English 622: Classical Rhetoric

so i was totally on the same page with tom as i read book 3--the section on bringing-before-the-eyes was really intriguing to me. in part, because i've read a little bit of wittgenstein, barthes, and fleckenstein, all of whom have something to say on the relationship between image and text. they would all argue, i think, that text calls to mind image(s). or that to say the word tree is to call to mind an image of a large plant with a brown trunk, branches, and green leaves.

To begin my response for this week, I would like to return to Plato for a moment and the post I submitted regarding the Phaedrus. The reason I want to step back for a moment is based on something Dr. Blakesley said during class last week, and something I alluded to in my own post, which is the idea of Aristotle’s On Rhetoric being a response to the following passage:

I read books 2 and 3 over a few sittings, and each time I came to it, I was surprised to find Aristotle talking about what we'd now classify as several different fields of study. He seems much like a psychologist at times. At others, he seems to be more of a lawyer. When he starts talking about style, he seems to be the original Strunk and White.