composition and literature.  Study of the rhetoric revival over the past 30 years would be a course in itself (indeed, the study of Kenneth Burke alone is a course in itself), but here are two modern rhetorical movements especially worth noting:
(1) The New Rhetoric of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca brings us back to a topic we considered in week one--rhetorical situations in everyday life--and emphasizes the critical role of the audience in such rhetorical encounters.   A rhetor “tries to establish a sense of communion centered around particular values recognized by the audience, and to this end he uses the whole range of means available to the rhetorician for purposes of amplification and enhancement” (NR, p. 51).   Richard Long provides this summary in his 1983 article "The Role of Audience in Chaim Perelman's New Rhetoric":  
According to Perelman, “it is an illusion to imagine that the conditions for . . . communion occur naturally” (NR, p. 56).  Consequently, he lists a wide variety of rhetorical techniques that a rhetor may use to establish communion with an audience.  One technique is the question. Perelman says a rhetor, who uses the question, must know the audience will answer affirmatively.  (A door-to-door salesperson gets the home-owner saying yes first). Doing so, the audience confers its agreement concerning a particular course of action (NR, p. 159). Other literary devices refer to a particular audience’s cultural heritage.   A rhetor’s allusion to an important historical event creates emotions aroused by memories and pride.  A quotation enhances communion when its purpose is not to give authority to a particular statement.  Maxims and proverbs, for example, reflect the culture of which they are a part.  The rhetor increases communion also by using figures which engage the audience with the discourse. Apostrophe and the oratorical question aim not at gaining information but at engaging the hearer.  Similar­ly, the rhetor may resort to oratorical communication in which the audience merges with the discourse. The rhetor may em­ploy the enallage of person, a figure by which the rhetor moves, for example, for ‘I” or “he” to “you.” Likewise, the rhetor can move from either "I" or “you” to “we” and consequently identify the audience with the rhetor (NR, pp. 177- 178). Referring to these ways to establish communion (or to increase it), Perelman writes that “Every technique promoting the communion of the speaker with his audience will decrease the opposition between them—an opposition which is harmful when the task of the speaker is to persuade” (NR, p. 321).
(2)  We should recognize that what Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca refer to as "communion" is quite similar to what Kenneth Burke (in A Rhetoric of Motives and elsewhere) calls "identification." Traditional approaches to rhetoric have described the attempt to overcome division as "persuasion"--a situation in which a rhetor seeks to persuade an audience by winning it over to a given position. Through identification, however, a rhetor seeks to elicit consensus and cooperation by demonstrating what Burke calls a "consubstantiality" (and what Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca call "communion") between rhetor and audience.  Identification is a two way process.  As the rhetor establishes rapport by identifying with the audience's concerns, the audience begins to identify with those of the communicator.  The sharing of opinion in one area works as a fulcrum to move opinion in another.  At the conclusion of A Rhetoric of Motives, Burke observes:
As for the relation between identification and persuasion: we might well keep it in mind that a speaker persuades an audience by the use of stylistic identification; his act of persuasion may be for the purpose of causing the audience to identify itself with the speaker’s interests; and the speaker draws on identification of interest to establish rapport between himself and his audience.
In addition, make sure that you have a basic understanding of Burke's "dramatistic pentad."

--INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES OF METAPHOR. This past week we briefly considered how the master trope has become the subject of various academic disciplines over the past 30 years. Texts reviewed:
-On Metaphor, edited by Sacks (1979);
-Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff & Johnson (1980) (excerpts here);
-More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor, Lakoff & Turner (1989);
-Figurative Language and Thought, Katz et al. (1998);
-Understanding Figurative Language: From Metaphor to Idioms, Glucksberg (2001);
-Metaphor--A Practical Introduction, Kovecses (2002).

--SELF-HELP RHETORIC. This past week, to see how various concepts from classical rhetoric have been recycled in a wide array of  contemporary self-help books, we listened to brief excerpts from a few promising texts.
Purely optional:   Here are just a few examples of pop-rhetoric, selected at random from thousands (and offered without recommendation):
-Artful Persuasion: How to Command Attention, Change Minds, and Influence People, by Harry Mills; 
-The Art of Seduction, by R. Greene and J. Elffers  ("Touted as a 'handbook on the most subtle and effective form of power' and 'an indispensable primer on how to take what you want from whomever you want,' this book is more than a little creepy." Library Journal);
-How to Attract Anyone, Anytime, Anyplace [sic]: The Smart Guide to Flirting, by Susan Rabin. ("Mirroring" is described in Chapter Three.) Ms. Rabin is now incorporated as Dynamic Communications, Inc.:  Dynamic Communications builds the 3C’s of people skills—communication, connection, and commonality. Strong interpersonal skills satisfy customers, increase productivity and enrich quality of life at work;
-Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert Cialdini;
-Maximum Influence: The 12 Universal Laws of Power Persuasion, by Kurt W. Mortensen;
-The Persona Principle: How to Succeed in Business with Image-Marketing, by Armstrong & Yu;
-The Persuasive Speaker (audio tape), by H. Snyder;
-Power Talk: Using Language to Build Authority and Influence, by S. M. McGinty;
-Secrets of Power Persuasion: Everything You'll Ever Need to Get Anything You'll Ever Want, by Roger Dawson;
-Succeed and Grow Rich Through Persuasion, by Napoleon Hill.

