The Relevance of Rhetoric

Author(s): Barry Ulanov

Source: The English Journal, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Apr., 1966), pp. 403-408
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/811432
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 ENGLISH JOURNAL
Vol. 55 April 1966 No. 4

The Relevance of Rhetoric

Barry Ulanov

Associate Professor of English

Barnard College
New York City

W E HAVE seen a great deal of the Rhetoric is beyond a doubt the generic
word rhetoric in recent years. It has term that best covers all the arts of verbal
turned up often in speculative treatises persuasion and perhaps other kinds of
about the nature of language and com- persuasion as well. But it is not merely
munication. It has been used with in- a wide word, offering shelter for all sorts
creasing frequency by the editors of and
vague maneuvers in the general direc-
compilers of English textbooks totionde- of persuasion. It has a long and
richly detailed tradition involving the
scribe the methods underlying their edit-
ing and compiling. Some of the time, closest
at possible analysis of language, not
least, it has been used in accordance with
just a description of the way it behaves
ancient tradition, but more often, I for
sus- the spectators of language. Rhetoric
pect, it has been just a handy term in to
this sense of the word is the psychol-
cover almost anything more or ogy
less of language. In it, analysis and
associated with an apparatus of persua-
synthesis are very closely related func-
sion. One cannot quarrel with eithertions: one takes things apart only to be
usage. Both have honorable sanction.
able to put them together again. One
looks at the inner works of a skillful
In the spring of 1965, NCTE sponsored writer
two with admiration, of course, but
Institutes on Composition, one in Norfolk, Vir-
the inner works, no matter how elegantly
ginia, one in Tucson, Arizona. Eugene Smith,
arranged
Department of English, University of Washing- before one, make a fairly
ton, was the director of both. The first five
sterile object. It is only when they have
articles in this issue are based on papers read
been put back together again that one
at the institutes. They will be published by
NCTE as a pamphlet, under the editorship of really mark the achievement of the
can
Professor Smith. writer and, to the extent that it is rele-

403

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 404 ENGLISH JOURNAL

or inhuman
vant to one's own work, or somewhereimitate
perhaps in-between.
it as well. Rhetoric in the oldest and We concede to no one the rhetoric that
leads
deepest sense of the word is dedicated to to human happiness; we disagree
too much about the nature of happiness
this double accomplishment. It is deter-
mined to show all the inner works of and have almost no grasp at all of the
meaning of virtue, or at least none that
language, but in vivo, alive and kicking.
wea can agree on. And so rhetoric as a
It tries to avoid as much as possible
form of public instruction in contesting
mere presentation of parts, in desiccated
disarray. The working example is what for the human will has been all but dis-
counts. That is the sense in which I am credited, though the contesting goes on
concerned with rhetoric in this paper and with it the instruction, rather more
and the sense in which, it seems to me,private
it than before, if not altogether
underground. Public speaking is taught
has the utmost relevance for the teaching
of reading and writing. too, but at some distance from the an-
The ancients who gave rhetoric first cients' concern with the virtues, and
place among the subjects of their acad- rarely in any class that is also a class in
emies would not have disputed its rele- reading and writing.
vance to reading and writing, but they
RHETORIC survives today, then, in
would have insisted, as we all know, that
the primary purpose of rhetoric is to several truncated forms, and for all
its inner drive toward completeness and
teach the art of speaking well. But speak-
ing well is not merely a fluency of dis-unity, it seems likely to go on that way
course or a sweetness of voice. It is the
for many years. Speech as a discipline
first term of a sequence of reasoning of learning lives in a separate world.
which ends with human happiness. One Whatever the original connection be-
speaks well to persuade others but not tween speaking well and reading and
writing well, today the association of
simply to win victories over their heads
or hearts. Persuasion is directed, in this
these functions is at best indirect, except
understanding of rhetoric, toward as
a a few very rare instructors bring them
together. As a result, two of the five
"right" end, and so a skillful rhetorician
such as Isocrates, a generation before parts of classical rhetoric, Memory and
Aristotle, saw rhetoricians as men of Delivery, are banished from the realm
virtue. Aristotle's Rhetoric is less con-
of readers and writers. And yet, split up
as it is, rhetoric continues to exercise an
cerned with virtue and human happiness;
persuasive speech leading to decision is
enormous appeal. Its remaining parts,
its express purpose. But the virtues-and
Invention and Arrangement and Style,
the vices-enter one way or another in so logical an order, and the kind
follow
Aristotle, too, since to affect decisions
of analysis and synthesis to which they
rhetoricians must understand emotions- lead is so unmistakably useful, that rhet-
"those feelings that so change men as oric
to once again has large numbers of
affect their judgments, and that are also
adherents and once again can justify a
attended by pain or pleasure"-and high be place for itself in the high school
able to manipulate them. and college curriculum.
It would be hard today to win either The logic of the classical rhetorical
willing instructors or willing students for
arrangement is, it seems to me, indisput-
this construction of rhetoric. We have able. Every piece of writing starts with
conceded to the advertising agencies andsomething like Invention. One must
the politicians the rhetoric of emotionalchoose or devise a subject for oneself, or,
manipulation leading to clear decisions in
if the topic has been assigned by an in-
favor of one product or another, human structor, must invent some individual

