.
POSTSCRIPT 22 January
PREVIEW: 24 January 2008
-- RHETORICAL ANALYSIS.  In Tuesday's class we spoke briefly about the basic characteristics of analysis: "show me" and "so what?"  That is, "show me" (or "point out") what you think are the significant details in the text (or speech or movie or ad or supermarket--or whatever it is you're analyzing); and then, regarding each of those points, answer the question, "So what?"-- so what is the significance of each detail?   What effect does that detail create (or attempt to create)?  How does it shape (or attempt to shape) the reader's response?  How does it work in concert with other details to create effects and shape the reader's response?  In a rhetorical analysis, of course, the "details" will include the rhetorical strategies and stylistic devices identified in our course text and in our glossary. 

When composing an analysis, presume (unless you're instructed otherwise) that your reader is already familiar with the text (or whatever manner of discourse) that you're analyzing.   In other words, there's no need to summarize something for its own sake: your reader can see the ad, read the poem, hear the speech.  Your job is first to direct the reader's attention to key details ("show me") and then explain why each of those details is significant ("so what?").  Because one of our primary objectives is to be able to compose thoughtful and thought-provoking rhetorical analyses, it's essential that we first have the tools to do the job and that we understand the fundamental nature of analysis. And in any analysis, don't waste words. 

--Three Branches of Rhetoric: Judicial (aka "forensic"--to accuse or defend), Legislative (aka "deliberative"--to exhort or dissuade), and Epideictic (aka "ceremonial"--to commemorate or blame . . . and just about every other form of communication not embraced by the first two branches).

--From Orality to Literacy . . . to Secondary Orality.  Though rhetorical studies may have begun in Greece in the fifth century B.C., the practice of rhetoric began much earlier with the emergence of homo sapiens, the first creatures who--through their creation of language--were capable of understanding.  As we've seen, rhetoric became a subject of academic study at a time when Ancient Greece was evolving from an oral culture to a literate one.  In our own era, according to many theorists, we are experiencing a comparable transformation in human cognition and communication:   
"We are in a period of history and technology where much of the world's population, perhaps a majority, are still in the pre-literate oral communication era, while the west, and particularly the US and Canada, are in the post-literate information age [sometimes called "a secondary orality"]. In the post-literate world, learners have a base of literacy, but their primary means of learning have shifted back to oral and aural media (if in fact they were ever fully indoctrinated into literate forms of learning), but the media are new.

"The current western generation learns and processes in terms of media such as television (drama, news, music, interactive graphics or text), radio (music, news, discussion), telephone (often in conjunction with TV or radio), computer (which involves basic literacy, but more visuals, graphics and click-skills), visual and aural media, often multiplexed, as all the media merge. In this post-literate society, writing and reading are still of value, but only as they facilitate manipulation for the other media." (Dr. Orville Boyd-Jenkins, "Orality and the Post-Literate West" 2006).
So, even as we explore the origins of classical rhetoric, we'll also be applying some of these ancient principles to contemporary forms of communication. At the end of the semester, we'll come full circle and consider how the field of rhetoric has continued to evolve in our own times.

-- ORIGINS of RHETORIC.  Recent scholarship (for example, Edward Schiappa's The Beginnings of Rhetorical Theory in Classical Greece, 1999) has challenged (or at least attempted to qualify) conventional views that "rhetoric" was born with the democratization of Syracuse, developed by the Sophists in a somewhat shallow way, criticized by Plato in a somewhat "impractical" way, and rescued by Aristotle, whose Rhetoric found the mean between Sophistic relativism and Platonic idealism.  The Sophists were, in fact, a rather disparate group of teachers, some of whom may have been opportunistic hucksters and some of whom may have been closer in spirit and method to Aristotle and other philosophers.  In any case, the development of rhetoric in 5th-century B.C. certainly corresponded to the rise of the new legal system that accompanied the "democratic government" (i.e., the several hundred men who were defined as Athenian citizens) in parts of ancient Greece. (Keep in mind that before the invention of lawyers, citizens represented themselves in the Assembly--usually in front of sizeable juries.)   It is believed that the Sophists generally taught by example rather than precept; that is, they prepared and delivered specimen speeches for their students to imitate.  In any case, it's difficult to identify anything like a common set of Sophistic rhetorical principles.   We do know a couple of things for certain: (1) that in the 4th century B.C. Aristotle assembled the rhetorical handbooks that were then available into a collection called the Synagoge Techne (now, unfortunately, lost); and (2) that his Rhetoric (which is, in fact, a collection of lecture notes) is the earliest extant example of a complete theory, or art, of rhetoric.  Next week, our attention shifts to Aristotle's Rhetoric.

--PLATO on RHETORIC.  This week we're looking at excerpts from Plato's Gorgias and Phaedrus, considering how the character of Socrates (himself a master rhetorician--though a firm opponent of the Sophists) quickly puts the Sophists at a disadvantage in Gorgias by manipulating the rhetorical situation to favor his own (Socratic) method.  Understanding why Plato opposed Athenian democracy should help us to appreciate, in part, why he also opposed the Sophists and the teaching of rhetoric.  (In fact, both Plato and Aristotle opposed democracy, though for different reasons.) 

The Gorgias also raises ethical questions about the teachings of the Sophists (e.g., does the ability to argue both sides of an issue signal an indifference to truth?) and asks how a discipline such as rhetoric can even be considered a "discipline" if it has no subject matter.   (These are issues that Aristotle takes up in a markedly different fashion in the Rhetoric.)

In Phaedrus, a later work by Plato, the character of Socrates recalls the legend of Theuth as a means of questioning the value of the new technology of writing ("a recipe for forgetting") as opposed to oral discourse.  As discussed in our text, Phaedrus also "hints at a true art of rhetoric" while proposing a kind of psychological analysis of human souls. Be sure that you're able to articulate Plato's various objections to Sophistic rhetoric and his broad vision for a "true art of rhetoric." Know the terms dialectic and enthymeme.

--ETHOS in AUSTEN. For Thursday's class, please read the excerpt from Chapter 19 in Pride and Prejudice, pp. 75-76 in Classical Rhetoric. 

____________________


PREVIEW: 22 and 24 January 2008
--READINGS.
Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Be guided by last week's preview of Chapter One. Then, in the opening pages (489-492) of "A Survey of Rhetoric," be able to identify Corax, Gorgias, Isocrates, and Plato (skim the introduction and the discussion of Gorgias and Phaedrus). Know who the Sophists were and what factors contributed to their "unsavory reputation." The brief overviews of Plato's Gorgias and Phaedrus should guide your readings of the assigned excerpts from these two dialogues.
Thank You for Arguing. In Chapter Three, attend to Heinrichs' discussion of the three branches of rhetoric (demonstrative rhetoric is another name for epideictic; forensic another name for judicial; and deliberative means the same as legislative), with special attention here to the practical applications of the "present tense" arguments of demonstrative (or epideictic) rhetoric. In Chapter Six, follow Heinrichs' discussion of the ethical appeal (including "bragging," "character reference," and "tactical flaw"). Finally, in Chapter 21, follow his discussion of kairos, in particular the ways that kairos may enhance ethos.

--Plato on Rhetoric. I'm presuming that, as university students, you have a basic understanding of Platonic idealism, some sense of Plato's political philosophy (which is hardly democratic), and a familiarity with Plato's famous cave allegory--all of which should help us to understand his criticism of Gorgias and of rhetoric as both a practice and a field of study. In class, I'll be asking you to identify some of Plato's objections to rhetoric (at least as it was practiced by Gorgias and his gang) and to consider whether those same objections might still carry weight today. I'll also ask you to explain his criticism of that new-fangled technology of writing--thoughts that we'll return to at the end of the course when we consider the role of rhetoric in regard to the new technologies of our own age. Finally, we'll consider the qualities that Plato (as always, through the character of Socrates) attributes to an "ideal rhetoric." This last topic will serve as our transition to Aristotle, whose Rhetoric will guide almost everything else we do in the course.

--AUDIO BONUS (purely optional--but highly recommended).   "Rhetoric": Originally broadcast on Oct. 28, 2004, this 45-minute BBC Radio program provides a cogent panel discussion on the history of rhetoric, from its origins in   ancient Greece to the present. 
"Gorgias, the great sophist philosopher and master of rhetoric said, 'Speech is a powerful lord that with the smallest and most invisible body accomplished most godlike works. It can banish fear and remove grief, and instill pleasure and enhance pity. Divine sweetness transmitted through words is inductive of pleasure and reductive of pain.'  But for Plato it was a vice, and those like Gorgias who taught rhetoric were teaching the skills of lying in return for money and were a great danger.   He warned that 'this device - be it which it may, art or mere artless empirical knack - must not, if we can help it, strike root in our society.'  But strike root it did, and there is a rich tradition of philosophers and theologians who have attempted to make sense of it.  How did the art of rhetoric develop?  What part has it played in philosophy and literature?  And does it still deserve the health warning applied so unambiguously by Plato?"
To listen to this excellent program (which provides a perfect outline to our historical study of rhetoric), visit the BBC Radio 4 "History in Our Time" page and click on "Listen to this edition of In Our Time" (not "Listen Live"): the lecture begins immediately after the weather report.

