Before the Middle Ages

Chapter 1 traces the millennial length of a theoretical discourse about affectio that begins with Cicero’s De inventione before turning to a tradition of stylistic teaching that arose in parallel with that speculative rhetorical thought and that was to have much more profound consequences for medieval rhetorical practice. Cicero’s De inventione was the main Latin rhetorical treatise, along with Rhetorica ad Herennium, that the Middle Ages inherited from antiquity. Cicero treats emotion (affectio) as a topic of invention, and understands it in philosophical terms as a perturbation of the soul. That philosophical approach was elaborated in medieval commentaries. The chapter then turns to late antique handbooks of style. Style came to constitute a separate study; through these influences, style also became the main conduit for teaching emotion and rhetorical persuasion.

Introduction

What rhetorical traditions did the Middle Ages inherit from antiquity? The first part of this chapter outlines those traditions: a partial corpus of Ciceronian rhetoric; Horace’s Ars poetica; the Rhetoric of Aristotle which was not known until the thirteenth century. The second part considers how emotions figure across rhetorical doctrine in antiquity and the Middle Ages. The third part of the chapter considers the relation of this work to emotions studies and history of emotions more broadly. The fourth part of this Introduction considers the relation between theory and practice, and the sources from which we draw our understanding of medieval rhetoric and the emotions: from theoretical treatises, from rhetorical practice, and the intersections of the two.

Recht als Gegenstand rhetorischer Grundlagenforschung

According to the self-image of lawyers, jurisprudence is a science: the premises in legal conclusions are truth-apt, as are the conclusions or judgements that follow from them, the cognition of true law is consequently regarded as their task. Against this background, a program that understands and analyzes law as the product of a rhetorical practice is confronted with fierce resistance. According to the research of analytical legal rhetoric, on the other hand, the evidence for a rhetorical imprint on law is overwhelming: starting with the logical status of legal inferences, to the peculiarities of judicial procedure, to the motivational situation of those involved in it, everywhere it becomes apparent that the image of strict truth-orientation inadequately describes the genesis of law. Following Aristotle, who assigned law to the field of phrónēsis and not to epistēmē, contemporary legal rhetoric research aims to draw a realistic picture of the genesis of law. Subdivided into the triad of logos, ethos, and pathos, it attempts to fully grasp the interrelationships involved. It becomes apparent that the rational or argumentative dimension is far from dominating in legal justifications. It is precisely at the neuralgic point, i.e., where arguments are opposed to each other, that the rhetor typically uses a rhetorical figure that links all levels of the triad: the restrictio.

Elizabeth I’s Royal Progresses: A Study of Formal Orations and Poetic Recitations

The present study examines the rhetoric of inconsistency in the representation of Queen Elizabeth I through a reading of formal orations and poetic recitations written during her royal progresses. These literary resources, which were deliberately designed to promote the Elizabethan monarchy, offer illuminating examples of Elizabeth’s struggle to cultivate a distinctive royal identity. I would suggest that the tactical rhetorical practice of creating paradoxical images was an essential constituent of Elizabeth’s statecraft to cement her authority and reinforce her legitimacy. Indeed, the deployment of a discourse of contradiction that shaped Elizabeth’s progresses was a necessary and practical approach to overcome the vulnerability of an unmarried female monarch. The analysis of contradictory imagery is a valuable contribution to comprehend the complexity of Elisabeth’s representation and her strategies of exercising power in a patriarchal society. The research shows that Elizabeth employed the medium of creating ambiguous images as a rhetorical tactic to overcome gender bias against the female monarchy, and her courtiers utilized the same approach to advance their own agendas. It explores two ambiguous representations: masculine/ feminine portrayal and virgin/ maternal depiction.

