Readings, Listenings, Viewings
Martin Luther King, “I Have a Dream.” You should also listen to the recording.
Abraham Lincoln, “The Gettysburg Address.” You can hear the speech read aloud by many different voices here.
Gertrude Stein, “Composition as Explanation.” You can hear Stein read on her page at PennSound; you might give a listen in particular to her rendition of “How She Bowed to her Brother.”
Zadie Smith, “Smith, On Optimism and Despair.”
Reflections
Richard Lanham, “The Divisions of Rhetoric.”
Richard Lanham, from “The Rhetorical Ideal of Life.”
Quintilian, from Institutio Oratoria.
David Gissen, “Listening to a Speech.”
Questions
From the wilds of babble and nonsense (whether pre- or postlinguistic), we turn this week to the discipline of rhetoric, the art of persuasion. We use the term “rhetoric” freely today to refer to formally, politically persuasive speech, and often we use it with a certain suspicion, as though it were necessarily opposed to natural or authentic expression. For centuries in the West, however, its principles were at the very center of humanist curriculum, and they linger in the teaching of public speaking, and writing. Our ur-source will be Quintilian, the first-century Roman rhetorician, whose Institutio Oratoria is among the most influential ancient rhetorical texts. As you read his account of voice, consider what he takes voice to be, and how it can be shaped, and to what ends. What is the voice for? What is its power? Is there anything dangerous about it? Are the principles that Quintilian presents for everyone to use? Who has a voice in this book? What is the relation of voice to text, voice to gesture? For larger context, consider the Richard Lanham essays. The excerpt from “The Rhetorical Ideal of Life” gives a sympathetic account of what it is like to take rhetoric as your basic equipment for living. You need not memorize the pages on “The Divisions of Rhetoric,” but they will give you a sense of the elaboration of the art in its full extent, and the pdf concludes with definitions of a few schemes and tropes. Take a look at parataxis, hypotaxis, isocolon, and chiasmus in particular. We’ll have an eye out for them as we consider our primary texts. As for those primary texts, we’ll think about their voices, what is distinct about them and where they seem to activate common principles, and what those principles might be; and the relation between the text on the page, and the performance.
Exercise
Rewrite a found text in the form of oratory. This may involve any text of your choosing (song lyrics, children’s rhyme, newspaper article, Twitter feed etc.) so long as the original is not intended as oratory, and is at least 250 words long. As usual, the exercise may be submitted in textual form or—if you choose—as an audio or video file (or all of these!) Again, as usual, your exercise should come equipped with a 200- to 300-word addendum describing your inspiration and goals for it (including any noteworthy surprises, hilarities or hindrances, etc. encountered along the way). Please be prepared to proudly declaim your oratory if called upon to do so in class and/or be prepared to declaim someone else’s, if you are enlisted on their behalf. Please submit your work no later than 9pm on Monday evening of next week, and bring a copy of anything that can be copied on paper.