We often hear rhetoric spoken of as a tool in the maniacal
plotting and manipulation of political candidates, but this is a largely
uninformed and parochial view of what rhetoric really is.
I think of rhetoric as a means to achieve my purpose as an
author. Taking into consideration the audience and context, rhetoric allows me
to maximize the efficacy of my text. When making rhetorical choices in a given
text – or when analyzing the choices of an author – I consistently refer back
to the three appeals of the rhetorical triangle: ethos (appeals based on the author’s credibility), pathos (appeals to emotion), and
logos (appeals to logic).
Rhetoric began in Ancient Greece amidst a divide between the
Sophists (Protagoras among them) and philosophers like Socrates and Plato.
Sophists were something like traveling teachers, employing rhetoric and
persuasion in their oration and to win debates. Most of what we know about
Sophistry comes from Plato’s writings, where its practicers are consistently defamed.
As a philosopher, Plato vehemently argued that Sophists had no real concept or
access to the truth studied by himself and Socrates; merely, that they used
language to persuade others of their false truth (and were often paid well for
it). Plato’s protégé, Aristotle, approached the art of rhetoric more willingly.
Aristotle’s Rhetoric attempted to
define the various forms that rhetoric may take and how it can be used justly
within these genres, as well as describing ethos,
pathos, and logos in detail.
Ancient Rome saw rhetoricians such as Cicero and Quintilian.
Quintilian gave us his five canons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style,
impact, memory, and delivery. Cicero introduced stasis theory: the idea of
finding a common place of understanding to promote better argumentation. Moving
into Medieval Times and the Renaissance, the boom in literacy moved writing
away from the formulaic and toward the individual and stylized. The 18th
and 19th centuries brought us textbooks focused on the art of
rhetoric as well as university Rhetoric departments, which evolved (perhaps by
chance, as we discussed in class) into the English departments we know today.
One of the things I’m most excited about for this course is
gaining a thorough knowledge of the fields of rhetoric and composition and
technical writing. I’ve had many of those “huh?” moments when speaking with
faculty and peers; there are key scholars in our field that I’m still unfamiliar
with, at least by name, as well as major theories. I hope that by the end of
this semester – and the end of our 124 “Key Words” – I will be more fluent in
the language of our field.
A few links I found helpful when writing this blog entry:
