RhetoricBackground and Issues Greek Knowledge Roman Values RhetoricBackground

Rhetoric—Background and Issues Greek Knowledge, Roman Values

Rhetoric—Background and Issues… Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 – 43 B. C. ) -Cicero was a Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul, and constitutionalist. -Cicero is widely considered one of Rome’s greatest orators and prose stylists.

Rhetoric—Background and Issues… -The Roman political elite used oratory to boost their power by generating evidence of popular support. -The Roman linguistic culture was linked to social order.

Rhetoric—Background and Issues… -In the Medieval period (the Middle Ages) there occurred a “fossilization” of rhetoric. -There was a widespread, slavish adherence to authority; rote -Aristotle’s “Art of Rhetoric” was lost to Europe, but was reintroduced in the Arabic.

Rhetoric—Background and Issues… -The reemergence of the art of rhetoric was key to the emergence of the Renaissance. -Martin Luther and the Protestant Revolution, for example.

Rhetoric—Background and Issues… The Eighteenth Century— -David Hume (1711 -1776)—Scottish philosopher / radical empiricism Hume felt that his age was ‘both superior in philosophy’ and ‘much inferior in eloquence’ to the classical era.

Rhetoric—Background and Issues… -In the 18 th century, as the “Divine Right of Kings” came under challenge, the new forms of government that emerged required more and more public deliberation.

Rhetoric—Background and Issues… The 19 th century— -The practice of rhetoric became more and more focused on advocating a worldview. -This is called ‘Hortatory’ rhetoric -It contrasts with ‘Laudatory’ rhetoric, which is the rhetoric of praise.

Rhetoric—Background and Issues… In sum… -Rhetoric is about much more than the arrangement of the figures of speech to create a pleasing impression on listeners. -A society’s argument reveal what it considers important; and, also, obliquely, the issues it doesn’t much want to discuss. -Rhetoric is the means to ‘decode’ a society’s social DNA.