English 5361: Week 5 Post – Roman Rhetoric
Romans seemed to have a taste for all things Greek. We really shouldn't be surprised considering the similarities in their gods that they also picked up Greek Rhetoric. Rome's famous rhetors added their own spin to the mix of course, and the Roman's managed to shape the form in which Rhetoric would be taught for centuries to come. Cicero and Quintilian may well have been Rome's most famed rhetors.
Cicero list five canons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, expression, memory, and delivery. Despite being credited with the advancement of the five Canons, Cicero clearly admits that he was not the first to discover them.
Invention means finding valid arguments that succeed in conveying the rhetor's point. Arrangement is the skill of putting those arguments that the rhetor worked so hard to invent in the proper order to have the proper impact. Expression was the skill of presenting those arguments, which the rhetor has dutifully invented and arranged, in the proper words to have the desired impact. Memory was the ability to remember those carefully selected words in the proper order for the proper arguments. Perhaps in the world of the teleprompter, memory seems less important, but the for these ancient rhetors, it was essential. Delivery is the skill of control: the rhetor must control his/her voice and demeanor so that he/she does not blow the carefully invented, arranged, expressed, and memorized argument.
I suppose one could say of the 5 canons that you can't have one without the other. They build on each other, providing a step-by-step method of speaking well.
Quintilian, our next famous Roman rhetor, was more of a teacher than Cicero, which may be why he did not meet such a horrific fate. Quintilian espoused a most rigid plan for the education of a rhetor, beginning with the choice of mother for the child. Quintilian indicated that a successful rhetor would have an educated mother and a well-spoken nurse, so that he could be brought up properly from infancy. This may have been one of the strangest reasons for a step forward in the education of women, but it could be considered a step. If the mother needed to be educated to produce intelligent children, then at least that implied that he believed that the mother could be educated. Some of the Greek teachers did not even accept women in their schools.
My ideas for my assignment are in the previous post. Please give me any feedback that you can. I could use it.
Cicero list five canons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, expression, memory, and delivery. Despite being credited with the advancement of the five Canons, Cicero clearly admits that he was not the first to discover them.
Invention means finding valid arguments that succeed in conveying the rhetor's point. Arrangement is the skill of putting those arguments that the rhetor worked so hard to invent in the proper order to have the proper impact. Expression was the skill of presenting those arguments, which the rhetor has dutifully invented and arranged, in the proper words to have the desired impact. Memory was the ability to remember those carefully selected words in the proper order for the proper arguments. Perhaps in the world of the teleprompter, memory seems less important, but the for these ancient rhetors, it was essential. Delivery is the skill of control: the rhetor must control his/her voice and demeanor so that he/she does not blow the carefully invented, arranged, expressed, and memorized argument.
I suppose one could say of the 5 canons that you can't have one without the other. They build on each other, providing a step-by-step method of speaking well.
Quintilian, our next famous Roman rhetor, was more of a teacher than Cicero, which may be why he did not meet such a horrific fate. Quintilian espoused a most rigid plan for the education of a rhetor, beginning with the choice of mother for the child. Quintilian indicated that a successful rhetor would have an educated mother and a well-spoken nurse, so that he could be brought up properly from infancy. This may have been one of the strangest reasons for a step forward in the education of women, but it could be considered a step. If the mother needed to be educated to produce intelligent children, then at least that implied that he believed that the mother could be educated. Some of the Greek teachers did not even accept women in their schools.
My ideas for my assignment are in the previous post. Please give me any feedback that you can. I could use it.
posted by Jessica Badger at
9:05 PM
4 Comments:
Jessica,
In both your Weeks 4 and 5 posts there is evidence of good rhetorical thinking---on Cicero's part (in your Week 5 post) and on the ACS's part in their journal relaunch (in your Week 4 post). By this, specifically, I am referring to the anchoring mechanism used.
Cicero anchored some of his beliefs in Greek rhetoric, but he also put a new spin on some of the items. It sounds like the same will be true in the journal relaunch.
From a persuasion/integration standpoint these methods of knowledge creation work well.
Because they are each anchored in something that previously held positive weight (greek rhetoric or the previous journal), this weight lends ethos to new forthcoming products (Cicero’s slant or the new journal).
But, of course, there is a flip side to this: if the audience was not impressed with the original product, then that might make them skeptical of the new product----unless the limitations/drawbacks of the original product were overtly recognized and acknowledged in the launch of the new product.
So in either case, improving up on something that was already good or repairing something that was otherwise considered weak, there is benefit in anchoring new arguments and products to old ones.
Cris
Do the 5 canons get played out in other ways throughout history? For instance, does the middle ages focus on delivery? Or, are there other canons more important then?
Jessica,
I want to focus on your comment about memory today. You noted the use of the teleprompter, which has certainly changed the way speechmakers prepare and give their addresses. But what I found intriguing in this week's readings was the comment Augustine made in On Christian Doctrine regarding the changing times of more oral information being written down. The way he states the comment implies that, at his heart, he feels a loss of the oral traditions of learning. At that time, much more is being written down (though much is lost as well). You get a sense of the loss of tone, inflection, memory, and connection that is certainly diminished in written works when Augustine states: "...writing and handed down, that they not only require to be read and heard, but also to be explained" (Bizzell and Herzberg, p. 406). I think Augustine is expressing his sense that the written word requires greater investigation and explanation than the oral communication because of the loss of part of the canons. In addition, he has moved from his childhood in rhetoric-based learning to a career and calling based in scriptures and documentation. He seems to be reconciling the change.
Still, going back to the memory canon, I think he finds other ways to bring memory back into the picture, as do Quintillian and Cicero. For Augustine, the ability to answer questions about his faith and be able to "anticipate other questions" (Bizzell and Herzberg, p. 403) creates a situation where memory of the scriptures (and for Augustine of methods of persuasion in style) aids in better delivery and, as Augustine states, better defending the faith. Like you state, the canons truly do build on each other. And they also come back around, as we are seeing with the use of video and other media on the Internet.
Emily
Dr. Rice,
I think that the canons are present in other times, but they play differing roles and have differing levels of importance at different times in history.
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