.
PREVIEW: 25 and 27 March 2008
--RHETORIC
OF THE MIDDLE AGES. This week we'll have
a few things to say about early Christian rhetoric and the rhetoric of the Middle
Ages. We'll note how basic concepts introduced by Aristotle and filtered through
Cicero reappear in the context of medieval life. We'll consider why and how the rhetoric of the Middle Ages was
increasingly identified with written style, and we'll pay some attention to St.
Augustine (see below) and his contributions to rhetoric. You should be able to
identify the components of the
trivium and the quadrivium (i.e., the seven liberal arts: read the first
paragraph, skim the rest); and be able to explain the relationship of rhetoric to
preaching (skim this entry on homiletics)
and letter writing. Here, by the way, is a picture of the medieval Lady Rhetoric.
--RHETORIC & THE SEARCH FOR GOD. Though chronologically not of the Middle Ages, St.
Augustine of Hippo (353-430 A.D.) is generally considered a representative figure in the
development of rhetoric during the medieval period. In the Confessions (398 AD),
Augustine records his passage from a sinful youth to his conversion to Christianity
("I had prayed for chastity and said 'Give me chastity and continence--but not
yet'") under the influence of St. Ambrose (see the first three paragraphs of "On Reading Aloud"). After
his conversion he made significant contributions to rhetoric in On Christian Doctrine
(426-427):
Augustine was interested in rhetoric as a means of persuading Christians to lead a holy
life. With that exclusive interest he can be said to have narrowed the province of
rhetoric. But by rejecting the sophists'
preoccupation with style and the other elements of display and by returning to the more
comprehensive rhetoric of Cicero he can be said to have extended the province of rhetoric
once again. He concentrated on biblical texts and especially on the epistles of that
masterful rhetorical artist, St. Paul. Augustine's analyses of these texts, however, were
concerned not so much with the "message" as with the rhetorical craftsmanship.
Somewhat surprisingly, Augustine rejected Quintilian's notion that the rhetor must be a
morally good man. He did not deny that a preacher's reputation for a virtuous life would
have a persuasive effect on the audience, but he recognized that even a vicious preacher
could induce his audience to follow Christ if he were skillful enough in the manipulation
of his suasive resources.
Augustine's rhetoric laid the groundwork for the rhetoric of the sermon, the branch of
study known today as homiletics--a science that was to command a great deal of attention
during, and for many years after, the Renaissance and the Reformation. None of the
classical rhetoricians, of course, had discussed the art of preaching, but the foundations
for such an art lay in the epideictic variety of rhetoric.
(Corbett and Connors, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, 4th ed., 1999,
p. 498)
IRONY AND LOGOS
--SWIFT's "MODEST PROPOSAL." I'm guessing that most of
you will be re-reading this text and that you also have some familiarity with
Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Our focus will be on irony and logos in "A Modest
Proposal." I encourage you to read this brief biographical sketch of Swift. Remember to
bring your printout of Swift's essay to class this week.
--POE's "The Tell-Tale
Heart." You're probably familiar with this one as well. (This story is worth listening to.) Our
focus again will be on irony and logos. After you have read Poe's story read
pages 5-9 of the handout, "Frantic Forensic Oratory." When reading Zimmerman's
article, don't worry about learning all the unfamiliar rhetorical terms he introduces, but
do make sure that you understand his use of those concepts that appear in our Tool
Kit. Remember to bring your printout of Poe's story and Zimmerman's article to class
this week.
--FINAL PROJECT. It's not too
early to begin sending me your topic ideas.
POSTSCRIPT: 20 March 2008
--EXAMS. See Representative Student Answers
to the questions on Part C of today's midterm exam.
POSTSCRIPT: 18 March 2008
--EXAMS. See Representative Student Answers
to the questions on Part A of today's midterm exam.
POSTSCRIPT: 6 March 2008
--STUDY TIP. If you're still
trying to nail down the terms, I encourage you to meet with one or two other students in a
study group before the midterm exam. The best way to review the terms is to squeeze
passages that we've already studied, going all the way back to the first week of term.
