On Gorgias....

My thoughts regarding Gorgias ‘On Nature’:

1) Gorgias claims makes no sense.

2) If Gorgias claims did make sense, I still wouldn’t understand them.

3 )If I did understand them, I would likely dispute them.

My thoughts regarding Gorgias ‘Encomium of Helen’:

1) Gorgias argues in favor of relieving Helen of personal responsibility.

2) Gorgias paints Helen as a victim of her situation, her surroundings, the deities and the written and spoken word.

3) Gorgias is an old-fashioned ‘spin doctor’.

I think conversations with Gorgias would have frustrated me, but speeches by him would have entertained me. The arguments he proposes to be logical are quite circular. In essence, in both of the works mentioned above, situations just ‘are’. There is no beginning, middle or end. There are few connections besides persuasive words. Of course, I struggle with this because I believe in atoms and physical science. In that way, EVERYTHING is connected and exists as part of a cycle that does have a beginning, middle and end. Yet Gorgias was an eloquent and engaging speaker that drew his audience in. “Gorgias excelled in ceremonial oratory” (p. 22). He offered more than just the words he said, he offered an experience.

I see this ceremonial aspect of Gorgias’ work as particularly relevant to my work and research interests. The part of the ‘message’ that has no words, takes on an important role in persuading an audience to think, feel or act a certain way. For me, this non-word part of the message is the image. The visualizations that accompany and decorate a message are just as important as the actual message. On this topic, Gorgias and I would likely have not only agreed, but engaged in lively conversation.

Useful Link for Rhetoric Definitions and Information

I found a great resource for information about classical (and renaissance) rhetoric. The name of the site is Silva Rhetoricae and the link is http://rhetoric.byu.edu/

The site is described as follows:

"This online rhetoric, provided by Dr. Gideon Burton of Brigham Young University, is a guide to the terms of classical and renaissance rhetoric. Sometimes it is difficult to see the forest (the big picture) of rhetoric because of the trees (the hundreds of Greek and Latin terms naming figures of speech, etc.) within rhetoric.

This site is intended to help beginners, as well as experts, make sense of rhetoric, both on the small scale (definitions and examples of specific terms) and on the large scale (the purposes of rhetoric, the patterns into which it has fallen historically as it has been taught and practiced for 2000+ years).

A forest is the metaphor for this site. Like a forest, rhetoric provides tremendous resources for many purposes. However, one can easily become lost in a large, complex habitat (whether it be one of wood or of wit). The organization of this central page and the hyperlinks within individual pages should provide a map, a discernible trail, to lay hold of the utility and beauty of this language discipline."

The 'trees' of the site include outlined information about various subjects within rhetoric and the 'flowers' are more specific rhetorical terms and figures along with their descriptions and/or definitions. I particularly like the rhetorical timeline that is provided on this website as it lists major authors and texts and the year the work was completed.

Aristotle's Rhetoric

I would like my class presentation to be on Aristotle's Rhetoric as discussed in The Rhetorical Tradition by Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg. On page 171, Aristotle's rhetorical theory is described as follows: "Scholars agree that the starting point is Aristotle's division of rhetoric into two major categories: "artistic" proofs, for which the rhetorician constructs the material (e.g., "My client is too good to have committed this crime"), and "inartistic" proofs, for which the rhetorician interprets existing evidence (e.g., "These three witnesses place my client elsewhere at the time the crime was committed"). Traditionally, Aristotle has been read as dividing artistic proofs into appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos." The authors go on to describe the "nonartistic proofs" as references appeals to physical evidence (p. 174). My science 'persona' would lean towards nonartistic proofs, yet, my rhetorical (and artistic) 'persona' would rely more on the artistic proofs. I look forward to uncovering the descriptions, definitions and strategies that Aristotle introduced in his Rhetoric work.