RWS 601-A History of Rhetoric I
Fall 2012
Rhetoric in Antiquity
Ellen Quandahl
Office: AH 3161
Hours: Th 2:00 and by appointment
equandah@mail.sdsu.edu
619-594-6833
RWS 601-A
Classroom: AH 2113
Th 3:30-6:10
This course introduces Greek and Roman rhetorics in antiquity. Our focus will be on
rhetoric as a situated, social practice, and we will be alert to “antiquity” and “the
classical” as ideas variously constructed and articulated in later contexts. Since our
primary texts come from a vast region and chronology, we will limit our study to
representative cases that are lively in current scholarship under these rubrics: (1) practices
of civic discourse, (2) theory, (3) ways of reading.
Master Themes and Questions for the Course
Readings for each week include texts for three master themes. We will spend a part of
each class engaged in activities and discussion concerning these. Members of the
seminar should expect to speak, read and write about these in every class session.
1. Practice: Rhetoric in Action—Civic Discourse in 3 Genres
What rhetorical practices can we discern by reading ancient civic discourses in
three genres?
What can we learn about civic discourse—its places, audiences, purposes,
questions?
How do ancient practices help us think about civic discourse in our time?
2. Theory
What are the key terms, definitions, and accounts of language that guide ancient
practices and teaching?
How do these terms focus and guide our understanding of rhetorical practices?
What are the key questions and problems in accounts of rhetoric from antiquity?
2
3. Ways of Reading
How do we read and construct an understanding of ancient texts?
How do we construct an understanding of arguments by contemporary scholars
writing about ancient material?
What ways of reading and researching can we discern in contemporary
scholarship? What do scholars working in the history of rhetoric do?
Texts (available at SDSU bookstore):
Kennedy, George A. Aristotle on Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. 2nd edition.
Oxford, Oxford U P, 2006.
Pernot, Laurent. Rhetoric in Antiquity. Tr. W. E. Higgins. Catholic University of
America
Press, 2005.
Plato. Symposium. Tr. Christopher Gill. Penguin, 2003.
Other required texts are available on our Blackboard site as pdf. downloads or from
library databases.
Learning Outcomes:
Students successfully completing the course will be able to:
Theme 1
· Describe and name rhetorical practices evident in ancient civic discourses;
· Describe the places, audiences, purposes and questions of selected ancient civic
discourses;
· Articulate ways in which ancient practices are helpful in analyzing civic
discourses in our time;
Theme 2
· Articulate key terms, definitions and accounts of language that guide ancient
practices;
· Use rhetorical terms to guide reading of ancient texts;
· Describe key questions and problems in rhetorical theory from antiquity;
Theme 3
· Articulate and use ways of constructing an understanding of ancient texts;
· Articulate and use strategies for constructing understandings of contemporary
arguments about ancient material;
· Describe ways of reading and researching used by contemporary scholars of
rhetoric; articulate what these scholars do;
· Write both textual and contextual analyses.
3
Assignments and Grading
Weekly in-class writing and discussion
Short paper #1: Style analysis
Short paper #2: Progymnasmata
Longer paper #1: Textual analysis
Longer paper #2: Contextual analysis
20%
15
15
25
25
Tentative Calendar – RWS 601A
Aug. 30
Introductions; First reading of Gorgias’ “Encomium of Helen”
Sept. 6
Gorgias: one of the “Older Sophists”
Re-read Gorgias’ “ Encomium;”
Schiappa, “Gorgias’ Helen Revisited.” Quarterly Journal of
Speech 81.3 (1995): 310-324. (Find this through the SDSU library: From
library homepage, search the title of the journal. Select appropriate
database. Enter red ID and library pin. Select the year and issue. Print.)
Pernot vii-xiv, 1-23.
Sept. 13
Epitaphios Logos
Thucydides’ version of Pericles’ funeral oration (Bb pdf
Cheryl Glenn, “Rereading Aspasia: The Palimpsest of her
Thoughts” (Bb pdf)
Plato, first two pages of Menexenus (Bb pdf)
Pernot, 24-56
Sept. 20
A Rhetorical-Philosophical Dialogue
Plato, Symposium, through 198a (Gill, 32).
Gill, “Introduction” to Symposium x-xx
Sept. 27
Symposium, to the end of the dialogue;
North, “‘Opening Socrates’: the Eikôn of Alcibiades” (Bb pdf)’
Selzer, “Rhetorical Analysis: Understanding How Texts
Persuade Readers” (Bb pdf)
4
Oct. 4
Aristotle: Definitions; Canvassing the Values of a Culture; Ethos
Kennedy, Book I of the Rhetoric
Demosthenes, “Reply to Kallikles” (Bb) - a judicial (forensic) speech
Oct. 11
Demosthenes: deliberative speech; style
Demosthenes, “Third Philippic” (in Kennedy 277-292) - a deliberative
speech;
Lanham, “Parataxis and Hypotaxis,” and “Periodic and Running
Style” (Bb pdf)
Short paper due: style analysis
Oct. 18
Aristotle: Complicating topoi and emotions; the enthymeme
Kennedy, Book II of the Rhetoric
Warnick, “Two Systems of Invention: The Topics in the Rhetoric and
The New Rhetoric
Walker, “The Body of Persuasion: A Theory of the Enthymeme.” College
English 56.1 (Jan. 1994): 46-65. (Library download)
Oct. 25
Logôn Paideia
Isocrates, selections from “Antidosis” (Bb)
Hawhee, “Bodily Pedagogies.” College English 65.2 (November 2002):
142-162 (library download)
Textual Analysis due
Nov. 1
Cicero - Theory and Practice
Cicero selections from De Oratore
“Manilian Law” (a deliberative speech with heavy element of praise) (Bb)
Pernot 98-121
Nov. 8
Progymnasmata
Aphthonius, “Progymnasmata” (Bb)
Short paper due: Chreia
Nov. 15
The Rhetoric of Education; Education as Rhetoric
Quintilian, selections
Select material for contextual analysis
5
Nov. 22
Thanksgiving break
Nov. 29
Second Sophists
Dec. 6
Christian Rhetoric in the Roman Empire
Dec. 13
(Final Exam Week) Contextual Analysis due
Reading antiquity, some considerations:
There are two main dangers in approaching the Greeks. The first is to think
of them as our cousins and to interpret everything in our own terms. We are
entering a very different world, very strange and very foreign, a world
inconceivably long ago, centuries before Christ or Christianity, a century or
so before the first Chinese emperor’s model army, a world indeed without
our centuries, or weeks or minutes or markings of time. And yet these
Greeks will sometimes seem very familiar, very lively, warm and affable.
Occasionally we might even get their jokes. We must be careful, however,
that we are not being deceived by false friends. Often what seems most
familiar, most obvious, most easy to understand is in fact the most peculiar
thing of all. On the other hand, we must resist the temptation to push the
Greeks further into outer space than is necessary. They are not our cousins,
but neither are they our opposites. They are just different, just trying to be
themselves.
- James. N. Davidson,
Courtesans and Fishcakes: The
Consuming Passions of Classical
Athens. 1999.
Many of the matters that Aristotle aims to teach in his books become difficult for
us to understand at these times. The reason is that many of the expressions he
used and which signify well and are generally known matters to people of his
language do not signify in our language the same meanings. . . Moreover, many of
the examples he used were well known to the people of his time. But these same
examples changed in his country as well as in ours. . . Furthermore, many of the
topics that were investigated in the past are considered strange at the present time.
That is why those who want to teach these matters from Aristotle’s books, be they
individuals or nations, must substitute the awkward or strange or unknown things
with things that are known and acceptable to people at the present time.
- Al Farabi, 9th century scholar,
qtd. from Maha Baddar, in
The Responsibilities of Rhetoric.
2009
6
Some Useful websites:
 International Society for the History of Rhetoric: http://ishr.cua.edu/
 American Society for the History of Rhetoric: http://www.ashr.org/links.html
(includes bibliographies and online texts)
 Rhetoric Society of America: http://rhetoricsociety.org/ (website includes
links to various resources)
 Forest of Rhetoric – http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htm (terms and
concepts)
 Perseus – http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cache/perscoll_Greco-Roman.html
(digital library of Greek and Roman materials)
 Diotima – http://www.stoa.org/diotima/ (materials for the study of women in
the ancient world)
 Scholarship from classicists – http://www.stoa.org/ (especially the link
“Demos”)
Important Journals in the Field:
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Philosophy and Rhetoric
Pre/Text
Rhetorica
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Rhetoric Review
College English
Quarterly Journal of Speech