--STUDY TIP #2 (BULLETIN BOARD
EXERCISE). Between now and next Saturday (March 5), I invite and
encourage you to use the course bulletin board to post sample
questions and answers for Parts A and C of the midterm
examination. Why should you bother to make the effort? (1) The act of
formulating questions and answers is an excellent way to review for the exam; (2) the act
of posting your Q&A to the board may also help your fellow students to review for the
exam. Should you want to help one another? That's an ethical
question, not a rhetorical one. But the sooner you post your questions and answers
the more likely that I'll have time to go to the board and comment on some of them--and I
hope that my comments may also prove helpful as you review for the exam.
--GRAMMATICAL
PERSON. Study today's handout on grammatical
person, with particular attention to the different degrees of intimacy and distance that
can be achieved through different uses of the first-person singular and plural.
--RHETORICALLY ANALYZING POETRY AND
PROSE.
-If you haven't done so already, please listen to this reading by Dylan Thomas of
his villanelle "Do not go
gentle into that good night." (Also, see the brief commentary and a list of
allusions to the poem at this Wikipedia page.)
John Donne's "Death be not
proud" also appears on You Tube--but I
doubt if the speaker is John Donne. (As you review for the midterm exam, check out this student's
"squeeze" of another sonnet by John Donne.) As discussed today, dispositio (arrangement or
structure) is not only one of the five parts (or "canons") of classical
rhetoric but also in itself an important persuasive element or strategy.
-Have a good look at the two long lists in this excerpt from Fitzgerald's Tender Is
the Night--and consider what these contrasting lists reveal about the character
of Nicole. Also compare Martin Amis's use of hyperbole in the passage from
Money with Dave Barry's use of the same device in this excerpt
from "Revenge of the Pork Person."
--SQUEEZING E. B. WHITE
("Ring of Time"). A
few notes about E. B. White's persona--by E. B. White himself:
-Writing is a form of imposture. I am not at all sure I am anything like the
person I seem to a reader."
(Letters 582)
-The man on paper is always a more admirable character than his creator, who is a
miserable creature of nose colds, minor compromises, and sudden flights into nobility. . .
. I suppose readers who feel friendly toward someone whose work they like seldom
realize that they are drawn more toward a set of aspirations than toward a human
being." (Letters 402)
- By White's own determination, he is "a mousy, faintly worried man" (Every Day
225), "a dreamy-eyed schoolboy" (Letters 261), "a nervous little homebody
in a sack suit" (Wild Flag 53). Such self-deprecating epithets contribute to
the image of a timid, idealistic, and mildly neurotic character, "bashful" and
socially "backward" (Essays 158).
--Most writers find the world and themselves interchangeable (Wild Flag 134)--an
observation that might serve as White's definitions of the complementary rhetorical
strategies of identification
and extension.
A few of my notes on White's primary
rhetorical and stylistic strategies:
--White's predominant rhetorical strategy . . . resides in the effort to establish a
sense of rapport with both his subjects and his readers. As defined by rhetorician
Kenneth Burke, it is the strategy of identification--any of the wide variety of means by which an
author may establish a shared sense of values, attitudes, and interests with his
readers." Of course, as Burke goes on to maintain, "identification is
affirmed with earnestness . . . precisely because there is division."
- Through less direct methods, White maintains what he has described as the
"invisible friendship" of author and reader (Letters 402). Chief among
these methods is one that might simply be called extension,
whereby the narrator projects his values and experiences on others through generalizations
that tacitly implicate his readers. Frequently he climaxes a discussion of a
personal ordeal with a remark about "most people" or "practically
everyone" or "all men." This strategy of implicating the reader
through extension is simply a way of inviting identification without appearing to impose
it. Consider how White's careful use of pronouns contributes to this sense of
"extension" in his essays.
- As White indicates in his essay on the newspaper humorist Don Marquis, these
complementary strategies of identification and extension might be viewed as responses to
"the struggle of the human soul . . . to break through the barriers of silence
and distance into companionship": Friendship, lust, love, art, religion--we
rush into them pleading, fighting, clamoring for the touch of spirit laid against our
spirit. Why else would you be reading this fragmentary page--you with the book in
your lap? You're not out to learn anything, certainly. You just want the
healing action of some chance corroboration, the soporific of spirit laid against
spirit" (One Man's Meat 71-72).
And, finally, a couple of notes on White's
persistent themes.
-White's world is not always as "ordered" and "painless" and
"nice" as some critics have argued. White's persona is commonly a divided
figure, his world a disordered, even frightning place. In his essayistic short story
"The Door," for instance, he dramatizes the alienated state of a modern man by
comparing him to the white rat of an experimental psychologist. The only comfort
available to the nameless narrator is the realization that he is "not the only
one."
-A similar moment of identification and extension marks the climax of White's
short story "The Second Tree from the Corner." Overwhelmed by
"bizarre thoughts," the main character makes ineffective weekly visits to a
psychiatrist, who offers him nothing except occasions for sympathetic identifications:
"Trexler found that he increasingly tended to identify himself with the doctor,
transferring himself into the doctor's seat--probably (he thought) some slick form of
escapism. At any rate, it was nothing new for Trexler to identify himself with other
people" ("Second Tree" 98). But what begins as "escapism"
serves in the end as a tentative cure: "Poor, scared, overworked bastard, thought
Trexler. . . . Trexler knew what he wanted, and what, in general, all men wanted;
and he was glad, in a way, that it was both inexpressible and unattainable" (98).
As you prepare for the midterm exam, be sure to
study my squeeze of "The Ring of Time" along with the essay itself. In the last
part of the term, we'll be examining another well-known essay by E.B. White.
--ORWELL's "A
HANGING." Though for decades
"A Hanging" was presumed to be a journalistic piece based on Orwell's
experiences in Burma between the wars, recent biographers have concluded that Orwell (Eric
Blair) probably never witnessed a hanging--that this famous "essay" is in fact a
short story, a work of fiction. If nothing else, this fact demonstrates that the
recent controversy over James Frey's "novelized memoir," A Million Little
Pieces, follows in a long tradition of disputes over the factual or fictional nature
of first-person accounts. In any case, as Aristotle recognized, the rhetorician is
aware that the "I" of any text is always and inevitably a rhetorical
construction--a persona.
Make sure that you've studied the four student squeezes of Paragraph 10 (handed out this
afternoon).
--READINGS
in Thank You for Arguing. Note in particular the
qualities (according to Cicero) of an effective ethical appeal, the various applications
of dubitatio (the "aw shucks" or Columbo strategy we've already seen
demonstrated), the uses and abuses of pathos (which emotions are worth appealing to, which
ones not?), and the uses and abuses of passive voice, humor, and concession.
--TERMS.
If you've been studying our terms
regularly since the start of the semester (learning about 20 a week), you should now be
reviewing them in preparation for the midterm exam--making sure that you've learned
the full and accurate definition for each one (i.e., do not make up your
own definitions or rely on definitions from other rhetoric sites). Let me illustrate
this point by picking on some of the terms that were somewhat abused or misused by past
students on these SONNET SQUEEZINGS
pages.
Know, for instance, that effectio
does not mean any kind of "personal description" but rather "a
head-to-toe inventory of a person's charms" (and thus most often appears in certain
varieties of love poetry). Know that antithesis doesn't mean any
kind of contrast but rather "the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced
phrases." Likewise, epithet
does not mean "any adjective"; anaphora does not mean "any
repetition of an opening phrase"; parallelism does not mean
"the same number of words in a series of lines"; commonplace does not mean
"common"; and apostrophe
is not the same as personification.
Similarly, the words "pursuit" and "possession" don't illustrate polyptoton; Shakespeare's
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" is not a rhetorical question
(the next 13 lines are spent answering the question); not every appearance of
"as" (e.g., "So long as men can breathe . . .") indicates a simile; George Herbert's "The
spirit and good extract of my heart" is not an example of apposition; Ernest Dowson's
"Surpassing vanity: vain things alone" is not anadiplosis (though it is polyptoton) and "Freedom
to all from love and fear and lust" is not bdelygmia; individual words may
have specific connotations
but rarely entire texts; diacope
and enthymeme are worth
examining in Shakespeare's "And every fair from fair sometime declines," but
alliteration isn't; metaphors
appear throughout Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 ("Let me not to the marriage of true
minds"), not just in line 7; Shelly's "'Then what is life?' I cried" is
both a question and an exclamation (aka exclamatio and ecphonesis--but
"exclamation" works just fine); a question that's raised and answered
is hypophora, not a rhetorical question
(which is not answered).
