Renaissance Rhetoric

The change of rhetoric during the Renaissance period, between the 14th and 17th centuries, was due to many changes going on in Europe.

Education, religion, and other ideas were changing. There came to be more independent thought. Therefore, people were beginning to challenge the norms that had dictated there's and the lives of their ancestors for long in the past.

Humanism, "generally regarded as the first great intellectual movement of the Renaissance, and to many contemporary scholars, sets the tone for the whole period" (RT 556). Petrarch, the man acclaimed for starting humanism, began to interpret classical customs in a new way. Humanism made it's way all over Europe in a short time.

Peter Ramus
Honestly, this guy bugs me. He wrote a few controversial books bashing the ideas of classical thinkers. Who does he think he is? I don't know, I just thought he was pretty arrogant.

Ancient Rhetoric Speech

My Imitation (Speech)

Every four years, registered voters of the United States of America have an important decision to make. A decision that has potential to change their country in both negative and positive ways. The decision about who will lead their country for the next four years. Voting for president is a privilege that Americans should be thankful for and take advantage of. When voting, Americans need to take into consideration who will be the best leader for their country.

I am not going to tell to vote republican or democrat or try to sway your political views. Though a candidate’s plan of action and values are important, the ability of a candidate to lead a country is vital.

The United States of America is at a time where its leader’s smart decision making is important. For example, the decisions pertaining to the Middle East. As of recently, there are about 46,000 troops in Iraq. The next president will have to make decisions governing the actions being made oversees and whether to change the amount of soldiers deployed in that area. Leadership while tackling these decisions is key.

Leadership is a broad term that entails different characteristics of an individual. A leader is committed to building excellence while doing what is best for their organization. In order to do this, a leader needs to demonstrate good character. Good character includes honesty, competence, intelligence, being fair minded, and being courageous, just to name a few.

In order to determine if a candidate is honest, pay attention to their forwardness and stance on different topics, whether it is through debates or speeches. An honest candidate will have a consistent decision throughout their campaign. This means that paying attention to the campaign is essential for voters.

A candidate who exhibits confidence will make decisions based on reason. Whereas a candidate who lacks confidence will make decisions based on emotion. As all of you know, the recent war has caused people to elicit a great deal of emotions. For example, decisions being contemplated and made by the current president Barak Obama, dealing with the amount of troops the U.S. currently has in Iraq and plans to have in 2012, has caused high emotions and debate across the country. It is important for Barak Obama to do what’s best for his country without letting his emotions make the decision for him.

Intelligence is necessary for a candidate to be ready to address any task that is thrown their way. Though there were some incidences that may be considered pretenses to the 9/11 attacks, the government was stunned by what transpired on that tragic day. A president needs to be aware that an instance like 9/11 can happen and they need to be ready to deal with it.

Next, a leader needs to be just. Being fair and treating all citizens is important. The United States is made up of numerous races and cultures; therefore, showing equal treatment is necessary.

Lastly, a leader is show courage. Webster’s dictionary defines courage this as “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.” A president will have many different assignments and goals they have to take on. They need to be strong to attempt and complete them.

I urge you all to consider the importance of a leader for our country. A leader who exhibits the characteristics of a leader, a leader whose main goal is to better their country, a leader who values their people. If you aren’t a registered voter and can be, please register so that you can join me in having an impact on who will lead our country. Your participation can begin by paying attention to the debates and speeches online, in the news, and in newspapers. Thank you.

Reflection

“Leadership”

The most challenging part of the assignment, to find an ancient speech and develop an imitation to recite in class, was research. There are many different documented speeches from ancient rhetors, but finding a modern topic and being able to apply the style of the ancient speaker was difficult.

When beginning the assignment, I brainstormed topics that I was passionate about and would be appealing to an audience of college students. After compiling a list, the idea of nationalism seemed to be the topic best suited for the assignment and audience. In order to have nationalism, having knowledge of current events is essential. I began exploring websites including CNN.com, foxnews.com, and USAtoday.com. Then, I read newspapers such as The Daily Evergreen, The New York Times, and USA Today. Lastly, I explored podcasts by popular voices including Glenn Beck and NPR to evaluate their opinions on leadership. Most of these resources discussed politics and the effectiveness of our current president, Barack Obama. It occurred to me how important the upcoming presidential election of 2012 will be to the citizens of the United States. I decided the voting for a leader in the upcoming election would be the topic of my persuasive speech.

The next step was to find an ancient speech that I could imitate. I decided to use the “Third Philippic”, a speech by Demosthenes to the Athenians encouraging them to rise up

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against Kind Philip. Demosthenes was concerned with the actions being taken by King Philip and was trying to get the Athenians to have the energy to call for change.

            Demosthenes was not concerned with using vast words and intellectual language. He used common linguistics that an audience of both educated and commoners with little or no education would understand. He didn’t use many tropes or other devices, but chose to educate his audience on the lack of leadership of King Philip in order to get them on his side and call for change. Therefore, his speech was simple but adequately narrated the desired argument about current leadership. His intended argument was easily received by the Athenians audience.

My imitation is calling for U.S. citizens to take action by voting so they can better their country by demanding appropriate leadership.  My imitation describes the qualities of a good leader, which is what Demosthenes was trying to explain to the Athenians in his speech. My imitation uses language that common university students will be able to understand without the unnecessary strain of trying to understand the language.

Leadership was an important feature to consider for a king during the time of the ancient speech and can be applied to voting for a president in the present day. Leadership entails narrower characteristics that voters should be aware of.  Our textbook , Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students states, “Aristotle pointed out successful examples may be drawn from history” (Crowley 173). To strengthen my argument researching renowned leaders in history and identifying what made them successful seemed to be an important topic to discuss in my speech.

