Classical Rhetoric and Rhetorical Criticism

Author(s): Richard Leo Enos

Source: Rhetoric Review, Vol. 25, No. 4 (2006), pp. 361-365
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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361

InterdisciplinaryPerspectives on Rhetorical Criticism

Critique of Dialectical Reason,3 as a way to think about gender that avoids

essentialism. Young posits that gender, instead of being an identityor an attrib
ute or a trait, is constituted forwomen by seriality, that is, by their relationships
to externals?to laws, institutions,norms, and theways inwhich categories such
as race and class are constructed and enforced in a culture at a particular time

and place. Young concludes: ''Woman is a serial collective defined neither by a

common identitynor by a common set of attributes that all the individuals in a
series share, but, rather, it names a set of structural constraints and relations to

pratico-inert objects [the sediment,material and symbolic, of past human action]

that condition action and itsmeaning."4
The cultural distinctiveness of rhetorical action and related theory that I
have been describing is another instance of seriality.
Notes
^oshihisa

"Sam"

Itaba. "A Rhetorical Analysis

1995.

of Pre-Meiji Arguments

over Japan's Foreign

Policies." Diss. U ofMinnesota,

1988 Inaugural
2Sangchul Lee, and Karlyn Kohrs Campbell. "Korean President Roh Tae-woo's
Address: Campaigning
for Investiture." Quarterly Journal of Speech 80 (Feb. 1994): 37-52.
Reason:
I Theory of Practical Ensembles. Trans.
3Jean-Paul Sartre. Critique of Dialectical
Alan Sheridan-Smith. Ed. Jonathan R?e (London: NLB,
1976). 256-69.
as a Social Collective."
Young. "Gender as Seriality: Thinking about Women
on
I
19
cited
material
737.
thank
Zornitsa
for calling
Keremidchieva
713-38;
1994):
Signs
(Spring
this essay tomy attention.
4Iris Marion

Richard Leo Enos

Texas Christian University

Classical

Rhetoric and Rhetorical Criticism

In 1876 Richard Claverhouse

Jebb ushered in the firstmajor English-lan

of
classical
rhetoric
with his Attic Orators from Antiphon to
guage critique
Isaeos. Jebb's intentwas to provide a comprehensive account of the master

pieces of oratory in ancient Greece. In his monumental work, Jebb provided

readers with historical background, a survey of the theoretical tenets of rhetoric,
and a cogent accounting of great oratory based on the classical tenets of rhetoric.
Jebb's nascent effortswere based on his presumption that the criticism of classi
cal oratory should be drawn from the tenets of classical rhetoric.That is, classi

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362

Rhetoric Review

cal rhetoricwould be evaluated by its own canons: invention, arrangement, style,

memory, and delivery.
So dominant were themethods of classical rhetorical criticism for evaluat
that they evolved intoNeo-Aristotelian criticism, a method of criti
oratory
ing

cism that stressed speaker, speech, audience, and occasion as heuristics of analy
sis. As mentioned above, emphasis within this traditionalmethod centered on an
analysis of the oration, which was based upon the principles derived from its

own canons. For much of the twentiethcentury, themethods of Neo-Aristotelian

criticism prescriptively directed not only our evaluation of classical rhetoric but
also virtually all manifestations of public address, as evinced by Lester

Thonssen, A. Craig Baird, and Waldo W. Braden's Speech Criticism. More im

criticism even dictated what
portantly, the taxonomy of Neo-Aristotelian
as
"counted"
rhetoric, namely nonmimetic, civic discourse thatwas agonistically
performed before immediate audiences (for example, Howell 31-32). By de

fault, all other types of expression of thoughts and feelings that fell outside these
Neo-Aristotelian confines were also considered to be outside the province of
rhetoric itself.

Despite the narrow parameters of rhetoric thatNeo-Aristotelian criticism es

tablished, there is an obvious reason why thismethod of rhetorical criticism per
sisted: Neo-Aristotelian criticism provided excellent heuristics for the evaluation
of civic discourse. It is difficult to read the three-volume collection edited by
William Norwood Brigance and Marie Hochmuth (Nichols), The History and
Criticism of American Public Address, and not admire themeticulous scholar
ship of thatwork. Many, in fact, would argue thatMarie Hochmuth Nichols'
brilliant essay "Lincoln's Inaugural Address" ranks among the greatest examples
of rhetorical criticism thatour field has produced in the twentiethcentury.Those
volumes, and Nichols's essay in particular, show Neo-Aristotelian criticism at its
finest, and more than justify the classical approach as a powerful method of
rhetorical criticism.

