Word Magic

Advanced Rhetorical WritingMatt Barton

Rhetorical Questions

• What is the relationship between truth and language?

• Just how powerful is rhetoric?

• What are the moral obligations of rhetoric?

• Can wisdom be taught?

Classical Rhetoric

• Figures of Classical Rhetoric:– Pre-Socratics (Sophists & Aspasia)– Isocrates (436–338 BCE)– Plato (427-347 BCE)– Aristotle (384-322 BCE)– Cicero (106-43 BCE)– Quintilian (35-95 CE)

Western Rhetorical History

• Crucial Period: 500-300 BCE• Place: Greece: Athens and Syracuse

– Greece was leaving orality and embracing literacy.

– After 510 BCE, Athens became a (limited) democracy.

– After 467 BCE, Syracuse overthrew tyrant Hieron and became democratic.

• Corax and Tisias began formally studying rhetoric

For a Fee

• Foreign scholars called “Sophists” arrived in Athens and began teaching – Public Speaking– Power of Language– Social Origin of all Knowledge– Cultural Relativism

Kairos

• Sophists focus on immediate circumstances and expediency– Timing and contingency, or Kairos, is

everything– Communities must embrace, tolerate, and

benefit from cultural diversity

Gorgias (483-375 BCE)

• Born in Leontini in Sicily, birthplace of rhetoric.

• Famously said:– Nothing exists; – Even if something exists, nothing can be

known about it; and – Even if something could be known about

it, knowledge about it can't be communicated to others.

Context

• The story of Helen:– Paris (Alexander) is asked to choose

among three goddesses: Hera (power), Athena (glory), and Aphrodite (love).

• Paris chooses Athena, who “gives” him Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world.

• Helen leaves with Paris for Troy, abandoning her husband (Menelaus, king of Sparta).

• As revenge, Menelaus teams up with his brother, Agamemnon (king of Mycenae) to storm the walls of Troy.

Helen

• Christopher Marlowe:– Was this the face that launch'd a

thousand ships And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

Encomium of Helen

• “Speech is a powerful lord, which by means of the finest and most invisible body effects the divinest works: it can stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity.”– Rhetoric produces effects and creates

emotions.

Word Magic

• “The power of the incantation is wont to beguile [the soul] and persuade it and alter it by witchcraft.”

• “The effect of speech upon the condition of the soul is comparable to the power of drugs over the nature of bodies.”– Rhetoric has a coercive power over us.

Oh, Gorgias!

• “I wished to write a speech which would be a praise of Helen and a diversion to myself.” – Rhetoric is not only a powerful tool, but

also a lot of fun!