-A FEW EXAMPLES FROM FIGARO: anaphora;
apophasis;
aporia;
chiasmus;
enthymeme;
exuscitatio;
hypophora;
metonymy;
paradox;
parenthesis;
ploce;
polyptoton;
tapinosis.
POSTSCRIPT: 4 March 2008
--BOOSTING:
the term I slipped into your Tool
Kit a few weeks back. When a speaker says "obviously,"
"certainly," or "without a doubt," watch out. These adverbs
can be handy ways of avoiding an argument, not delivering one.
--ANALYZING
PROSE STYLES. For additional examples of
parataxis and hypotaxis, see this
page at Guilford College. (But mistrust all generalizations--especially this one:
"Another generalization that is often made about the parataxis/hypotaxis continuum is
that parataxis is more masculine and assertive.") For more information about periodic
sentences and loose sentences (another name for the running style), visit The Order of a
Sentence at the University of Ottawa Writing Centre.
--POEMS. Purely optional: Compare Fauset's "Enigma" with her poem "Dead Fires,"
especially in regard to their metaphors. Also, compare Auden's "The More Loving
One" with his
"Two Poems for Hedli Anderson." (Btw, "Stop all the
clocks"--sometimes called "Funeral Blues"--is the Auden poem recited in the
film Four
Weddings and a Funeral.) And while you're at YouTube, listen to Dylan Thomas
reading "Do
not go gentle into that good night"--a poem we'll revisit on Thursday along with
John Donne's "Death
be not proud."
PREVIEW: 4 and 6 March 2008
--ESSAYS. This week we'll be studying two essays, E. B. White's "The Ring of Time" (with my
"lemon-squeezing" rhetorical analysis
of it online) and George Orwell's "A
Hanging" (which will occupy most of our attention in Thursday's class). Pay
special attention to the ethopoeia
(and other devices) in paragraphs 9 and 10 of Orwell's essay.
-Probably best known today as the author of the children's stories Charlotte's Web
and Stuart Little, E. B. White in
his time was known primarily as a New Yorker essayist with a remarkably
graceful and seemingly effortless style (see sprezzatura).
In your ENGL 1101 class, you may have read White's essay (purely optional) "Once
More to the Lake"; after the midterm exam, we'll be considering one or two
of White's other well-known essays.
-"George
Orwell" was the pen name of journalist Eric Blair--another reminder that the
"I" on the page is always a persona, a mask, a rhetorical
construction. Though not a rhetorician in any formal sense of the term, Orwell was
extremely interested in the uses and abuses of language--as demonstrated in one of his
most famous essays (purely optional) "Politics
and the English Language." Try comparing the prose style of "A
Hanging" with that exhibited in the opening
paragraphs of Orwell's novel 1984.
--QUINTILIAN. This week we'll
conclude our brief survey of Roman rhetoric. If you haven't done so already, please study
this efficient little outline,
Quintilian on Rhetoric (comparing his views on the subject with those of Plato,
Aristotle, Isocrates, and Cicero).
--A-G TERMS and H-Z terms.
Be sure to study carefully the examples and comments posted by your colleagues.
POSTSCRIPT: 28 February 2008
--SPEECH. While our analysis of
Dr. King's "I Have a Dream Speech" is still fresh in your minds, read this
rather detailed study, "The 'Integrative' Rhetoric of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 'I Have a
Dream' Speech," paying special attention to the sections labeled
"Abstract," "Voice Merging," "The Prophetic Voice,"
"The Spectacle of the March," "Voice Merging: The Founding Fathers,
Lincoln, and the Prophet King," and "Conclusion."
--Standouts and
Puzzlers: A-G Terms. I should have all your comments (if sent by the deadline)
posted here by midnight (Feb. 28). Please read the comments along with the examples as you
review the terms. Next week I'll be adding my comments to both the A-G page and the H-Z page.
--POEMS.
We'll finish up with our handful of love poems next Tuesday. In the meantime . . .
(1) Listen to W.H. Auden read "The More Loving
One" (click on "Listen now").
