The Greek Rhetoric
Thinking back to their school history books, many are likely to remember the story about an Athenian called Demosthenes who suffered from weak rhetorical skills. He decided to overcome his faults and went to the seashore.
As the waves rumbled in, he put stones in his mouth and began practicing. Demosthenes’ perseverance was rewarded and he became one of the great orators of his time. The story skilfully describes not only tenacity and sense of direction but also one specific cultural feature characteristic of ancient Greece. This feature is the important role of speech and oratorical skills. It follows from this that speech was more important than writing in managing public affairs. Therefore, it is no wonder that rhetoric was one of the great virtues for the Greeks.The skill of speaking, rhetoric (rhetorike in Greek), has been defined as eloquence or influential speech. To be more specific, rhetoric in this sense is a group of rules and principles through which a speech can be made aesthetically pleasing and influential, efficient. For the people in ancient times, rhetoric was more than anything a practical affair. The Greeks thought of it as “technique” (tekhne), while the Romans described it as an “art” (ars).The most significant developer of rhetoric was, without a doubt, Aristotle (384-322 BCE). He set apart three types of rhetoric: the political speech (deliberative), the judicial speech (forensic) and a type of speech concerned with ceremonial events, in which the orator’s objective is to prove his skills and abilities as a speaker (epideictic).
In the first two cases, the core is in developing a solution to a problem and making the public believe it by directing their opinion through rhetorical means. In ceremonial affairs, rhetoric is used to make people admire the skills of the speaker. For example, when discussing a judicial speech, Aristotle advised the use of certain specific means in order to guarantee the outcome.
The point of departure is in taking account of every essential aspect of the topic. In modern times we might say that the speaker has to know how to recognise the problem and to concentrate on the essential. Aristotle developed specific techniques for these occasions. He thought that the speaker has to master certain manners of treatment in order to have something to say about different matters. Those manners are processes of thought that always take off from some place, figuratively speaking. These places, or points of reference, were called topoi (plural of topos).What follows can be taken as examples of topoi. Sometimes it is useful to set off from juxtaposition, such as large/small or expensive/cheap. One application could be the reasoning often used by lawyers: if a greater wrong is allowed, the lesser wrong must be allowed as well. The relationship between cause and effect can also be a topos, as can the conceptual pair of common/specific. They are places from which the speaker can begin his argumentation. For example, he can take a specific case as his point of reference and then proceed to the general one. In addition to topoi, perhaps the most crucial aspects of Aristotle’s rhetoric are the proofs, since they are the means by which one can give rise to acceptance among the public. Examples of proofs are generalisation (induction) and logical verification (deduction).
Nevertheless, Aristotle also thought that a speech and a good orator always have to make the audience emotionally convinced as well. A good speech has to be outlined clearly (dispositio), in addition to which its language has to be put into a beautiful form - that is, easy on the ears. This is the elocutio part of the speech, the finishing touch. Since speeches were not written down in ancient times, one also needed various techniques of memorisation. Only with their help could the orator concentrate all his skills on speaking and winning over the public.
Rhetoric did not have such a good reputation in antiquity.
In his dialogue Gorgias, Plato paints a devastating picture of the titular person, the greatest sophist speaker, even though it has been said that it was Gorgias who realised that speech can even be used to produce fraud and make people believe a lie. This was why Socrates thought that the sophists’ rhetoric was only flattery and impersonation, being nowhere close to influencing and persuasion.These masters of rhetoric lacked what is most important: the knowledge of the good, the truthful and the right. At their worst, the sophists taught that an opinion could be defended at any cost necessary. To emphasise: a good speaker had to know how to turn black into white. As the significance of the speech as an influence on public opinion waned more generally in the Roman age - speech was partly replaced by written text - rhetoric began to acquire more and more negative connotations. Later on, it disappeared from the public scene and moved into (monastery) schools, where, as in universities, it was for a long time regarded as one of the seven liberal arts. The radical change brought on in the 13th century through the development of cities transferred the church into the centre of the village, so to speak. The cathedral replaced the monasteries, giving birth to the sermon tradition as a counterbalance to seclusion and keeping rhetoric alive through the early Middle Ages.
Still, rhetoric would have to step aside little by little and give room to more important issues. It has been said that rhetoric became art for art’s sake and its final destiny was complete disappearance from the group of important subjects taught in schools. Thus rhetoric was covered by the merciful pastel dust of history.