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ARISTOTLE RHETORIC (c.330 BCE)
Aristotle. "Rhetoric." Trans. W. Rhys Roberts. Vol. 2 of Complete Works: the Revised
Oxford Translation. Ed. Jonathan Barnes. 2 Vols. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984.
2152-2269.
BOOK I [KINDS OF SPEECHES AND PROOFS: INVENTION]
Chapter 1 [Rhetoric vis a vis Dialectic]
Aristotle begins by declaring that “[r]hetoric is the counterpart of dialectic” (2152). Like
dialectic, it belongs to “no definite science” (2152) devoted to the study of one particular
phenomenon; it is common, rather, to and informs many sciences. All men make use of
both rhetoric and dialectic in order to “discuss statements, and to maintain them, to
defend themselves, and to attack others” (2152). Rhetoric can be “handled
systematically” (2152)for it is “possible to inquire the reason why some speakers succeed
through practice and others spontaneously” (2152). Everyone will agree, Aristotle
maintains, that “such an inquiry is the function of an art” (2152).
Aristotle contends that the “framers of the current treatises on rhetoric have
constructed but a small portion of that art” (2152), everything else being “merely
accessory” (2152) to the “modes of persuasion” (2152) used on particular occasions. With
regard to the law-courts, such writers say “nothing about enthymemes, which are the
substance of rhetorical persuasion” (2152). They choose, rather, to focus not on the
“essential facts” (2152) but on “non-essentials” (2152) such as the “arousing of prejudice,
pity, anger, and similar emotions” (2152), that is, by making a “personal appeal to the
man who is judging the case” (2152). A proper judge should “surely refuse to take his
instructions from the litigants: he must decide for himself” (2152). Though these authors
“try, one and all, to write treatises on the way to plead in court” (2153), they “say nothing
about political oratory” (2153), practised in the political assembly of fifth century Athens,
which is a “nobler business, and fitter for a citizen” (2153) than “forensic oratory” (2153),
another term for rhetoric practised in court, the purpose of which is “to conciliate the
listener” (2153).
Aristotle avers that the “technical study of rhetoric is concerned with the modes of
persuasion” (2153), persuasion being a “sort of demonstration (since we are most fully
persuaded when we consider a thing to be demonstrated” (2153). The “orators’s
demonstration is an enthymeme” (2153) which is the “most effective of the modes of
persuasion” (2153). The enthymeme is a “sort of deduction” (2153) to the study of which
it is “dialectic” (2153) which normally devotes itself. He who is “best able to see how and
from what elements a deduction is produced will also be best skilled in the enthymeme”
(2153) once he is able to distinguish its “subject-matter” (2153) and to discern “in what
respects it differs from the deductions of logic” (2154). “For the true and the
approximately true are apprehended by the same faculty” (2154). Because men have a
“sufficient natural instinct for what is true” (2154), the man who “makes a good guess at
truth is likely to make a good guess at what is reputable” (2154).
Because “argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are people
whom one cannot instruct” (2154), in the case of some audiences, “not even the
possession of the exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce
conviction” (2154). For this reason, we must use “notions possessed by everyone” (2154)
as our “modes of persuasion and argument” (2154). Moreover, we must be ready to
“employ persuasion, just as deduction can be employed, on opposite sides of a question”
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(2154) not to “make people believe what is wrong” (2154) but to “see clearly what the
facts are” (2154) and to “confute” (2154) a man who “argues unfairly” (2154). Both
dialectic and rhetoric “draw opposite conclusions impartially” (2154) even though the
“underlying facts do not lend themselves equally well to the contrary views” (2154). This
is because “things that are true and things that are better are, by their nature, always
easier to prove and more persuasive” (2154). Like any other skill, Aristotle admits, rhetoric
can be abused but through its “right use” (2154) a man can also “confer the greatest of
benefits” (2154).
Aristotle concludes that rhetoric is “not bound up with a single definite class of
subjects” (2154). Its “function is not simply to succeed in persuading, but rather to
discover the persuasive facts in each case” (2154), just as it is not the function of
medicine to “make a man quite healthy” (2154) but to “put him as far as may be on the
road to health” (2154) for it is “possible to give excellent treatment even to those who can
never enjoy sound health” (2154). Just as it is the “function of dialectic to discern the real
and the apparent deduction” (2154), so too it is the function of rhetoric to “discern the real
and the apparent means of persuasion” (2154). Given that what “makes a man a sophist
is not his abilities but his choices” (2155), that is, not his ability to speak well but what he
chooses to accomplish with that ability, in “dialectic a man is a sophist because he makes a
certain kind of choice” (2155). By contrast, Aristotle argues, the “term ‘rhetorician’ may
describe either the speaker’s knowledge of the art or his choices” (2155) to use this
knowledge to particular ends.