(2) Read a few critical comments on Dickinson's "Wild nights!":
* "Is the 'thee' of the poem God or a human lover? There is no
easy way to tell. The poem seems to name some sort of longed-for ecstasy: 'Ah, the Sea!'
But it is not quite clear what sort it is. What exactly does the word 'Wild' mean here? An
abandonment to sexuality? What is this 'luxury'? The poem's true subject seems to be the
fact that the poet has felt something. . . . Dickinson's poem is a powerful
assertion of feeling--but there is no definite social or even religious context in which
the feeling takes place. The poem, like feeling itself, is mysterious, not quite to be
pinned down. Feeling is like the ocean: 'Ah, the Sea!' There is perhaps the suggestion as
well that there is a force which ordinarily moves against feeling- 'Futile--the
Winds- / To a Heart in port'--and so it is exceptional for the poet to be doing this, to
be feeling something so intensely. Feeling is not present at all times but is a thing to
be longed-for, conjured up, an if only."
(from "American
Literature," by Jack Foley)
* "[Dickinson's] treatment of the
daring theme of women's sexual fantasy in this deservedly famous poem bears comparison
with erotic themes as they appeared in popular sensational writings. . . .
Dickinson's repeated phrase 'Wild Nights' is a simple but dazzling metaphor that
communicates wild passion--even lust--but simultaneously lifts sexual desire out of the
scabrous by fusing it with natural image of the night. The second verse introduces a
second nature image, the turbulent sea and the contrasting quiet port, which at once
universalizes the passion and purifies it further through abstract metaphor. Also the
second verse makes clear that this is not a poem of consummation but rather of pure
fantasy and sexual impossibility. . . . There is . . . a pure fervent fantasy whose
frustration is figured forth in the contrasting images of the ocean (the
longed-for-but-never-achieved consummation) and the port (the reality of the poet's
isolation). Teh third verse begins with an image, "Rowing in Eden," that further
uplifts sexual passion by yoking it with a religious archetype. . . . The persona's
concluding wish to "moor" in the sea expresses the sustained intense sexual
longing and the simultaneous frustration of that longing."
(from "Emily Dickinson and Popular Culture," by David Reynolds)
* "Geographical and cartographical
metaphors of exploration have for obvious and much discussed reasons been important to New
World literature and consciousness and are, not surprisingly, often highlighted in
Dickinson's works. Therefore, such a metaphor is especially useful to describe the
'new world' opened by new methods for reading devised from studying Dickinson's holograph
productions. That 'Rowing in Eden'--a phrase from what is widely regarded to be
Dickinson's most erotic poem--christens this approach is most fitting since these
procedures parallel her activities as reader. Since 'Wild Nights - Wild Nights!' couples
the sexual with the textual, the lyric's penultimate phrase connotes both action and place
in erotic context. While the action is smooth and rhythmic, the place is the site (in
Judeo-Christian mythology) of humanity's Mother's seduction and the consequent great Fall
into knowledge and sin. Since, like assumptions about Sappho's homosexual or heterosexual
desire which presuppose interpretations of the Greek's lyrics, assumptions about her
womanhood or her sexual desires often color interpretations of Dickinson's writings, the
phrase is at least doubly appropriate.
" . . . What the manuscripts tell us about her as a reader suggests that Dickinson
expected anything but passivity from her audience. In Roland Barthes' terms, she wanted to
inspire readers to be coproducers of texts, "methodological fields" which can be
"experienced only in an activity of production" (an act of
interpretation), not mere consumers of works, artifacts, or "fragment(s) of
substance, occupying a part of the space of books (in a library for example)." Her
poems are, then, always what he would call writerly, oriented toward their futures
with readers. That she did not regard works as untouchably sacred is obvious from her own
role as reader, for Dickinson sometimes went so far as to cut up others' works to take an
illustration or group of words to append her own."
(from "Rowing in Eden: Reading Dickinson Reading," by Martha Nell Smith)
* mrs.
sheely is making us do an analysis of this boring poem. i have no clue what it is about.
it is probably the stupidest thing i have ever read."
Posted on 2008-01-28 | by a guest.