Yet Neo-Aristotelian criticism designed forpublic, agonistic, civic discourse

did not transferwell to the analysis of othermodes of rhetoric.As other types of
rhetorical discourse came into scholarly study, the need for other methods of

criticism expanded dramatically. Twentieth-century rhetorical critics such as

Edwin Black began to question the presumptions of Neo-Aristotelian criticism,
asking: Are the tenets ofNeo-Aristotelian criticism themost appropriate method
to evaluate rhetorical discourse? Since the publication of Black's Rhetorical

Criticism: A Study inMethod (1965), alternative methods of rhetorical criticism

were applied to every facet of contemporary communication?oral
and written.
Despite these dynamic changes in rhetorical criticism during the latterde
cades of the twentieth century, the long-held belief that classical works should

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Interdisciplinary

Perspectives

on Rhetorical

363

Criticism

be criticized by classical heuristics persisted. (That is, civic discourse should be

analyzed by theprinciples of Aristotelian rhetoric, since Aristotle's Rhetoric was
based on observations about civic discourse.) In a similar respect, themerits of

Ciceronian oratory presumably should be adjudicated by the tenets of

Ciceronian rhetoric because his rhetoricwas a reflection of his belief in the hu
manistic underpinnings of civic discourse. Thus classical rhetoric became the
last bastion for the classical method of rhetorical criticism. Yet even the domain
of classical rhetoric expanded beyond the traditional civic and agonistic mode of
oral argument to include many other manifestations of "rhetoric" in antiquity.
Today, we can reflect on classical rhetoric inmuch the same respect as Black did
formodern discourse and ask ifnew methods of rhetorical criticism aremore ap

propriate for the evaluation of classical rhetoric than those thatwere developed
in antiquity and promoted by scholars such as Jebb.
Recent developments in rhetorical criticism have challenged the presump
tion that classical discourse is best analyzed by itsown theoretical tenets. In fact,
the advances in rhetorical criticism in the last half century have enabled us to

view classical rhetoric anew. Perhaps themost stunning achievements have been
in the area of orality and literacy.Due to such scholars asWalter Ong (for exam
ple, Orality and Literacy, 1982) and Eric Havelock (for example, The Muse
Learns toWrite, 1986), we now have invaluable insights into the composing pro
cesses of oral and written communication. Through such scholars we see the

works of Homer, Hellenic rhapsodes, and sophists such as Gorgias of Leontini

from an entirely new perspective, one that is grounded on the formulaic tech
niques of nonliterate, preliterate, and literatepractices of expression.
As the province of historical rhetoric dilated to include other types of ex
pression,

so did

new methods

emerge

to evaluate

discourse.

For

example,

femi

nist rhetorical criticism has demonstrated thatwomen's rhetorical practices need

not?and
should not?be adjudicated by the classical standards of rhetorical
criticism. The work of such feminist scholars as Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and
Cheryl Glenn has shown that female practices of expression operate from rhetor
ical systems previously unaccounted for in classical rhetorical theory.We also
can look at classical rhetorical practices anew, thanks to the emergence of other

methods of rhetorical criticism. For example, the work in narrative rhetorical

criticism by scholars such asWalter Fisher helps us to reevaluate other genres of
expression for their rhetorical vectors. Similarly, the principles of social-move
ment criticism developed by researchers such as Charles J. Stewart, Craig Allen
Smith, and Robert E. Dent?n, Jr.are invaluable in viewing sophistic rhetoric as a

social movement thatdominated both theGreek world and theRoman Empire.

New developments in rhetorical criticism help us to look at classical rheto
ric inmany differentways. We should not forget, however, thatmany of the

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364

Rhetoric Review

extant rhetorical texts thatwe do have are compatible with the principles of
rhetorical theory, and those methods should not be deemphasized or
diminished. Yet, even here, work in rhetoric in the last fifty years has refined
classical

the approaches to argumentation that dominated Aristotelian rhetoric. Cha?m

Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca's The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argu

mentation has extended the principles of Aristotelian rhetoric, offering much

more sensitive and sophisticated heuristics for evaluating argumentation than
classical systems provide. Fittingly, we find that these new advancements do
not rise to use by "defeating" other approaches to rhetorical criticism. Rather,
the diversity of approaches in rhetorical criticism illustrates the expansiveness
of rhetoric. That is, we see now that rhetoric operates in a variety of dimen
sions and ways thatwere unforeseen by the traditional methods of classical
rhetorical criticism.