Aristotle’s goal in the next chapter is to “give some account of the systematic
principles of rhetoric itself – of the right method and means of succeeding in the object we
set before us” (2155). First of all, he intends to “define what rhetoric is” (2155).
Chapter 2 [Rhetoric Defined]
Aristotle defines rhetoric as the “faculty of observing in any given case, the available
means of persuasion” (2155). Other arts, such as medicine or geometry, “can instruct or
persuade about its own particular subject-matter” (2155) but rhetoric is the “power of
observing the means of persuasion on almost any subject” (2155). This is why rhetoric “is
not concerned with any special or definite class of subject” (2155).
Aristotle draws a distinction between “technical” (2155) and “non-technical” (2155)
“modes of persuasion” (2155). By the latter, he means “such things as are not supplied by
the speaker but are there at the outset – witnesses, evidence given under torture, written
contracts, and so on” (2155). By the former, he means “such as we can ourselves
construct by means of the principles of rhetoric” (2155). Where the latter “has merely to
be used” (2155), the former “has to be invented” (2155).
Aristotle identifies three “modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word”
(2155). The first “depends on the personal character of the speaker” (2155):
Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech
is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more
fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the
question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and
opinions are divided. This kind of persuasion . . . should be achieved by
what the speaker says, not by what people think of his character before he
begins to speak. It is not true that . . . that the personal goodness revealed
by the speaker contributes nothing to his power of persuasion; on the
contrary, his character may almost be called the most effective means of
persuasion he possesses. (2155)
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The second mode of persuasion depends on “putting the audience into a certain frame of
mind” (2155):
persuasion may come about through the hearers, when the speech stirs their
emotions. Our judgements when we are pleased and friendly are not the
same as when we are pained and hostile. It is towards producing these
effects . . . that present-day writers on rhetoric direct the whole of their
efforts. (2155)
The third mode of persuasion concerns the “proof, or apparent proof, provided by the
words of the speech itself” (2155). In other words, “persuasion is effected through the
speech itself when we have proved a truth or an apparent truth by means of the
persuasive arguments suitable to the case in question” (2155).
These, then, are the “three means of effecting persuasion” (2155). To be “in
command of them” (2156), one must be “able to reason logically, to understand human
characters and excellences, and to understand the emotions – that is, to know what they
are, their nature, their causes and the way in which they are excited” (2156). Some might
think that rhetoric is an “offshoot” (2156) of dialectic and “ethical studies” (2156) and
“political” (2156) studies. It often “masquerades as political science” (2156). It is,
however, a “branch of dialectic and similar to it” (2156). “Neither rhetoric nor dialectic is
the scientific study of any one separate subject: both are faculties for providing
arguments” (2156). This is a “sufficient account of their scope and of how they are related
to each other” (2156).
With regard to the “persuasion achieved by proof” (2156), Aristotle contends that in
both dialectic and rhetoric induction on the one hand and deduction . . . on the other”
(2156). The “example is an induction” (2156) while the “enthymeme is a deduction”
(2156). “Everyone who effects persuasion through proof does in fact use either
enthymemes or examples: there is no other way” (2156). “When we base the proof of a
proposition on a number of similar cases, this is induction in dialectic, example in rhetoric”
(2156). When we show that “certain propositions being true, a further and quite distinct
proposition must be true in consequence, . . . this is called deduction in dialectic,
enthymeme in rhetoric” (2156).
Aristotle points out that what is “persuasive is persuasive to someone” (2156).
Furthermore, “something is persuasive either because it is directly self-evident or because
it appears to be proved from other statements that are so” (2156). Just as medicine does
not theorise how to treat individuals but “any or all of a given class of patients” (2156) –
“individual cases being so infinitely various that no knowledge of them is possible” (2156)
– so too is the “theory of rhetoric” (2156) concerned “not with what seems reputable to a
given individual” (2156) but “with what seems so to men of a given type” (2157).