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 THE RELEVANCE OF RHETORIC 405

way of dealing withasit.

the classical
If the rhetorician
termunderstood the
were
term, with
more in vogue, perhaps the someways
assurance of
of clarity
stu- in
the first
dents in dealing with the linetopics
of communication: that be-
assigned
tween instructor
by composition teachers would and student.
be more
Arrangement in
inventive, or even better, the ancient sense
perhaps theis
carefully distinguished
topics themselves would be chosen from Style.
with Ar-
rangement
more imagination. For, does not concern to
according itself the
with
procedures of the ancients, Invention
choice of words nor with any of the
other minutiae
involved the choice not simply of self-expression.
of a sub- Ar-
ject on which one could
rangement is discourse, but
an exercise in order. One
rather of one for which a heading,
looks, under this convincing
for some ra-
case could be made.tional
Justsequencesee what Persua-
of presentation. this
does with such finesion
oldcomes here by something
topics like num-
as "What
ber. That
I Did Last Summer" ordoes not mean that there
"What is an
Hap-
nened to Me on the
appointed Way to
order to each School
argument or that
Today!" one must approach every idea either for-
Inevitably, after Invention comes Ar- wards or backwards or crabwise or by
rangement. In modern practise, this is any other one method in a particular list
where the emphasis usually lies. Our text- of alternatives. To the ancients, the cat-
book procedures are essentially exercises egories of movement in writing, as in
in compositional arrangement, and fairly speech, were strictly limited; they did
tedious ones at that. The attempt to con- choose among a specific number. But the
struct a coherent statement, of whatever number was high and their understand-
length, without convincing subject mat- ing of the possibilities for variation with-
ter is doomed, and so are all the subsid- in different orders of arrangement, as
iary parts of the statement. The instruc- among the huge number of figures of
tor stresses the need for a clear begin- speech which were open to them, was
ning, middle, and end-of what? He talks endlessly flexible. Our own choice could,
of "significant detail" or paragraph struc- it seems to me, be as flexible or as rigor-
ture or sentence structure-to what pur- ous as individual temperament dictates,
pose? He invokes some of the headier as long as we recognize the precise na-
language of literary criticism, such as ture of this stage of the writing process
tone, tenor, levels of diction, or credi- and the need to preserve it, independent
bility; he may even, after a rush of T. S. of the other large parts of rhetoric, In-
Eliot to the head, bother his students vention and Style, and yet clearly in
with talk about objective correlatives for sequence with them.
particular emotions or other experiences. Style is the most elusive of the parts of
All this must appear at best fragmentary the rhetorical art. Whether our correla-
to the student, at worst absolutely mean- tives are objective or subjective, they
ingless, unless he has been well guided must in some measure correspond with
in his Invention, or, by some miracle of a pre-conceived idea or emotion or some
self-discovery, has found the resources experience which we are undergoing as
for a shrewd devising of subject matter. we write. To achieve a style as recogniz-
There is no point in an instructor's gath- ably one's own as one's handwriting,
ering together all the traditional terms of however inept that may be, is an ex-
grammar, syntax, and figurative language traordinary achievement and we should
and then throwing them at a student always be quick to acknowledge this
without an initial structuring of purpose. fact. This, really, is where the elements
If this, the structuring of purpose, is done of grammar and syntax and figurative
well, then he can pass to Arrangement, language enter. This is where techniques