This brought me to my next challenge. I needed to research past leaders who left a legacy of successful leadership and dig deeper to be able to identify what characteristics made them

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effective. After exploring numerous online resources, there seemed to be a consensus that Moses, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy left a legacy of successful leadership. Knowing the

information I found could be considered highly subjective, I chose not to directly attribute the characteristics in my speech to specific historical people. However, I chose to use the leadership characteristics of the historic people to give my audience real life examples to apply to the present day. While researching, I learned characteristics including the need for a leader being imaginative, meaning being able to discover new and innovative ways to handle a situation and that the ability to speak and gain followers isn’t as important as a leader’s character.

After compiling the information I found though research, I made an outline of my imitation. The outline was helpful to put my ideas in order. When it finally became time to write my speech, linguistics, presentation, and delivery were the only strategies that needed tweaking.

Looking back after the speech was written; I enjoyed the assignment more than I thought I would. The instant overwhelming feeling I had when we received the assignment disappeared while researching, which was when I began to be interested in the topic. This assignment taught me that though ancient speeches were given so long ago, the rhetoric can be used for an audience today.

Structure of Rhetoric

Boethius
In this part of the reading, I thought it was interesting that Boethius valued logic. This is what makes him different than Aristotle.

Structure of Rhetoric
I found this reading to be somwhat of a review. The one piece of it that I found to be important was the five important parts of rhetoric. They are invention, disposition, style, memory, and delivery. The rhetoric is considered to be imperfect if it lacks any of these.

Chapter 6 Ethical Proof:Arguments from Character

While reading this chapter, there were a few ideas that I found important and/or interesting. The easiest way for me to situate my ideas is to list them out...

Aristotle's two kinds of ethical proof

·         Invented: “rhetors can invent a character suitable to an occasion” (198)

·         Situated: use their good reputation in the community as a proof (198)

If I had to choose one of these to use, I would use the situated proof. To me, it seems like it would be hard to invent a character and stick to whatever that character should be all of the time. Whereas, when using situated, you are able to be yourself and use the reputation you have already gained in the community. Considering the example in the textbook on page 200, even if the invented character is someone more like the speakers true self, they have not practiced being that person and I would think they would stumble. It seems easier and more honest as well.

Aristotle’s Ethical Requirements (201)

·         Intelligent

·         Be of good character

·         Express good will towards their audiences.

I think these are extremely important. When you are intelligent, you know more about the topic and can give accurate information. Character is important to establish respect and be trusted. Lastly, expressing good will towards others is necessary to gain an audience.

In response to “Demonstrating Intelligence by Doing the Homework”
When reading this, the thought that came to mind was class discussions here at WSU. I’m currently in a class where we read a book a week and then discuss it at the end. There are many students that aren't taking the time to read the book. Therefore, they come to class with discussion that is hardly relevant and seems to have built off the comments of others who had red the book. This has come to be a pet peeve of mine. They aren't doing their audience a favor by contributing half assed (for lack of better words) comments.

Intimate and Formal Distance

·         Intimate seems to be how I would write a letter or poetry. It’s sometimes hard to write a paper for a class and not be professional.

·         I use formal distance a lot. I have a hard time putting out emotion and connecting to a reader. It is something I am constantly working on. It makes sense that formal distance is used in a courtroom because be professional is important.

“The choice of grammatical person is the most influential element in establishing voice and distance”

Chapter 5: Shaping an Argument using induction and deduction

This chapter had a lot of good information. The main point I grasped from it was the tools used to shape a rhetorical argument. I happen to really like the idea of induction and deduction.

The example used in the textbook is:

All people are mortal.
Socrates is a person.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

At first, this sounded like a very silly and obvious example, but then I realized the tools were being used on a small matter and could be used on larger matters as well.

When giving a rhetorical argument, you need to assume your audience has premises. Premises being their preconceived beliefs already in place. In your argument, you can build off the premises of your audience. I think is is going to be very helpful when we give our speeches in class.

I think of it as putting the pieces together for your audience so that they may be convinced by using my argument and building off of their own beliefs.

This idea may sound like common sense, but I had never really thought of it that way. It just makes me want to address premises in each of my speeches from here on out so that they may be stronger and better constructed.

Chapter 5 and Aristotle Post

Chapter 5 was a lot about common place.

The piece I was interested in most about this chapter was that common places can change depending on the current situation.

It's important to know that depending on laws and current situations common places can change. For example, thoughts on communism have changed over time. When people were afraid of communism, there were different arguments that changed.

There are different questions to consider: What is possible? What is impossible? What is less possible? What is possible in the future? What is impossible in the future? and What is impossible and possible in the past? (pg 151)

These questions can be applied to any topic to determine a common place.

These questions are important when shaping an argument so that a person covers all of their basis and is educated about the topic enough to make an argument about it.

Differnt rhetors had their own ideas about common place, but I think they are pretty similar at their core.

Chapter 3

After reading chapter 3, the most important information I gained was the need to consider all of the different arguments when preparing for a speech. Too often have I been one of those people that has taken my stance and been close minded to all of the different sides to the argument.

The reading explains how you need to be able to know and understand the different sides to the argument in order to address them in your speech. In order to make your speech believable, you need to address why your opinion is the best.

Not only is it important to know the different sides during your speech but it is important to know the different sides so when you are asked questions at the end, you will be prepared to answer whatever concerns a person with another stance on the issue may have.

I think this is important for political speeches. In order for a candidate to be fully prepared, they need to know the opinion of the people with the votes they are trying to keep as well as the ones they are trying to sway.

It all comes down to preparation, and know all sides is the best way to prepare!