Similarly, dialectic “does not construct its deductions out of any haphazard materials, such
as the fancies of crazy people” (2157). Rather, rhetoric “draws upon the regular subjects
of debate” (2157) which “present us with alternative possibilities” (2157) and different
interpretations of things. Its “duty” (2157) is to “deal with such matters as we deliberate
upon without arts or systems to guide us” (2157) and is intended for “persons who cannot
take in at a glance a complicated argument, or follow a long chain of reasoning” (2157).
Deductions may be formed and conclusions drawn either “from the results of
previous deduction” (2157) or “from premisses which have not been thus proved” (2157),
but the former are “hard to follow owing to their length” (2157) by an “audience of
untrained thinkers” (2157), while the latter is not persuasive “because they are based on
premisses . . . not generally admitted or reputable” (2157). The enthymeme must
accordingly “consist of few propositions, fewer than those which make up a primary
deduction” (2157) (“if any of these propositions is a familiar fact, there is no need even to
Richard L. W. Clarke LITS2306 Notes 08Bi
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mention it; the hearer adds it himself” [2157]).
There are “few facts of the necessary type that can form the basis of rhetorical
deductions” (2157) (enthymemes) for the simple reason that most things “about which we
make decisions, and into which we inquire, present us with alternative possibilities”
(2157). Normally we inquire about “actions” (2157) all of which have a “contingent
character” (2157) and few of which are “determined by necessity” (2157). The
“propositions forming the basis of enthymemes, though some of them may be necessary,
will in the main hold for the most part” (2157). The “materials of enthymemes are
probabilities” (2157), that is, any “thing that happens for the most part” (2157). By
contrast, in dialectical deductions, “necessary conclusions must be drawn from necessary
premisses” (2157), resulting in a proposition that “cannot be refuted” (2158) and through
which the “matter has now been demonstrated and completed” (2158).
The rhetorical example is, as mentioned earlier, a “kind of induction” (2158) the
relation of which is “not that of part to whole, nor whole to part, nor whole to whole, but of
part to part, or like to like” (2158), as, for example, when “two statements are of the same
order” (2158). For example, if one king who was a despot seeks to hire bodyguards, it
may be inferred that other kings who also seek bodyguards may also turn out to be
tyrants, all such examples “being instances of the one general principle, that a man who
asks for a bodyguard is scheming to make himself a despot” (2158).
Aristotle concludes this chapter by arguing that the “proper subjects of dialectical
and rhetorical deductions are the things with which we say the commonplaces are
concerned, that is to say those that apply equally to questions of right conduct, natural
science, politics, and many other things that have nothing to do with one another” (2159)
and are “essentially disconnected subjects” (2159). One such “commonplace” (2159) topic
is the “more or less” (2159) (i.e. comparing the relative quantities of distinct things).
However, what Aristotle terms the “special commonplaces” (2159) are those which “apply
only to particular groups or classes of things” (2159). In other words, for example, some
propositions applicable to the natural sciences have no bearing on ethics. The “general
commonplaces have no special subject matter, and therefore will not increase our
understanding of any particular class of things” (2159). The “better the selection one
makes of propositions suitable for special commonplaces the nearer one comes . . . to
setting up a science . . . to which the principles thus discovered belong” (2159). Most
enthymemes are “based upon these particular or special kinds; comparatively few on the
common kind” (2159).
Aristotle’s goal in the next chapter is to “classify rhetoric into its varieties” (2159)
and then to “try to discover the elements of which each is composed, and the propositions
each must employ” (2159).
Chapter 3 [Three Species of Rhetoric: Deliberative, Judicial, Epideictic]
Here, Aristotle argues that rhetoric falls into “three divisions, determined by the three
classes of listeners to speeches” (2159). Of the “three elements in speech-making –
speaker, subject, and person addressed” (2159), it is the hearer which “determines the
speech’s end and object” (2159). The hearer is either a “judge, with a decision to make
about things past or future, or an observer” (2159). A member of the Assembly “decides
about future events” (2159), the juryman “about past events” (2159), while “those who
merely decide on the orator’s skill are observers” (2159).