POSTSCRIPT: 26 February 2008
--"I
HAVE A DREAM" (and on YouTube)--unedited.
You may find it worthwhile to contrast the transcript of
the speech that Dr. King actually delivered in 1963 with the version
that he later approved for publication. Optional Review Questions: See "Activities"
1-6 at the bottom of Ms. Byrne's page; see also "Rhetorical Structure: Figures of
Speech" #1-#10 on Ms.
Barton's "Critical Thinking" page. Rhetorical Situation: For more
information about the March on Washington and the social context of Dr. King's speech,
check out this article by the
late-newsman Peter Jennings.
When we continue our analysis of the speech on Thursday, I'll give you a handout that
considers how "I Have a Dream" can be viewed in the tradition of the jeremiad --i.e.,
"a prolonged lamentation or complaint; also a cautionary or angry
harangue." (Purely optional: If you're interested in reading a speech that complemented
Dr. King's jeremiad, check out the address
by John Lewis at the March on Washington in 1963.)
--CICERO
AND ROMAN RHETORIC. Let me know if you have
questions about any of the points raised in this afternoon's class or in the assigned
readings on Cicero.
PREVIEW: 26 and 28 February 2008
--SPEECH. This week we'll look
closely at Dr. King's "I Have a
Dream" speech, considering it in light of the conventions of the American Jeremiad
and the African-American
Jeremiad (pdf). Be prepared to discuss the key rhetorical strategies in King's speech.
(Video and audio of the speech can be found at the American Rhetoric
website.)
--CICERO. We'll review some of the key concepts introduced in Cicero's De
Oratore.
--RHETORICAL TERMS. We'll continue to sort out some of the more esoteric (and sometimes
confusing) terms and apply some of these concepts to the assigned poems.
POSTSCRIPT: 21 February 2008
--RHETORIC
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL. As noted in class, this
is an especially rich season for vivid demonstrations of rhetorical principles and
strategies that we're studying in our class. Whether or not you have a strong interest in
politics and/or the media, I think you'll find it worthwhile to keep an eye on a few blogs
and websites that examine current political issues and controversies from a rhetorical
perspective. Here are two recommendations:
-The Rhetorica Press-Politics Journal (hosted by Dr
Andrew Cline, assistant professor of journalism at Missouri State University): "The Rhetorica Network offers analysis and commentary about the
rhetoric, propaganda, and spin of journalism and politics, including analysis of
presidential speeches and election campaigns. "
-Figaro's Figures of Speech Served Fresh. This
site, maintained with a sense of humor by Jay Heinrichs, author of our text Thank You
for Arguing, regularly offers current examples of figures and tropes. In addition,
his pages on Pythonisms and Homerisms offer some amusing ways of
learning the terms. (Note, however, that Heinrichs'
glossary of terms is far more extensive than ours.)
--RHETORIC IN ROME. The handout "The Rise of Rome and the Rhetoric
of Cicero" (followed by "Imperial Rome and the Rhetoric of Quintilian")
expands on points raised on pages 494-497 in Classical Rhetoric. Next week's
assigned readings (in both of our texts) focus on Cicero's notions about the parts of a
speech.
--SONNET SQUEEZING: As a follow up to our rhetorical reading of two Shakespearean sonnets this
afternoon, please go to this SONNET
SQUEEZING exercise (courtesy of the rhetoric class of 2002), check out the assignment
guidelines, and then review some of the student work posted here, especially Melissa Hill's "squeeze" of
Aphra Benn's "Epitaph," Eric Verhine's squeeze of John Donne,
and Joanne Mueller's squeeze of
Shakespeare's Sonnet 79. For now, just read 'em. We'll have more to say
about Renaissance rhetoric after the midterm.
--CLARIFYING RHETORICAL TERMS. We reviewed some terms that
have puzzled students in the past, making distinctions between anaphora and polysyndeton, antirrhesis and categoria, apostrophe (rhetorical
definition, #2) and hypophora,
metaphor and catachresis (not
on our terms list), cliche and proverb
(aka maxim), dehortatio
and diatyposis, diacope and epizeuxis, running style and periodic sentence.