--RHETORIC OF ADVERTISING.   In preparation for the ad analysis assignment due this Tuesday, revisit the concepts of visual metaphors and visual rhetoric, and give thought to the different kinds of ethical, pathetic, and logical appeals found in print advertising and commercials.  [Purely optional: as a way to prepare for this short assignment  and to help learn some of our rhetorical terms, you'll benefit, I think, by reading McQuarrie and Mick's online article "Figures of Rhetoric in Advertising Language" (1996).]

--REVIEW QUIZ. To give you a sense of whether or not you're keeping up with course work, there will be a short review quiz in one of our two class meetings this week. Questions may cover any and all materials assigned and/or  discussed (in these notes as well as in class) from our first class meeting through this week's assignments.


POSTSCRIPT: 17 January 2008
--RHETORICAL SITUATIONS & MANIPULATIONS. As a way of defining rhetoric in the context of everyday life, we (imaginatively) toured Kroger's in order to analyze some of the particular ways that a supermarket can be viewed as a rhetorical structure or machine--i.e., as a complex system of strategies designed to persuade "consumers" (in earlier times known as "citizens") to linger and to buy stuff, in particular, stuff that they don't necessarily want or need.   Among the "rhetorical devices" you identified were various sensory appeals (e.g., piped-in music, bakery odors, frequently spritzed fruits and vegetables); spatial arrangements (hiding staples such as milk and bread in the rear of the store, locating more-profitable brands at eye-level, stocking the checkout with potential "impulse buys"); and sales techniques (two-for-one items, "loyalty" cards, "special" mark-downs).  What we didn't have time to talk about are the ways that the food industry itself manipulates shoppers through the sophisticated processing and packaging of food.  That fresh, shiny Washington State apple, for instance, has been dipped in fungicide, bathed in chlorine, scrubbed with detergent, and polished with wait before ever making it to the produce section.  In viewing a supermarket as a rhetorical machine designed to manipulate us into buying what we don't necessarily need, we're practicing--among other things--an elementary form of rhetorical analysis.  If this were a business course, we might simply call it "marketing."  
Btw, it was Daniel Boorstin in a book published over 40 years ago, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, who first proposed that the cardboard box has proved to be the most influential American invention of the past two centuries. The packaging of products in the 19th century (which made possible branding and advertising) led inexorably to the packaging of people and events in our own time.  (Purely optional, but worth the visit: an excerpt from Boorstin's The Image.) 
[Also Purely Optional: If you happen to have an interest in how deliberately and craftily we are being manipulated inside a supermarket, read "'Every Little Bit Helps': Why NOT to Shop at Supermarkets"--a Word doc. (it's safe to open) by British environmentalist Jeremy Smith.]

--ORIGINS OF RHETORIC.  We considered the implications of rhetoric's origins in oral cultures and the importance of memory in those cultures.  See the preview below (Jan. 17) and be sure that you know the six characteristics (as defined by Walter J. Ong) of the way people in a "primary oral culture" think and express themselves through narrative discourse. Orality produces a ritualistic kind of rhetoric based on repetition of similar performances in the present time before an immediate audience of participants and listeners.  The connections among speaker, message and listener (i.e., the rhetorical situation) are direct and personal.  The message is conveyed in repetitive or narrative increments and the content of the message is familiar and relates directly to the experiences of the hearers (in other words, what's concrete and immediate is favored over the abstract).  In oral cultures, people tend to rely on sound devices as aids to memory (one of the five offices of rhetoric) and to favor paratactic (as opposed to hypotactic) sentence structures.

--ETHOS, PATHOS, LOGOS and THE ADAMS FAMILY. Among other things, we considered the rhetoric of the word (connotation) and the effects of lists (tricolons, tetracolons, and anything longer--called simply "series" or "list"; a list with many conjunctions is polysyndetic; a list without conjunctions is asyndetic). Here again is Abigail's logical response on May 7, 1776 to John's note of April 14:

I cannot say that I think you are very generous to the ladies; for, whilst you are proclaiming peace and good-will to men, emancipating all nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over wives.