There are accordingly “three divisions of oratory – deliberative, forensic, and
epideictic” (2159) which “refer to three different kinds of time” (2159) and have “three
distinct ends” (2160). “Deliberative speaking” (2159), that is, political oratory in the
Richard L. W. Clarke LITS2306 Notes 08Bi
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“public assemblies” (2159), “urges to do or not do something” (2159) and is as such
“concerned with the future: it is about things to be done hereafter that he advises, for or
against” (2159-2160). The deliberative orator “aims at establishing the expedience or the
harmfulness of a proposed course of action; if he urges its acceptance, he does so on the
ground that it will do good; if he urges its rejection, he does so on the ground that it will
do harm” (2160). All other points are “subsidiary and relative to this main consideration”
(2160). “Forensic speaking” (2159), that is, judicial oratory in the law-courts, “either
attacks of defends somebody” (2159) and is “concerned with the past; one man accuses
the other, and the other defends himself, with reference to things already done” (2160).
Forensic orators “aim at establishing the justice or injustice of some action” (2160), to
which all other points are accordingly subsidiary. “Epideictic oratory either praises or
censures somebody” (2159) and is “concerned with the present, since all men praise of
blame in view of the state of things existing at the time, though they often find it useful
also to recall the past and to make guesses at the future” (2160). The aim here is to
“praise or attack a man” (2160) in order to prove “him worthy of the honour or the
reverse” (2160).
It is “these three subjects, more than any others, about which the orator must be
able to have propositions at his command” (2160). “Every kind of deduction is composed
of propositions, and the enthymeme is a deduction composed of the aforesaid propositions”
(2160). The “deliberative, the forensic, and the epideictic speaker alike” (2160) will have
at their command ‘general commonplaces’ concerning the “possible and the impossible”
(2160), that is, “about whether a thing has or has not occurred” (2160) and whether it
“will or will not occur” (2160); “propositions about greatness and smallness, and the
greater or the lesser” (2161) designed to establish “which is the greater or lesser good, the
greater or lesser act of justice or injustice; an so on” (2161).
In the chapters that follow in Book I, Aristotle turns his attention to “each particular
class of these subjects in turn, namely those dealt with in deliberative, in epideictic, and
lastly in legal, oratory” (2161).
Chapters 4 [Deliberative Rhetoric: Political Topics]
Chapter 5 [Deliberative Rhetoric: Ethical Topics]
Chapter 6 [Deliberative Rhetoric: Ethical Topics Continued]
Chapter 7 [Deliberative Rhetoric: the Greater Good]
Chapter 8 [Deliberative Rhetoric: Topics on Political Constitutions]
Chapter 9 [Epideictic Rhetoric and Amplification]
Chapter 10 [Judicial Rhetoric: Topics on Wrongs and their Causes]
Chapter 11 [Judicial Rhetoric: Topics on Pleasure]
Chapter 12 [Judicial Rhetoric: Topics on Wrongdoers and the Wronged]
Chapter 13 [Judicial Rhetoric: Topics on Justice and Injustice]
Chapter 14 [Judicial Rhetoric: the Greater Wrong]
Richard L. W. Clarke LITS2306 Notes 08Bi
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Chapter 15 [Judicial Rhetoric: Nonartistic Means of Persuasion]
BOOK II [SOURCES OF PERSUASION: CHARACTER, EMOTION, LOGIC]
Chapter 1 [Character and Emotion in Persuasion]
Here, Aristotle points out that he considered in chapters 4-15 of Book I the “materials to
be used in supporting or opposing a measure, in pronouncing eulogies or censures, and for
prosecution or defence” (2194), not least the “persuasive arguments” (2194) used in each
area. For, he argues, it is “about these and on the basis of them that enthymemes are
constructed, separately for each type of speech” (2194). However, “since rhetoric exists to
affect the giving of decisions” (2194) the orator “must not only try to make the argument
of his speech demonstrative and worthy of belief; he must also make his own character
look right and put his hearers, who are to decide, into the right frame of mind” (2194). It
adds much to the orator’s “influence that his own character should look right and that he
should be thought to entertain the right feelings towards his hearers” (2194). There are
“three things which inspire confidence in the orator’s own character – the three, namely,
that induce us to believe a thing apart from any proof of it: good sense, excellence, and
goodwill” (2194). There are three causes of “[f]alse statements and bad advice” (2194):
men either form a false opinion through want of good sense; or they form a
true opinion, but because of their moral badness do not say what they really
think; or finally, they are both sensible and upright, but not well disposed to
their hearers, and may fail in consequence to recommend what they know to
be the best course. (2194)
Anyone “who is thought to have all these good qualities will inspire trust in his audience”
(2194).