The achievements of rhetorical criticism have shown not only a spectrum of

rhetoricripe for evaluation but a diversity of methods for analysis. The field of
rhetoric ismuch wider and deeper now than themale-dominated agonistic civic
discourse of Athens thatAristotle so brilliantly accounted for in his work. While

foundational methods of rhetorical criticism should not be forgotten or ignored,

theymust now stand shoulder to shoulder with new approaches to rhetorical crit
icism. Being equipped with an array of critical tools not only helps us to exam
rhetoric

ine classical

anew;

these

tools

broaden

also

and

deepen

our

formanifestations of rhetoric thatwere left unexamined because

side the traditional domain of criticism.

appreciation

they fell out

Works Consulted
1965.
Black, Edwin. Rhetorical Criticism: A Study inMethod. New York: Macmillan,
Brigance, William Norwood, and Marie Hochmuth (Nichols), eds. A History and Criticism of Ameri
can Public Address. Three volumes. New York: Russell & Russell,
1943, 1954, rpt. 1960.
Havelock, Eric A. The Muse Learns toWrite: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to
thePresent. New Haven

and London:

Yale UP,

1986.

Samuel. Poetics, Rhetoric, and Logic:

Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 1975.

Howell, Wilbur

Jebb, R. C. The Attic Orators from Antiphon

1876, rpt. 1962.
Nichols, Marie

to Isaeos.

Studies

in the Basic Disciplines

of Criticism.

Two volumes. New York: Russell & Russell,

First Inaugural." Landmark Essays on Rhetorical Criticism.

CA: Hermagoras P, 1993.
and Literacy: The Technologizing
of the Word. London and New York:

Hochmuth.

"Lincoln's

Ed. Thomas W. Benson. Davis,

Ong, Walter

J. Orality

1982.
The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation.
Perelman, Cha?m, and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca.
and Purcell Weaver. Notre Dame and London: U of Notre Dame P, 1969.
Trans. JohnWilkinson
Stewart, Charles J.,Craig Allen Smith, and Robert E. Dent?n, Jr.Persuasion and Social Movements.
Methuen,

4th ed. Prospect Heights,

IL: Waveland,

2001.

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InterdisciplinaryPerspectives on Rhetorical Criticism

Thonssen,

365

Lester, A. Craig Baird, and Waldo W. Braden. Speech Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: Ron

ald, 1970.

Andrew King
State University

Louisiana

The State of Rhetorical Criticism

As Michael Hogan has often pointed out, the revival of rhetoric in the early
twentieth centurywas linked to the building of a civic infrastructure.Crusading

newspapers, adult education, farm extension, public debate, and academic de

partments flowered during the Progressive Era. Fearful that the nation was com
ing loose from them, that immigrantswould not be assimilated, thatbossism and

machine politics would erode democratic culture, Progressive leaders empha

sized an ambitious program of citizen education at all educational levels.
Thus early professors of rhetoric, such as Everett Lee Hunt at Cornell and

Hoyt Hudson at Princeton, called for the kind of broad and socially responsible
criticism thatVictorians had found inMatthew Arnold. Hunt in particular held
theArnoldian belief thatdebate was a form of institutionalized critique and that
his academic department should serve as a "clearing house" for the examination
and critique of public questions. However, academicians Hunt and Hudson knew
that academic criticism must be different from thewitty phrase-making of the
public intellectual; itmust be disciplined by a rigorous and powerful method.

They found theirfirstmagisterial method when Wichelns wrote "The Literary

Criticism of Oratory" in 1925. In the decades after the appearance of thatarticle,
rhetorical criticism became a central pillar of writing and research.
Similarly, with the expansion of graduate programs, criticism also assumed
a key role in the social sciences and the humanities. Bursting onto the scene like

a nova, New Criticism provided mid-century scholars in English departments

with a method that appeared rigorous, scientific, and professionally respectable.
Internationally famous scholars had birthed thismaster method; it accommo
dated (some say concealed) wide ideological differences. Its practitioners could
be seventeen or ninety, libertine or celibate, poetasters or profound scholars. De
spite its paucity of theory and the clenched intensity of its text-mining proce
dures, New Criticism swept all before it.As an English undergraduate in the late
1950s, I worshipped Ivor Armstrong Richards and Cleanth Brooks and practiced
with fervor and zeal all themuscular procedures thatAlan T?te jokingly called

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