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 406 ENGLISH JOURNAL

abound. For here, inThusthe jungle

far, at least, theofanalysis
Style, of Sty
we must somehow has guide our very
not advanced studentsfar in the tolitera
arts. The
find appropriate terms forvisual arts have
their led the wa
experi-
ences, appropriateherepunctuation,
and some faltering efforts appro- by a fe
priate colors and textures,
critics and scholars appropriate
have only suggeste
diction, and having foundtothem
adaptations writing that to mayrec- be ma
from the we
ognize them. And here work ofmust
the art historians
pass and well
beyond the ancients, for here
the psychologists, we soci-
anthropologists, have
ologists from
not so much to gather and others whose
thefindings
past they
and
a very great deal to
havelearn
plundered for
from their purposes.
the The ex-
best work that has been done in the
plorations of the present.
stylistic
The data of Style are analysis
just of literature is in to
beginning the
be gathered, if you will
medieval allow
period, me
where the to
close link
describe the work of two-thirds of a between the visual and the verbal arts
makes possible something like a depend-
century as a beginning. It is only, really,
able identification of symbols and icons
with the attempts of the anthropologists,
and allegorical structures and where
the psychologists, the sociologists, and
there are both universal vocabularies at
the art historians of this century, that
stylistic analysis has become an adult work in all the arts and contemporary
undertaking. And even they sometimes explications, glosses, and commentaries to
suffer from the narrow limitations of guide one in interpreting an artist's indi-
deterministic thinking or from the needvidual use of the vocabularies. But stylis-
to prove a thesis at all costs or from so
tic analysis of quality has been done in
inflexible a reliance on one particular periods later than the medieval, and more
methodology or another that all other is being attempted. In spite of its late
techniques of analysis must be declared arrival on the modern scene, this sort of
inadmissible. Still, the data are now ours,
examination of texts is by now well
or some of them anyway. We all see how enough established so that the teacher
important the social or economic envi-attempting to bring some examples of it
ronment of an artist may be. We rec- even into the teaching of freshmen and
ognize sexual symbols and religious iconssophomores in high school may find
when we see them or hear them de- enough evidence of what he wants in the
learned journals or scholarly volumes of
scribed, perhaps, at this point, the sexual
rather more easily than the religious,recent
but date to get him started. And even
neither one exclusively. We see close if he cannot satisfy himself that he has
connections between so-called primitive
material lucid or simple enough to bring
culture and modern urban civilization into his classroom, he can assure himself
and see, too, how useful the analysis that
of he is following a sound rhetorical
one may prove for the understandingprinciple
of if he distinguishes very clearly
between the stages of Arrangement and
the other. We look hard for symbol sys-
tems in a work of art, perhaps too hard
Style in his presentation of the materials
at times, for we often find them when of composition.
they are not there. But in all of this,
Finally, one must go to the texts of
which I have only described in the the most gifted writers in our language
to explain Style. The best explanation
roundest of terms, we see the complexity
of the creative act and when we talkremains
of a clear demonstration, and Style
Style, we recognize how uncertain hasourall sorts of clear demonstrations in
language really is and how far from the
re- performances of English and Ameri-
ducing the processes of art to manageable
can writers, of every era, of every genre.
terms we are.
There is no need even to attempt to be

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 THE RELEVANCE OF RHETORIC 407

cumulative about periods or techniques.

into some ordering of his argument, some
It is enough to show how
arrangement of remarkably
the parts of his writing.
useful and eloquent different And something like a style, however
styles may
be, each in its own way, choppy or and
ill-planned or derivative,
with that must
demonstration to hold out to the student ensue. It is my argument here that en-
the potentialities of development of his lightened instruction will emphasize
own style, even if what seems to be in- these rhetorical elements since, by choice
dicated is a disorderly, ungrammaticalor not, they remain central to all writing
melange in which the identifying marks and thus to the structure of everything
are no more than his own species of dis- we read as well.
order and bad grammar. The mark of the I would go further in my adherence to
human person-even the disorderly andthe terms of rhetoric. I would make use
the ungrammatical mark-is always a of the ancient orators' categories of ques-
precious thing and ought not to betions. For the orators, as we know, there
spurned. were three kinds of questions, the De-
Obviously, no one will deliberately monstrative, the Deliberative, and the
encourage disorder and bad grammar, Judicial. The Demonstrative dealt with
but anyone with a warm respect for and the praise or censure of persons, usually
an understanding of rhetorical traditions one particular person. The Deliberative
will be slow to decide just what disorder question was at the core of rhetorical
is and will recognize (and teach) that instruction; it involved a position which
good grammar is not the pivotal element the orator hoped to persuade others to
in the making of a good style, however agree with or to dissuade others from
valuable an aid it may be. The marks of accepting. As a descriptive name for its
the human person which the analysis of category, Judicial suggests, rather more
style reveals are so many and so various clearly than the other terms, its concern
and so elusive that description must long -accusation and defense, as in courts of
law.
precede prescription here and, when pre-
scription comes, it can come only as a It is not urgent that we hold on to
function of the purpose invented by the the ancient names. If one prefers Illustra-
writer and the arrangement of parts that tive to Demonstrative, or perhaps the
has followed the invention. In some cases, Category of Proof, that will do. Debate
as the experimental writing of this cen- may seem a better term for the second
tury makes abundantly clear, this re- category. Legal Argument or Judgment
quires the suspension of many of the may attract some people as ways of de-
rules of grammar and syntax, whether to scribing the third. One may prefer the
give a speaker his proper ungrammatical simplest possible descriptions-Praise and
identity or to produce certain levels of Blame, Persuasion and Dissuasion, Accu-
meaning that only sentence fragments sation and Defense. One may be con-
can provide or simply to underscore the vinced that these categories do not in
philosophical and psychological muddles any way exhaust the possible topics of
and confusions of our era by a matching rhetoric. Fair enough. As long as one
verbal turmoil. But no matter how much begins with the enormous classes of
a writer may suspend or condense gram-rhetorical performance which Praise and
matical and syntactical procedures, heBlame, Arguments For and Against, and
may never dispense with rhetoric alto- Accusations and Defense represent, that
gether, for consciously or unconsciously will be enough, I think, to preserve the
he always follows the general structure inherent order and control which the
of rhetorical procedure. He chooses ahallowed categories offer.
theme. He selects or plans or at least falls And after these categories, how far