It is also important that “his hearers themselves should be in just the right frame of
mind” (2194). For
when people are feeling friendly and placable, they think one sort of thing;
when they are feeling angry or hostile, they think something either totally
different or the same thing with a different intensity; when they feel friendly
to the man whom comes before them for judgement, they regard him as
having done little wrong, if any; when they feel hostile, they take the
opposite view. (2194)
Aristotle defines the “emotions” (2195) as “all those feelings that so change men as to
affect their judgements, and that are also attended by pain or pleasure. Such are anger,
pity, fear and the like, with their opposites” (2195). In the case of each emotion, such as
anger, the goal is to try to discover the accompanying “state of mind” (2195), the kind of
people who provoke the emotion in question, and the “grounds” (2195) on which the
emotion develops.
Chapter 2 [Arousing Emotion: Anger and Calmness]
Chapter 3 [Arousing Emotion: Anger and Calmness Continued]
Chapter 4 [Arousing Emotion: Friendliness and Enmity]
Chapter 5 [Arousing Emotion: Fear and Confidence]
Richard L. W. Clarke LITS2306 Notes 08Bi
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Chapter 6 [Arousing Emotion: Shame and Shamelessness]
Chapter 7 [Arousing Emotion: Kindliness and Unkindliness]
Chapter 8 [Arousing Emotion: Pity and Indignation]
Chapter 9 [Arousing Emotion: Pity and Indignation Continued]
Chapter 10 [Arousing Emotion: Envy and Emulation]
Chapter 11 [Arousing Emotion: Envy and Emulation Continued]
Chapter 12 [Adapting Ethos to Audience: the Young]
Chapter 13 [Adapting Ethos to Audience: the Old]
Chapter 14 [Adapting Ethos to Audience: Those in their Prime]
Chapter 15 [Adapting Ethos to Audience: the Well Born]
Chapter 16 [Adapting Ethos to Audience: the Wealthy]
Chapter 17 [Adapting Ethos to Audience: the Powerful]
Chapter 18 [Logical Argument: Introduction]
From this point, Aristotle argues, his goals is to “discuss the arguments common to all
oratory” (2217). All orators are “bound to use the topic of the possible and impossible”
(2217), to “try to show that a thing has happened, or will happen in the future” (2217).
The “topic of size” (2217) is also common to all oratory, that is, arguments that “things are
bigger or smaller than they seem” (2217). He declares that he will also outline the
“general principles of arguing by enthymeme and example” (2217).
Chapter 19 [Logical Argument: Common Topics:
Possible/Impossible, Past Fact/Future Fact / Degree]
Chapter 20 [Logical Argument: From Example]
Chapter 21 [Logical Argument: Maxims]
Chapter 22 [Logical Argument: Enthymemes]
Chapter 23 [Logical Argument: 28 Common Topics and Strategies]
Chapter 24 [Logical Argument: Fallacious Enthymemes]
Chapter 25 [Logical Argument: Refutation of Enthymemes]
Chapter 26
[Logical Argument: Non-Topics: Amplification, Refutation, Objection]
Richard L. W. Clarke LITS2306 Notes 08Bi
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BOOK III [STYLE AND ARRANGEMENT]
Chapter 1 [Summary of Books 1-2; Delivery; Language]
Aristotle begins by arguing that he has over the last two Books discussed the three
principal “means of producing persuasion” (2237), that is, the “sources of persuasion”
(2237), persuasion being “in every case effected either by working on the emotions of the
judges themselves, by giving them the right impression of the speaker’s character, or by
proving the truth of the statements made” (2238). The last of these has involved
describing the use of enthymemes and the “sources from which they should be derived;
there being both special lines of argument . . . and commonplaces” (2238). Here, Aristotle
turns his attention to “language” (2237) and the “proper arrangement of the various parts
of speech” (2237). Our “next subject will be language” (2238), Aristotle says, for “it is not
enough to know what we ought to say; we must also say it as we ought; much help is thus
afforded towards producing the right impression of a speech” (2238). The “first question
to receive attention was naturally the one that comes first naturally – how persuasion can
be produced from the facts themselves” (2238). The “second is how to set these facts out
in language” (2238).