--REVIEW. Using a number of short passages (some assigned, some not), we'll practice conducting a few impromptu rhetorical analyses. Here, for practice:

-- Study carefully the five passages on New York City.  The following paragraph opens a novel by one of those five authors.  See if you can tell me, (1) which author it is, and (2) what particular rhetorical strategies and stylistic devices helped you to recognize the author.
Sth, I know that woman. She used to live with a flock of birds on Lenox Avenue. Know her husband, too. He fell for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deepdown, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going. When the woman, her name is Violet, went to the funeral to see the girl and to cut her dead face they threw her to the floor and out of the church. She ran, then, through all that snow, and when she got back to her apartment she took the birds from their cages and set them out the windows to freeze or fly, including the parrot that said, "I love you."

--Now read the next paragraph (below), which was also composed by one of the authors of the NYC passages.  Again, see if you can (1) identify the author, and (2) explain what rhetorical strategies and stylistic devices helped you determine the identity of the author.   

The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now; in the sounds of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest editions.

All dwellers in cities must live with the stubborn fact of annihilation; in New York the fact is somewhat more concentrated because of the concentration of the city itself, and because, of all targets, New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm. (published in 1949)

-- Finally, read these four paragraphs (the concluding paragraphs of a novel by another one of the NYC authors), and again, see if you can (1) identify the author, and (2) explain what rhetorical strategies and stylistic devices helped you determine the identity of the author.   [Note: editorial changes are indicated by brackets.]
And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for [his] house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of [his] wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

[He] believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…And one fine morning---

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.


PREVIEW: April 15 and 17, 2008
--Rhetorical Analyses. This week and next, as you work on your final project and prepare for the final exam, we'll be examining a wide variety of texts.
--FINAL PROJECT. This is a good week to send me drafts (or partial drafts--even just a few paragraphs) of your final project for feedback. I usually respond to emails within 24 hours (Sunday through Thursday).


POSTSCRIPT: April 10, 2008
This afternoon we discussed the three eulogies assigned for this week along with the comic essay "Till Lunch Do Us Part," by Tom Robbins. Full text of John Cleese's eulogy for Graham Chapman is here.  Peggy Noonan is generally given credit for Ronald Reagan's speech following the Challenger explosion--and I lied: she (and he) did identify the seven astronauts by name (in the second paragraph). However, Hal Gordon (in an interesting blog on what speechwriting at the White House is really like) suggests that in our time no single writer can take full credit for any presidential speech. Also, as mentioned in class, you may want to compare Robert Kennedy's spontaneous eulogy for Dr. King in April 1968 with Ted Kennedy's more formal eulogy for his brother just two months later (text and audio here). (Purely optional: the 1960s in six minutes--heavy on the pathos.) 


POSTSCRIPT: April 8, 2008
--Multiple Rhetorical Situations and Uncertain Ironies in a Motivational Speech: HENRY V's CALL TO BATTLE (the St. Crispin Day speech--according to Shakespeare). 
Shakespeare's version of the Battle of Agincourt (where the English soldiers led by Henry were outnumbered five to one by the French) has been dramatized in two powerful film versions, the 1946 film starring Laurence Olivier (who also directed the film) and the 1989 version, which was also directed by its star, Kenneth Branagh.  
Listen to the Branagh version (click on the play button on the screen beneath Branagh's image) of what has been called "the greatest pep talk in the English language."  (It has also been called, by Harold Bloom among others, "gloriously ludicrous.")  The speech, which relies on a variation of prolepsis, is a classic example of exuscitatio.   For a bit of literary context, check out this somewhat cynical summary of Act IV of Henry V (from Washington State University). 

Though the speech itself certainly appears to glorify and romanticize war, the play as a whole, some have argued, reveals how a government creates lies and brutalizes its own people (and others) through war mongering.   British playwright John Arden has described “the secret play inside the official one,” pointing to the rhetoric of Henry on St Crispin’s Day as the most absolute representation of how the state manipulates language to abuse its citizens.  Decide for yourselves. 

For a bit of historical context (along with some politically charged questions regarding the recent appropriation of Henry V by Republicans), I encourage (but not require) you to read Scott Newstrom's article "'Step aside, I'll show thee a president': George W as Henry V" (May 2003).  Again, think for yourselves. 

Then, after listening again to Shakespeare's version of the speech, look at the ways a sixth grader in Michigan adapted its dominant rhetorical strategies to suit her own ends:

Micah, tell Seth that we have to clean a garage that hasn't been cleaned for 3 years.  If you don't have the courage it takes, then you just go play with your Sony Play Station.  I'll bring a couch in for you.  As a matter of fact, I will make you some snacks.  I certainly don't want to wear myself out cleaning the garage in the company of people who are afraid to face the work with me.

However, I am declaring this "Garage Cleaning Day."   If you help me, and we survive, when Mom gets home you can help to show her the masterpiece we have created.   Later, when you get old, you can have people over for apple-cinnamon tea, and you can speak out loud.  You can stand there tall and proud and say, "Tomorrow is the anniversary of Garage Cleaning Day".

You'll show the mark on your foot where you stepped on a nail.  You can show the dent in your head where you got hit by a shovel that fell off the wall.