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 408 ENGLISH JOURNAL

need one go in pursuit with anyof one-to-one

the correspondence
procedures be-
of classical rhetoric? tweenMy a deviceown
and an emotion,
thinking a tech-
is that it is safest to nique stick to
and an the aroundest
attitude, principle of ex-
terms in the tradition. pressionItandisa species
very of idea. Rhetorical
difficult,
if not impossible, to use is,
instruction either the
in the deepest sense,terms
a vote
or the examples of Aristotle,
of confidence Cicero,
on the instructor's part in
Quintilian, or any aof student's
the ability to communicate
other ancient some-
authorities once thing, they come
to express something, to cases
to describe
chosen from the drama something he or epic poetry
has experienced, however
or jurisprudence incompletely, of their and toimmediate
find some skill and
predecessors and contemporaries. therefore some satisfaction in Butdoing the
so.
general principles It isimbedded in their
at the same time a recognition that
rhetorical methods remain useful and one must read the same way, looking in
widely applicable, as do many of the the works that move us, whether they
variations and permutations of medieval
are by acknowledged masters or not, for
the same indications of theme and pur-
and renaissance rhetoricians. Certainly,
pose, of coherent structure, of style, of
for example, there is more than a tedious
historicism involved in examining categories
the of persuasion.
figures of speech of Elizabethan writers.Ultimately, it seems to me, the efficacy
of rhetorical method depends upon the
There is great freshness for the present
day to be found in their invention. Our
matching of reading and writing exer-
reduction of figure to simile and meta-
cises, at least in the large. Composition
phor would have seemed a shocking im- classes that do not draw their writing
poverishment of the language to them,principles from the examination of writ-
as it should to us as well, and would,ing
if of quality must bog down sooner or
we were more familiar with the devices later in the dullness and defeatism which
of a rhetoric-instructed style. afflict almost all young writers. The ex-
The point of rhetorical instruction isamples do not have to be of great size.
to establish perspective in a student'sThey do not have to roam extensively,
reading and writing. It insists from thethough clearly they should touch upon
very beginning of any exercise upon thatas many kinds of person and style and
sort of critical examination which will technique as the make-up of a class seems
reveal purpose or purposelessness, orderto require. Short pieces seem to me to
or disorder, an identifiable style or a mix-
be best if they can hold a student's atten-
tion as well as demonstrate a substantial
ture of styles or no style at all, an effort
to praise or to blame, to persuade or tovariety of rhetorical principles and pro-
dissuade, to accuse or to defend. It takes
cedures. The point is to show that the
an almost geometrical approach toward principles and the procedures have a con-
wholes and their parts and yet never tinuing freshness, a freshness that is in-
reduces anything one reads or writes stinct
to in the language, but, unfortu-
simple formulas either of description ornately, not a necessary part of our teach-
of prescription. It is a method so widely
ing of the language. If rhetoric is shown
open to the divagations of human per-to have an innate virtuosity, range, and
sonality that it goes painstakingly constant openness to the human person,
through history looking for more andas I am firmly convinced it has, then it
more devices with which to express hu- will once again become a necessary part
man experience but never, at least today,
of our teaching of the language.

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