Before doing so, however, Aristotle turns his attention briefly to the question of
‘delivery’ which would seem to be beyond the scope of this treatise. He argues that a
“third” (2238) subject to which the theory of rhetoric should pay attention “would be the
proper method of delivery” (2238) which is a “thing that affects the success of a speech
greatly” (2238). This is a subject that has been greatly “neglected” (2238), it being “long
before it found its way into the arts of tragic drama and epic recitation” (2238). Delivery
involves the “right management of the voice to express the various emotions – of speaking
loudly, softly, or between the two; of high, low, or intermediate pitch; of the various
rhythms that suit various subjects” (2238). The speaker must bear in mind, in short,
three things – “volume of sound, modulation of pitch, and rhythm” (2238) – in order to
win prizes in “dramatic contests” (2238). “No systematic treatise upon the rules of
delivery has yet been composed” (2238) perhaps because it is “not regarded as an
elevated subject of inquiry” (2238) but it is something to which the rhetorician must “pay
attention” (2238), the “whole business of rhetoric being concerned with appearances”
(2238): “we cannot do without it” (2238). Ideally, Aristotle points out, we should be
“satisfied not to annoy our hearers, without trying to delight them: we ought in fairness to
fight our case with no help beyond the bare facts; nothing, therefore, should matter except
the proof of those facts” (2238), but the fact is that “other things affect the result
considerably, owing to the defects of our hearers” (2238). “The “principles of delivery
when worked out . . . will produce the same effects as on the stage” (2238) but it is
something that few have attempted to outline since “[d]ramatic ability is a natural gift”
(2238) which, as such, “can hardly be systematically taught” (2238).
This is not true of language, however, as the “principles of language can be so
taught” (2238). The truth is that, “whatever it is we have to expound to others” (2238),
the “arts of language cannot help having a small but real importance” (2238) since the
“way in which a thing is said does affect its intelligibility” (2238). Language is particularly
important to “speeches of the written kind” (2239) which “owe more of their effect to their
language than to their thought” (2239). It was the poets who “first set the movement
going” (2239) because “words represent things” (2239). To this end they had the “human
voice at their disposal, which of all our organs can best represent other things” (2239). It
Richard L. W. Clarke LITS2306 Notes 08Bi
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was in this way that the ‘arts of recitation and acting were formed” (2239). Though their
“thoughts were simple enough” (2239), the poets won fame “through their fine language”
(2239): this is why the language of oratory at first “took a poetical character, e.g. that of
Gorgias” (2239). The uneducated continue to believe that “poetical language makes the
finest discourses” (2239) whereas the “language of prose is distinct from that of poetry”
(2239). Poetry is, however, becoming more prose-like: the “language of tragedy has
altered its character” (2239), adopting “iambics” (2239) rather than “tetrameters” (2239)
because they are the “most prose-like of all metres” (2239), and surrendering “all those
words, not used in ordinary talk, which decorated the early drama and are still used by the
writers of hexameter poems” (2239). For this reason, it is “ridiculous to imitate a poetical
manner which the poets themselves have dropped” (2239). Some aspects of language
having already “been discussed in the treatise on the Art of Poetry [i.e. his Poetics]”
(2239), Aristotle’s goal is to “confine ourselves to that part of it which concerns our
present subject, rhetoric” (2239).
Chapter 2 [Qualities of Good Prose]
Here, Aristotle argues that “language to be good must be clear” (2239) because “speech
which fails to convey a clear meaning will fail to do just what speech has to do” (2239).
Clearness is “secured by using the words (nouns and verbs alike) that are current and
ordinary” (2239). Language must also be “appropriate, avoiding both meanness and
undue evaluation” (2239). For example, “poetical language is certainly free from
meanness, but it is not appropriate to prose” (2239). Moreover, “variation makes the
language appear more stately. People do not feel towards strangers as they do towards
their own countrymen, and the same thing is true of their feeling for language. It is
therefore well to give to everyday speech an unfamiliar air: people like what strikes them,
and are struck by what is out of the way” (2239). This is particularly true of poetry where
the “things there spoken of are comparatively remote from ordinary life” (2239). Last but
not least, a writer “must disguise his art and give the impression of speaking naturally and
not artificially. Naturalness is persuasive, artificiality is the contrary; for our hearers are
prejudiced and think we have some design against them” (2239). Aristotle contends that
we can “hide our purpose successfully by taking the single words of our composition from
the speech of ordinary life” (2239).
