English 622: Classical Rhetoric

Reading through Chapter 9 of Kennedy, I was struck by how the Medieval rhetors seem to want to consolidate the classical rhetorical traditions into curricula and training rituals. The monks want to pick the best training methods for other monks, and teachers want to choose the best of the rhetorical tradition to help their students. It might be how Kennedy writes it, but I feel like in the Medieval Age, we really see some of the classical rhetoric being truncated and reduced according to the needs of students of different forms.

The last thing Kennedy says in Chapter 7 is, "Augustine had made it possible for Christians to appreciate and teach eloquence without associating it with paganism, and in so doing permanently enriched Christian literature and criticism." This seems true, as Kennedy knows his stuff, but it belies the reason that Augustine and other early church fathers brought rhetoric in-

I feel like Quintillian is the first rhetorician we're reading that I would really call a pedagogue. Especially in the sections we're reading- he doesn't defend rhetoric, he just tells people how to teach it.

I really like how Cicero introduces style in Book 3- style works "not so that some speakers are to be censured and others commended, but that those who are allowed to merit praise, merit it for different excellences," (199).

I admire Cicero's approach because too often comp teachers (myself included) can look at student papers and assume that there is no style or that the style is wrongly chosen. The way that Cicero describes it, if only for that moment, style seems like something that is appreciated more than sought after.

I was shocked to read Aristotle's description of what friendliness is and why we have friends (Book 2, Chapter 4). Well, not shocked, but mildly surprised at the simplicity of his definition.

Aristotle essentially says "in friendship, the more we get together the happier we'll be. Your friends are my friends and my friends are your friends."

Having read Aristotle's Physics in High School, marveled at its intricacy, and then referred to its brilliance in subsequent college classes to make myself sound intelligent, I am shocked to hear Kennedy point out his Rhetoric's flaws. To a young mind, Aristotle seems to have absolute mastery over every subject. I'm surprised to see that Kennedy's critique is so unceremonious, too, pointing out the flaws one by one, in order from most serious to least. I guess I'm still of the mind that if a thinker has been literally carved into marble he should be handled with kid gloves.

I was really interested in the assertion that Isocrates makes early in "Against the Sophists," something to the effect of, "The Sophists don't care about their students, even though they profess to teach them the highest principles."

This struck me in two ways:

I continue to be shocked at how Socrates smacks of the Christian theology I'm so familiar with. I knew about his ideas on the soul and forms, but all the talk about the soul "rising" up to a higher plane of perfection was something I didn't know. That proto-heaven was a sort of a revelation to read about.

Also, the idea that a soul can traverse between the higher plane and the lower sounds vaguely Eastern. The whole Bodhisattva idea of the returning soul is revolutionary to hear about in this Greek text.

Note: we'll probably discuss this in class today, so if you don't want to get bored, you can wait until after to take in this blog.

The first reading question was impossible to answer. Almost like a Socratic question, in fact, or a rhetorical question. "Where does Gorgias stumble and why?" is like asking, "Does Gorgias have a shot at winning the argument?"

My name is Lars Soderlund, and I'm a second year PhD here in Rhetoric and Composition. I often get in trouble with my peers for putting Composition before Rhetoric when I say the name of our program. I do that because Composition and Rhetoric is how the University of South Carolina, where I received my MA in American Literature, have titled their program.

I'm from Park Hills, KY, a suburban community close to the Ohio border, where there is nary a brother-sister marriage or moonshine still to be found (despite stereotypes). There might be meth labs, I'm not sure, but they're everywhere.