If you haven't done so already, take this Quiz on Rhetorical Terms (prepared
by the AASU Rhetoric class of 1999), this Review Quiz, and this Quiz on Commonly Confused Figures
of Speech. Over the next two weeks, as you're working on the terms exercises, send me
an email if you run across any terms that may still be puzzling you.
--Terms
Tips. Practice reviewing related terms
together. On this
glossary page, for example, you'll find two groups of related terms: (1) Repetition of
Letters and Sounds; (2) Repetition of Words, Phrases, Clauses, and Ideas. Over here, you'll find a
collection of argumentative
techniques.
POSTSCRIPT: 19 February 2008
--RHETORIC IN ROME. As we move from Greece to Rome, be guided by Dr.
Craig Smith's outline of "The
Development of Roman Rhetorical Theory" (focusing on sections VIII and
IX only).
--What Would Aristotle Make of Scalia? (handout) Notice how Dr.
Frost applies some basic Aristotelian principles to a memorable dissent by Justice Scalia.
For further advice on how to distinguish irony from sarcasm, pay a quick visit to
the Sarcasm Society: "How to Recognize Irony." (Purely
optional: "Verbal
Irony.") We'll be examining irony in more depth later in the term.
--ATTIC and ASIATIC. In your readings on
Cicero's contributions to rhetoric, you've seen how these two terms are generally used to
characterize broad stylistic traits of a particular writer or even of a certain literary
period. Attic style (sometimes even more vaguely known as plain style)
tends to favor (apparent) simplicity; Asiatic style tends to be more obviously
ornamental. Of course, both styles (as we saw today in our reading of "Ain't I a
Woman?") are highly rhetorical. A deliberately (sometimes comically)
exaggerated Asiatic style is known as euphuism (not to be
confused with euphemism).
--"Yes We Can"--the
Obama Music Video (by Will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas) that Valerie called our attention to is posted at YouTube and also at ABC News. (Purely optional: A
transcript of the speech that inspired the video is online here.
For another example of a speech with a memorable refrain see Jesse Jackson's
"Keep Hope Alive" address at American Rhetoric.)
--SQUEEZING a TEXT. We've seen (by way of Richard Lanham's analysis of Lincoln's Gettysburg
Address) how "squeezing" a text can be a useful first stage in
conducting a rhetorical analysis. Lanham defines "squeezing" as "exhaustive
rhetorical description--find[ing] every verbal pattern you can in a given text." On
Thursday we'll squeeze a few love poems--and in the process learn a few more terms.
--SPEECHES & UNSTABLE TEXTS: Sojourner Truth. We
conducted an introductory rhetorical analysis of one version of Sojourner Truth's famous
declaration "Ain't I a Woman?"
Among other things, you should now feel comfortable illustrating and explaining the
effects of the polysyndetic
and paratactic sentence
structures; the ethical, pathetic, and logical appeals in the address; the use of erotesis, epizeuxis, epimone, exuscitatio, hypophora, enthymemes,
exclamations, and metaphors as well as her adapatation
of call-and-response.
Purely Optional: If you would like to learn more
about the life and the rhetoric of Sojourner Truth, see me to borrow this biography by
Nell Irvin Painter: Sojourner
Truth: A Life, A Symbol. (Even more purely
optional: You can pick up your Sojourner Truth BBQ Apron here.)
--CLARIFYING RHETORICAL TERMS. Today's handout, remember,
contains some misidentifications of terms offered by students in the past. On
Thursday we'll use their examples to try to clear up some common confusions.
--GRAMMAR & RHETORICAL TERMS. I have a hunch that some of the terms may be
puzzling to you because your memory of basic grammar may be rusty. Please have a good look
at Top 24 Grammatical Terms
That We Should Have Learned in School (more about grammar on Thursday).
PREVIEW: 19 and 21 February 2008
--GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. We'll
take a last look at Gilbert Highet's rudimentary rhetorical analysis of Lincoln's address
and then briefly consider Richard Lanham's "squeeze" of the same along with the
excerpts from Lincoln at Gettysburg. Make sure that you know the meanings of (and
the distinctions between and among) parallelism, isocolon, antithesis, and chiasmus. Terms Tip: two
analogies to guide you--
-Anadiplosis is to gradatio as tapinosis is to bdelygmia.