But you must remember that arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken; and, notwithstanding all your wise laws and maxims, we have it in our power, not only to free ourselves, but to subdue our masters, and without violence, throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet.

Note her use of litotes in the opening of the first sentence, the paradox she points to in the rest of that sentence, and the analogies she offers (again) in the second paragraph.
Purely optional: If you're interested in learning more about this epistolary exchange between Abigail Adams and her husband, check out this well-researched student essay--"Abigail Adams and the Doomed Rhetoric of Revolutionary Era Women"--at http://www.drake.edu/artsci/PolSci/ssjrnl/2005/pifer.pdf . (It's safe to download.)

--INVENTED ETHOS, ANALOGIES, TESTIMONIES, & OTHER RHETORICAL STRATEGIES IN THE HEART SAVERS AD. -- Our analysis of magazine ads (assignment due Jan 22) should provide opportunities to discuss the so-called "master trope"--metaphor.  (A page of this web site is dedicated to the trope, Metaphors Be with You, and it's not too early to begin studying it.)  Next Tuesday we'll examine some more visual metaphors.
__________________________________

POSTSCRIPT: 15 January 2008
PREVIEW: 17 January 2008
--GARY HART SPEECH. This afternoon we examined the Aristotelian concepts of ethos (noting distinctions that have been drawn between invented and situated ethos), pathos, logos, and kairos, considering how they were employed by Gary Hart in the 1987 speech in which he announced his withdrawal from the race for the Democratic nomination for president. When we view speeches in classes (especially speeches, like this one, that are not available on the web), get in the habit of taking notes on key lines and key rhetorical strategies. (Without notes, you'll have serious problems reviewing for exams.) To show you what I mean, here are a few of my notes:
-Ethos and Pathos: Hart projects the persona of a father ("a proud man," "an angry and defiant man") who's protective of his children (i.e., his campaign supporters and America's "young people"). The exclamation "Hell no" and the polyptoton of "I bend but don't break--I'm not a broken man" give an impression of strength and determination (even as he's bailing out)--and the hint that we've not seen the last of this guy. He acknowledges making mistakes and lets us know he has a conscience ("tossing and turning all night")--but only in the broadest terms: he never directly takes responsibility for his actions.
-Ethos and Logos. "This can't go on. It's an intolerable situation." He argues (enthymeme) that he has been forced to drop out of the race because the media don't take his ideas seriously. Again, he fails to acknowledge how his own behavior has invited the kind of titillating media attention he's been getting. "In public life, some things are interesting but that doesn't mean they're important." Good observation--but Hart's situated ethos undermines his invented ethos as "an idealist." His claims that he's "a rare bird," one who's "not good at talking about himself," and "not like other politicians" are standard appeals of politicians who seek to portray themselves as innocent outsiders, supposedly uncontaminated by the nasty world of politics. Be wary of such appeals--especially when they're delivered by career politicians.
-Pathos, Ethos, and Kairos: If invented ethos is generally strongest at the beginning of a speech, pathos is commonly the dominant appeal at the close--and Hart attempts to follow this conventional pattern. But the emotional appeals fall flat. The quotation from Jefferson and the metaphorical allusion to John Kennedy ("the torch has been passed to a new generation") are less than convincing efforts to align himself with the greats. His self-serving remark that "I could have been a successful president. but unfortunately we'll never know" comes across as petulant.  And his closing advice to "the young people" to get involved in politics appears to run counter to the unsavory description of political life described elsewhere in the speech. 

--RHETORICAL APPLICATIONS. At the start of Thursday's class, be prepared to discuss the ethical, pathetic, and logical appeals in the Heart Savers' ad and the letter from Abigail Adams, both handed out at the end of today's class. Also, as mentioned in the week's preview (below), I'll ask for some additional examples of rhetoric in everyday life. Over the next couple of days, listen rhetorically to the conversations of companions, colleagues, bosses, and co-workers--to those sadly deluded characters (pretty much everybody except us, right?) who, directly or indirectly, try to persuade others (and perhaps themselves) that they're smarter, dumber, nicer, tougher, prettier, uglier, or generally more (or less) important than you know they really are. And if anybody seems to be working overtime to impress you, wait until you get to class to make fun of them.

