Greece, Rome, and the Revolutionaries of 1916

2020 ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Brian McGing
Keyword(s):  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Classical Rhetoric ◽  
Gettysburg Address ◽  
Classical Culture ◽  
Political Oratory

This chapter argues for a tension in the writings of Patrick Pearse, with some discussion also of Thomas MacDonagh, between commitment to the Gaelic and Catholic movement, which had eclipsed the classicism of earlier political rhetoric, and a marked interest in classical culture. Following an overview of the reception of classical rhetoric in political oratory before Irish independence, Pearse’s essays and speeches are analysed and shown to be permeated with classical tropes. Pearse’s oration for O’Donovan Rossa is discussed in particular detail, and it is suggested that the affinities with Thucydides in this funeral oration may have been mediated by Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, with which Pearse was familiar.

scholarly journals Order in disorder

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 520-541
Author(s):  
Sarah Ledoux ◽  
Peter Bull
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Cross Cultural Differences ◽  
Audience Interaction ◽  
Audience Responses ◽  
Political Speeches ◽  
Political Oratory ◽  
Nicolas Sarkozy

Abstract Recent research has established that Japanese political oratory and audience behaviour (Bull & Feldman 2011; Feldman & Bull 2012) are fundamentally different to those found in British political speeches (Heritage & Greatbatch 1986). To further develop these cross-cultural analyses of political rhetoric, speaker-audience interaction was analysed in ten speeches by the two second-round candidates in the 2012 French presidential elections (François Hollande; Nicolas Sarkozy). Analogous to British speeches, French speeches were characterised by “implicit” affiliative response invitations and asynchronous speaker-audience interaction, in contrast to Japanese “explicit” invitations and synchrony. These results were interpreted in terms of Hofstede’s (2001) individualism-collectivism cultural dimensions. Dissimilarities in audience responses between the two candidates were also identified and discussed. The analysis of cross-cultural differences continues to reveal the intricate differences between societies, and ensures academic understanding on rhetoric is not boxed into crude universal rules.

Rhetorical strategies and identity politics in the discourse of colonial withdrawal

2002 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Flowerdew
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Rhetorical Tropes ◽  
Political Oratory

Skilful use of the rhetorical tropes which typify the language of serious political occasions — described here as “rhetorical weight” — is closely associated with charismatic political leaders. This paper studies the political rhetoric of a skilled exponent of the art, Chris Patten, the last British colonial governor of Hong Kong, and shows how he used rhetorical weight to promote his political agenda. Detailed analysis of four segments of Patten’s political oratory, spread over the period of his five-year term of office, highlights his heavy use of the tropes of metaphor, antithesis, parallelism, actualisation, and the unities of time, place and action. The paper demonstrates how the use of these tropes related to Patten’s overall political goals and their manipulative nature within the context of his discursive construction of Britain’s imperial/national history and identity.

scholarly journals Conceptual Metaphors in President Muhammadu Buhari's Political Rhetoric

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. p27
Author(s):  
Zubairu Malah ◽  
Dinyo Shadrach Taiwo
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Emotional Impact ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
Inaugural Speech ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
Political Oratory ◽  
To Receive

Conceptual metaphors continue to receive scholarly attention from discourse analysts taking political discourse seriously. Studies are often interested in the versatile discourse functions of metaphors; how political leaders deploy them as powerful weapons in their armory of political oratory. Therefore, this study extends the current knowledge by exploring conceptual metaphors in President Muhammadu Buhari’s political rhetoric. It was guided by two major questions: (1) What types of conceptual metaphors does President Muhammadu Buhari deploy in his political rhetoric? and (2) What rhetorical functions do the Conceptual Metaphors deployed in President Muhammadu Buhari’s political rhetoric perform? The study’s theoretical impetus was Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), and Charteris-Black’s (2009) Contemporary Model of Metaphor and Political Communication was also applied in the analysis. The speeches analyzed include: (1) Muhammadu Buhari’s Presidential Primaries Speech, (2) Muhammadu Buhari’s Acceptance Speech, (3) Muhammadu Buhari’s Victory Speech and (4) Muhammadu Buhari’s (First) Presidential Inaugural Speech. The results show that President Buhari, in his political rhetoric, mostly uses HUMAN metaphors (32%), WAR metaphors (21%) and JOURNEY metaphors (16%). Moreover, further analysis revealed that Buhari mostly uses conceptual metaphors to establish his ethical integrity, heighten emotional impact and communicate his anti-corruption and political ideologies. The study concluded that conceptual metaphors are vital resources for construction of persuasion in President Muhammadu Buhari’s political rhetoric.

GOD'S IMAGE AND EGALITARIAN POLITICS

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 310-321
Author(s):  
George P. Fletcher
Keyword(s):  
Church And State ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
The Past ◽  
National Leaders ◽  
God's Image ◽  
American Society ◽  
Political Oratory ◽  
Biblical Sources ◽  
Martin Luther King

These days, American politicians are loath to cite biblical passages for fear of being charged with breaching the wall between church and state. There was a time when a presidential candidate could claim that a certain monetary policy would “crucify us on a cross of gold.” This kind of rhetoric is now taboo. America's national leaders even avoid quoting the religious phrases from the Declaration of Independence, particularly its references to the “Creator” or “Nature's God.” Although in the past some of the greatest American political oratory—Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg (1863) or Martin Luther King, Jr., at the Lincoln Memorial (1963)—relied unashamedly on biblical sources and imagery, it is no longer considered acceptable to argue publicly in the language of either the Hebrew or Christian Bibles. However religious American society might still be today, political rhetoric is noticeably nonreligious.

