English 622: Classical Rhetoric

I keep thinking about the rhetoric vs. dialectic opposition that we’ve explored throughout the semester. It’s certainly apparent in Plato’s work, as Socrates is aligned with dialectic against what’s portrayed as the spurious rhetoric of the sophists. And the division survives through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, as is best exemplified in the difference between George Trebizond (who clearly favored rhetoric) and Peter Ramus (who placed emphasis on the importance of dialectic by attributing to it both invention and arrangement).

Augustine and Teaching

In reading Longinus and Quintilian, I noticed a few similarities that perhaps merit mention and further reflection:

1. Both authors are careful to articulate the similarities and differences between poetry and rhetoric:

Longinus writes:
"Further, you will be aware of the fact that an image has one purpose with the orator and another with the poets […] The design of the poetical image is enthrallment, of the rhetorical—vivid description" (86).

While Quintilian says:

I am intrigued by Crassus's comments on style near the beginning of Book Three. On pages 199-201, he goes through a litany of past and present orators who represent "a wide distinction” in “accomplishments and natural abilities” (199). Each orator, he asserts, has his own particular “natural genius” which develops into a unique style. Crassus/Cicero is careful to leave a place for education in the development of this style: An orator doesn’t simply rely on his inherent abilities, but must cultivate those abilities through study and practice.

I really enjoyed reading Mark Pepper’s smart, thoughtful comments about style. This was a topic I too became interested in while reading Book Three. Aristotle, ever in search of the cherished Greek virtue of “the middle way,” exhorts rhetors to navigate between superficiality and obscurity, creating a path that is clear but also “strange” enough to inspire “some kind of learning to take place” in the audience. (I was going for an implicit discourse-as-ship metaphor there. But I think it became rather convoluted and downright frigid.

By explicitly relating rhetoric and dialectic, and by asserting that both are “distinct abilities of supplying arguments” rather than fields that are “identifiable with knowledge of the contents of any specific subject,” Aristotle certainly protects rhetoric from some of Socrates’ most vicious attacks (Aristotle 39-40). In Classical Rhetoric, Kennedy explains that Aristotle perceived both rhetoric and dialectic as “tool disciplines that have no subject matter of their own”; rather, both are “methods for dealing with many subjects” (76).

In the Antidosis, Isocrates definitely seems to challenge Plato’s assertions about the role of rhetoric and the sophists. He points out two major criticisms leveled against the sophists:

“The charges are of two types. Some say that the activities of sophists are all foolishness and trickery, since no such education has been invented

In Phaedrus, I think we start to get a much clearer sense of Plato’s Socrates’ view of rhetoric. In the first two speeches—Lysias’ speech read by Phaedrus, and Socrates’ initial response—we are given examples of what Socrates sees as the misuse of oratory. Socrates then gives a very different speech on love, one that proposes an alternate view and is suffused with Platonic philosophical notions about ideals/forms.

Hi Folks,

I'm just wondering if by chance someone accidentally grabbed my copy of the Kennedy text today after class. I brought it with me but later realized it wasn't in my bag when I left. I went back to the room but it wasn't there either.

Thanks,

Megan