--TERMS. The list of terms handed out today is the concise, carry-to-class version of our new online glossary: Tool Kit for Rhetorical Analysis. Click on the terms to study the examples, the pronunciation guides, and the links to related terms. It's not too soon to begin studying The Top 20 Figures of Speech--terms that you should already be familiar with. By midterm, you'll need to know (and be able to apply) all terms in the Tool Kit for Rhetorical Analysis.

--ORIGINS OF RHETORIC. On Thursday we'll begin our look at the history of rhetoric by considering the implications of rhetoric's origins in oral cultures (no writing, no books, not even instant messaging) and the importance of memory in those cultures. In Chapter Three of Orality and Literacy (1982), Walter J. Ong lists some characteristics of the way people in a "primary oral culture" think and express themselves through narrative discourse:
1. Expression is additive or polysyndetic (i.e, " . . . and . . . and . . . and . . .") rather than subordinate or hypotactic.  
2. It is aggregative (e.g., speakers rely on epithets and on parallel and antithetical phrases) rather than analytic.
3. It tends to be redundant or copious.
4. Out of necessity, thought is conceptualized and then expressed with relatively close reference to the human world--that is, with a preference for the concrete rather than the abstract.
5. Expression is agonistically toned (competing, not sharing).
6. Finally, in predominantly oral cultures, proverbs (also known as maxims) are convenient vehicles for conveying simple beliefs and cultural attitudes.
Put simply, many of the stylistic traits that we'll be examining in this course once had a very practical value: they helped illiterate people remember things.


PREVIEW: 15 and 17 January 2008
--READINGS.
-As you work your way through the introduction of Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (pages 1-26), attend carefully to the definitions of rhetoric, the two examples of a rhetorical analysis (of an HP ad and an excerpt from Book 9 of the Iliad), the brief explanation of classical rhetoric, the five canons of rhetoric, the three kinds (or branches) of rhetoric (deliberative, judicial [or forensic], and epideictic), and the brief discussion of the relevance of rhetoric to our times. Also, begin to get to know the terms strategies, antonomasia, communications triangle, persona, ethos, pathos, logos, exordium, narratio (or narration), and confirmatio (or confirmation).  
-Throughout Thank You for Arguing, Heinrichs actually introduces more terms than you'll need to know, so I'll make a point of highlighting the key terms that he uses. In the assigned chapters for this week, know commonplace, antithesis, amplification, chiasmus, ethos, pathos, logos, hypophora, and deliberative rhetoric.

--APPLICATIONS. 
This week, following Heinrichs' lead, we'll consider a few examples of rhetoric in everyday life. (To find out what other students have had to say about this topic, see Rhetorical Situations.) And following the example of Corbett and Connors, we'll conduct a basic rhetorical analysis of one or two advertisements. (Check out a few analyses conducted by past students: "Got Milk," by Christi Healan; Vaseline Total Moisture Dry Skin Lotion, by Stephanie Roberts; and Corona Light, by Lisa Hom.)

--Ethos, Pathos, Logos.
We'll consider applications of "Aristotle's Big Three" (in Heinrichs' phrase) in the context of confessional speeches by two American politicians, Gary Hart and Bill Clinton.


POSTSCRIPT: 10 January 2008
--SYLLABUS. Please make sure that by next Tuesday's class you've read the syllabus carefully. Remember to hold off printing out the online Glossary of Terms. (This weekend I'll be moving some of this information to the new website.)

--DEFINITIONS & ORIGINS OF RHETORIC.  After exchanging introductions at our first class meeting, we danced around some simple definitions of rhetoric. The origins of rhetoric in ancient Greece are discussed in the opening section of "A Survey of Rhetoric," beginning on page 489 in our text Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. I'll be assigning these introductory pages next week, but it wouldn't hurt to get a head start.

-- Watching Bwana Devil (photograph by J.R. Eyerman).
This famous Life magazine photo by J.R. Eyerman of an audience watching Bwana Devil in 3-D was taken in 1952 at the Paramount in Hollywood. Just as members of the audience are responding to the movie in different ways (and those responses--emotional and intellectual, individual and communal--can be considered rhetorical responses), our responses to the photograph probably differ from the reactions of Life magazine readers in 1952 (and those responses also are rhetorical). In other words, the rhetorical situation has changed. Traditionally, rhetoric has referred to persuasive language. Today the term has broadened to include other forms of persuasive communication, including visual and musical rhetoric.