Language, Aristotle says, is “composed of nouns and verbs” (2240). The former
consist of “the various kinds considered in the treatise on poetry” (2240). “Strange words,
compound words, and invented words must be used sparingly and on few occasions”
(2240) because they “depart from what ais suitable, in the direction of excess” (2240). In
addition to the “regular and proper terms for things, metaphorical terms . . . cab used with
advantage” (2240) because in everyday conversation people use both “proper” (2240) and
“metaphorical terms” (2240). In this way, a “good writer can produce a style that is
distinguished without being obtrusive, and is at the same time clear, thus satisfying our
definition of good oratorical prose” (2240). “Words of ambiguous meaning” (2240), by
contrast, are used chiefly by the “sophist to mislead his hearers” (2240). Aristotle reminds
his audience that in the “Art of Poetry . . . will be found definitions of these kinds of words;
a classification of metaphors; and mention of the fact that metaphor is of great value both
in poetry and in prose” (2240). Prose-writers must pay “ careful attention to metaphor,
because their other resources are scantier than those of poets” (2240). They give “style
clearness, charm, and distinction as nothing else can” (2240). They mut be fitting” (2240)
in that they “must fairly correspond to the thing signified” (2240), otherwise their
“inappropriateness will be conspicuous: the want of harmony between two things is
Richard L. W. Clarke LITS2306 Notes 08Bi
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emphasised by their being placed side by side” (2240). “One term may describe a thing
more truly than another, may be more like it, and set it more intimately before our eyes”
(2241). Two “different words will present a thing in two different lights” (2241) for which
reason “one term must be held fairer or fouler than another” (2241). The “materials of
metaphor must be beautiful to the ear, to the understanding, to the eye or some other
physical sense” (2241). In all such choices, Aristotle warns, “we must be wary and must
observe the mean” (2241).
Chapter 3 [Faults of Diction: Frigidity]
Chapter 4 [Similes]
Chapter 5 [Grammatical Correctness]
Chapter 6 [Amplification]
Chapter 7 [Appropriateness]
Chapter 8 [Rhythm in Prose]
Chapter 9 [the Periodic Style]
Chapter 10 [Wit and Visual Imagery]
Chapter 11 [Visualisation, Metaphor and Other Stylistic Devices]
Chapter 12
[Oral and Written Styles; Deliberative, Judicial, and Epideictic Styles]
Chapter 13 [Arrangement: Parts of a Speech]
Aristotle argues here that a “speech has two parts. You must state your case, and you
must prove it. You cannot either state your case and omit to prove it, or prove it without
having first stated it; since any proof must be a proof of something, and the only use of a
preliminary statement is the proof that follows it” (2257). The first part is called the
“statement of the case” (2257), the second the “argument” (2257) (in a manner analogous
to the distinction between “problem” [2257] and “demonstration” [2257] in logic).
Aristotle takes exception to the “current division” (2257) proposed by other treatises on
rhetoric in circulation concerning the presence of such various phases “narration” (2257),
“epilogues” (2257), “comparison of conflicting arguments” (2257) and “recapitulation”
(2257) in all speeches: not all are found in each of the three kinds of speeches outlined
earlier. Aristotle stresses that the “only necessary [arts of a speech are the statement and
the argument” (2258). Usually these are preceded by an “introduction” (2258) and
followed by an “epilogue” (2258) which “merely reminds us of what has been said already”
(2258). “Refutation of the opponent” (2258) forms part of the argument, as does
“comparison of the opponent’s case with your own” (2258), which is merely a “magnifying
of your own case and therefore a part of the arguments, since one who does this proves
something” (2258).
Chapter 14 [Arrangement: the Introduction (Prooemion)]
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The “introduction is the beginning of a speech” (2258) in which the writer “should begin
with what best takes his fancy, and then strike up his theme and lead into it; which is
indeed what is always done” (2258).
Chapter 15 [Arrangement: Topics for Answering a Prejudicial Attack]
Chapter 16 [Arrangement: the Narration]
The narration, which is found not in all kinds of oratory but in “epideictic oratory” (2262)
especially, is a “survey of the actions that form the subject-matter of the speech” (2262).
Chapter 17 [Arrangement: the Proof]
The “duty of the arguments is to attempt demonstrative proofs” (2264) which “bear
directly upon the question in dispute” (2264).
Chapter 18 [Arrangement: Asking Questions]
The “best moment to employ this is when your opponent has so answered one question
that the putting of just one more lands him in absurdity” (2267).
Chapter 19 [Arrangement: the Conclusion (Epilogue)]
The “epilogue has four parts. You must make the audience well-disposed towards yourself
and ill-disposed towards your opponent, magnify or minimise the leading facts, excite the
required state of emotion in your hearers, and refresh their memories” (2268).