-And tapinosis is to bdelygmia as (in baseball) a
strike is to a strikeout.
--SPEECHES BY
TRUTH AND KING. Among other activities this week, we'll be studying two major
speeches in the history of the civil rights movement: "Ain't I a Woman?" by Sojourner
Truth, and (if time allows) "I Have a
Dream," by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
--TERMS. After a quick review of basic grammatical structures,
we'll "squeeze" our love poems to identify, clarify, and draw distinctions among
related rhetorical
strategies and figures of speech.
--RHETORIC AT ROME. This week we'll make the transition from ancient
Greece to first-century-B.C. Rome. Continuing our quick survey of classical
rhetoric, we'll consider some of the key issues raised by Cicero and Quintilian,
both of whom were especially influenced by the Athenian philosopher Isocrates. Among other things, we'll consider
the debate between Attic and Asiatic styles, Cicero's
emphasis on delivery, Cicero's
own oratorical style (characterized by amplification), and the
reasons for his assassination.
No later than Thursday's class, please have a look at these online pages to reinforce and
clarify ideas introduced in our Classical Rhetoric text: the first eight
paragraphs of "Marcus
Tullius Cicero" (which discusses the influence of Cicero's so-called Asiatic
style) and section one ("The Life") of this article from The Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy; this sketch of
Quintilian's life and work (from Wikipedia) and this efficient little outline, Quintilian on Rhetoric
(comparing his views on the subject with those of Plato, Aristotle, Isocrates, and
Cicero).
--RHETORIC AND THE COURT. As a way of reviewing key
principles already introduced and preparing for our study of legal rhetoric, we'll look at
a pair of articles from the journal Legal Affairs (handouts on Tuesday).
POSTSCRIPT: 14 February 2008
--Aristotle's Rhetoric: Books
Two and Three. Among other things, we considered (1) why Aristotle chose
to revisit ethos and pathos and examine them in relation to each another; (2) the
importance of audience analysis and its relation to methods of reasoning and strategies of
style; (3) the Aristotelian concept of "invention" as discovery or research
rather than imaginative "creation"; (4) the significance of metaphor (the master
trope) as a cognitive as well as a stylistic device; (5) the importance of finding or
establishing "common ground" with an audience; (6) the importance of concealing
artifice; (7) the different levels or hierarchies of style (defined by the Romans as plain,
middle, and grand); and (8) Aristotle's ideas about the basic structure
of a speech (ideas that would be amplified by Cicero and Quintilian). For review purposes,
check out this Synopsis of
Aristotle's Rhetoric. Purely optional: a
translation of all three books of Aristotle's Rhetoric
is online.
--Rhetorical Strategies in Julius Caesar. We concluded our discussion of Antony's speeches in
Act III, scene two by focusing on kairos, epanalepsis, irony, and
paralepsis (aka apophasis).
--Quick Review of Terms. Most of the terms in today's review exercise are discussed
and illustrated in the pages from Classical Rhetoric that were assigned for this
week. In a few cases, as noted in class, your answers may differ from mine and still be
correct. Here again are my answers:
1. G
2. A
3. F
4. B
5. H
6. C
7. E
8. I
9. J
10. D
11. M
12. K
13. N
14. L
15. O
--Additional Review of Terms. If you'd like more practice, try your hand (and head) at
this Quiz on Rhetorical Terms,
created by the Rhetoric class of 1999. Clues are provided, and answers appear at the
bottom of the page. If you run into any problems, shoot me an email.
--Lincoln
at Gettysburg. The excerpts from the Gary Wills text (sorry for the
typos) are meant to supplement earlier handouts (Lanham's "squeeze" of Lincoln's
speech and Gilbert Highet's introductory rhetorical analysis) and the information on our Resources page. Next week we'll
briefly review these materials along with the speech itself. In the meantime, listen
to Bob Newhart's 50-year-old comedy routine on "Abe Lincoln vs. Madison
Avenue" at YouTube.
____________________
NOTES ARCHIVE C: Feb. 14-Mar. 24
NOTES ARCHIVE B: Jan. 24-Feb. 7
NOTES ARCHIVE A: Jan. 10-Jan. 24
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
25 March 2008