--VISUAL RHETORIC. We briefly considered how this e.e. cummings' poem--
l(a

le
af
fa
ll

s)
one
l

iness
--relies on both a visual and a textual metaphor. Here are two examples of how contemporary advertisements work in similar fashion: Depends and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. And here (make sure your speakers are turned on), in this movie clip from Branagh's Henry V (at YouTube), notice how the background music complements the language to manipulate an emotional response. This, too, is rhetoric. (In a few weeks we'll be examining the St. Crispin's Day speech in detail--that is, we'll be conducting a rhetorical analysis.)

--ORATORICAL RHETORIC. The clips that we watched today from Churchill's World War II speeches and John Kennedy's inaugural address demonstrate more traditional forms of rhetoric. Among the rhetorical strategies employed by Churchill are anaphora:
"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
(Winston Churchill, speech to the House of Commons, 4 June 1940)
. . . and epicrisis:
"When I warned them that Britain would fight on alone, whatever they [Vichy France] did, their generals told the Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, 'In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken.' [pause] Some chicken! [pause] Some neck!"
(Winston Churchill to Canadian Parliament in WWII)
Famously, Kennedy relies on antithesis and chiasmus:
"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."
And here (at YouTube) is the excerpt from Dr. King's final speech that we didn't have time to view in class. Consider the appeals to ethos and pathos in his extended biblical metaphor.
We'll hear again from all three of these fellows before the end of term.

--CHIASMUS is a figure of speech that sounds good and is easy to remember (and memory was one of the five canons of classical rhetoric). Here are a few more examples--you decide how meaningful they are:
-"Treat your friends like family and your family like friends."
-"It is better to be looked over than to be overlooked." (Mae West)
-"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." (Tom Waits)
-"Is this not the true romantic feeling--not to desire to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping you?" (Thomas Wolfe)

--TIP ON LEARNING THE TERMS.  In the first month or so of the semester, we'll have to put special effort into learning a basic rhetorical vocabulary. Doing so will be easier if you try to learn a few terms daily rather than all of them right before the midterm exam. Here's a suggestion. When a term is introduced in class (or in these NOTES or in our course texts), make a point of trying to learn the term (and the concept behind it).  Start with the ten terms (linked to definitions and examples) in this postscript. Be patient: your initial understanding may be fuzzy, but with additional practice, examples, and discussion, the significance of the term should grow clear.

--REMINDER.  Don't forget to send me an e-mail by Sunday--and make sure that you've read the course SYLLABUS and finished the assigned readings by Tuesday's class. And finally . . .

--THINKING RHETORICALLY. A primary goal of this course--whether we're examining speeches, advertisements, song lyrics, supermarkets, poems, or t-shirts--is to encourage you to step outside these various subjects (as we stood outside of the movie audience in Eyerman's photograph) and consider how they work their magic on us: how we are prodded, shaped, manipulated, and seduced into responding in particular ways. Great speeches or poems, for example, are rarely great because they say things that have never been said before; they're great because of the ways that they say things that have been said many times before. Another example. You find yourself sniffling or tearing up at a movie--even weeping violently, great gushers of soggy boo-hoos. Fine. But as budding rhetoricians, when you're done mopping yourselves off, your job is to re-examine that scene (the music, the lighting, the cliches, and all the rest) and yourself to find out which cinematic and rhetorical buttons have been pushed to encourage such a moist response.

What I'm encouraging (at least for the next 15 weeks) isn't a dreary cynicism but a healthy skepticism in the spirit of Montaigne, who understood that doubt is an essential part of the process of forming judgments--which, he promised, will eventually lead to "joyful wisdom."

So if you prefer to think for yourself (rather than rely on gossip, conventional wisdom, talk-radio hosts, and graded reviews in Entertainment Weekly), you should enjoy the ride. Welcome to Rhetoric.
__________________

PREVIEW: 10 January 2008
--The first class meeting of ENGL 5730 in the spring semester will be at 4:30 in Solms 207 on Thursday, January 10. Required course texts:
-Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, 4th ed., by Corbett & Connors ($23.74 at Amazon for a new copy);
-Thank You for Arguing, by Jay Heinrichs ($11.16 at Amazon for a new copy).
 

English 5730 is taught by Dr. Richard Nordquist
Office of Liberal Studies (Solms 211)
Armstrong Atlantic State University
Savannah, Georgia 31419
912/921 5991

e-mail: engl5730@lycos.com      
                                      

UPDATED
24 January 2008