On the Will of the People: Notes on the Political “Theory” of Populism

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claus Offe
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The Political ◽  
The People ◽  
National People ◽  
The Will

The “will of the (national) people” is the ubiquitously invoked reference unit of populist politics. The essay tries to demystify the notion that such will can be conceived of as a unique and unified substance deriving from collective ethnic identity. Arguably, all political theory is concerned with arguing for ways by which citizens can make e pluribus unum—for example, by coming to agree on procedures and institutions by which conflicts of interest and ideas can be settled according to standards of fairness. It is argued that populists in their political rhetoric and practice typically try to circumvent the burden of such argument and proof. Instead, they appeal to the notion of some preexisting existential unity of the people’s will, which they can redeem only through practices of repression and exclusion.

Petrarch's Defense of Secular Letters, the Latin Fathers, and Ancient Roman Rhetoric

1993 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-134
Author(s):  
Brenda Deen Schildgen
Keyword(s):  
Classical Rhetoric ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Rhetorical Situations ◽  
Epistolary Form ◽  
The Church ◽  
Roman Rhetoric

Abstract: Like the Church Fathers before him, Petrarch was forced to defend secular learning against its detractors, and his defenses draw on many of the same arguments that Augustine and Jerome had used. In these defenses he blends classical rhetoric and Christian values, and his procedures also follow the traditions of classical rhetoric, relying on the epistolary form and utilizing the Ciceronian manner of debating all topics from opposite standpoints. Perhaps, however, because his indecisiveness complemented the classical rhetorical premise that many issues present many possible resolutions, Petrarch also rejects secular learning in some of his writings. His arguments are therefore conclusive only within their unique rhetorical situations.

The Missing Rhetorical History Between Quintilian and Augustine

2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 349-376
Author(s):  
Mike Duncan
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Classical Rhetoric ◽  
Rhetorical History ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
Rhetorical Force ◽  
Apostolic Church

Current histories of rhetoric neglect the early Christian period (ca. 30–430 CE) in several crucial ways–Augustine is overemphasized and made to serve as a summary of Christian thought rather than an endpoint, the texts of church fathers before 300 CE are neglected or lumped together, and the texts of the New Testament are left unexamined. An alternative outline of early Christian rhetoric is offered, explored through the angles of political self-invention, doctrinal ghostwriting, apologetics, and fractured sermonization. Early Christianity was not a monolithic religion that eventually made peace with classical rhetoric, but as a rhetorical force in its own right, and comprised of more factions early on than just the apostolic church.

« Si res ad synodum traheretur » (I, 416) Les procès imaginaires dans le livre I de l'Ysengrimus.

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-431
Author(s):  
Jean FranÇois Poisson-Gueffier
Keyword(s):  
Classical Rhetoric ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Rhetorical Structures ◽  
Judicial Oratory

The first book of medieval Latin beast epic, Ysengrimus, relates imaginary trials. In the episodes of the stolen ham and the fishing, the characters, Ysengrin and Renart, imagine that they would convene an ecclesiastic assembly, a synod, and that they would plead their case. Their plead reverses right and wrong (translatio criminis), invents speeches to denigrate each other (sermocinatio), and seems to take the form of large digressions. These speeches, which have been considered as “interminable” and “wordy” by J. Mann and É. Charbonnier, can be reassessed through classical rhetoric. This paper aims to demonstrate that, in spite of the extent of these speeches' apparent rambling, we can extricate some rhetorical structures (constitutiones) from the judicial oratory. This is the first point of a speech that also uses prolixity as an “art of being right.”

Classical Conceptions of Visuality and Representation in John of Damascus' Defense of Holy Images1

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 284-308
Author(s):  
James A. Francis
Keyword(s):  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Word And Image ◽  
John Of Damascus ◽  
History Of ◽  
Classical Culture ◽  
Common Era ◽  
Iconoclastic Controversy

The Defense of Holy Images by John of Damascus stands as the archetypal exposition of the Christian theology of images. Written at the outbreak of the Iconoclastic Controversy, it has been mostly valued for its theological content and given scholarly short shrift as a narrowly focused polemic. The work is more than that. It presents a complex and profound explication of the nature of images and the phenomenon of representation, and is an important part of the “history of looking”in western culture. A long chain of visual conceptions connects classical Greek and Roman writers, such as Homer and Quintilian, to John: the living image, the interrelation of word and image, and image and memory, themes elaborated particularly in the Second Sophistic period of the early Common Era. For John to deploy this heritage so skillfully to the thorny problem of the place of images in Christianity, at the outbreak of a violent conflict that lasted a further 100 years after his writing, manifests an intellect and creativity that has not been sufficiently appreciated. The Defense of Holy Images, understood in this context, is another innovative synthesis of Christianity and classical culture produced by late antique Christian writers.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document