Elizabeth I’s Royal Progresses: A Study of Formal Orations and Poetic Recitations

The present study examines the rhetoric of inconsistency in the representation of Queen Elizabeth I through a reading of formal orations and poetic recitations written during her royal progresses. These literary resources, which were deliberately designed to promote the Elizabethan monarchy, offer illuminating examples of Elizabeth’s struggle to cultivate a distinctive royal identity. I would suggest that the tactical rhetorical practice of creating paradoxical images was an essential constituent of Elizabeth’s statecraft to cement her authority and reinforce her legitimacy. Indeed, the deployment of a discourse of contradiction that shaped Elizabeth’s progresses was a necessary and practical approach to overcome the vulnerability of an unmarried female monarch. The analysis of contradictory imagery is a valuable contribution to comprehend the complexity of Elisabeth’s representation and her strategies of exercising power in a patriarchal society. The research shows that Elizabeth employed the medium of creating ambiguous images as a rhetorical tactic to overcome gender bias against the female monarchy, and her courtiers utilized the same approach to advance their own agendas. It explores two ambiguous representations: masculine/ feminine portrayal and virgin/ maternal depiction.

Pipe Dreams of the Nouveaux Riches

World expos are occasions for the type of rhetorical display known as "epideictic," and as such, they provide glimpses into how a nation wants to be seen at a particular point in time. In this article, I probe into Norway’s pavilion at the 1992 expo in Seville, Spain, for answers to what Norway wanted to be in the early 1990s. I will argue that Norway’s pavilion, a “deconstructed structure” that centered on a somewhat ambiguous pipe, signals a country in the process of reinventing itself under the aegis of petroleum. More specifically, I suggest that Norway’s ’92 pavilion can be read as an early instantiation of rhetorical techniques that would later become key to Norway’s claim to being both a leading petroleum producer and an environmental frontrunner. The pavilion itself pulled off this balancing act in much the same way that politicians and others would later learn to handle it – by techniques of rhetorical association and dissociation (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969 [1958]). Having chosen “the cycle of water” as the overarching theme for the exhibition, the makers of the pavilion (the largest sponsor of which was the state oil company, Statoil) managed to make petroleum safe by renaming it “offshore” and by associating it, also in many other ways, with water. The pavilion’s deconstructive architecture can thus be understood as an early validation of the rhetorical practice of “putting together” and “taking apart” to make new things that serve the nation’s interests – in this case a “cycle of water” in which petroleum was a natural part. Although I posit only similarity, and not causality, the rhetorical techniques of Norway’s ’92 pavilion were in this way strikingly similar to what later became a stock argument, e.g. that Norway offers “the world’s cleanest petroleum” (see Ihlen 2007).

Rhetorical Practice

This chapter surveys key aspects of rhetorical practice in Byzantium, with a focus on the middle and late periods. The first section maps out the generic landscape of Byzantine rhetoric, which, in addition to oratory in the narrow sense, can be argued to comprise virtually all of (highbrow) literature, including poetry. While it is true that Byzantine rhetoric is particularly rich in texts of the demonstrative type such as encomia, the essay asserts against claims to the contrary, that forms of deliberative and judicial rhetoric continued to exist in Byzantium and appear in fact ubiquitously once one broadens the scope beyond secular oratory. After a brief sketch of the place of rhetoric in higher education, the chapter proceeds to discuss the various steps involved in composing and performing a rhetorical text. In this, it follows ancient and medieval precepts for the so-called tasks of the rhetorician—invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery—and shows their relevance for the practice of writing and reciting texts belonging to various rhetorical genres. Throughout, this chapter argues that scholarship on Byzantine rhetoric has focused too narrowly on panegyric and on matters of style, and that attention should turn to long-neglected aspects of argumentative technique that were at the heart of Byzantine rhetorical theory and education and that can be found in a wide array of textual genres, particularly in religious literature.

Hostility online: Flaming, trolling, and the public debate

Whereas the amount of hostility found online increases, scholarly interest in online hostility is decreasing. In this paper, I discuss three questions central to the study of online hostility, namely 1) what role the text, the speaker’s intention and the targets’ perception should play in definitions of hostility; 2) whether hostility is always destructive or if it can also be productive in public debate; and 3) how to distinguish between destructive and productive hostility. I demonstrate the difficulties in defining online hostility and argue that rather than aiming for specific definitions, we should acknowledge the situatedness of rhetorical practice and, consequently, that the effects and ethical implications of utterances depend on given situations. In doing so, I aim to encourage renewed academic interest in flaming and trolling.

Personal citation, rhetorical practice and the reinvention of oríkì tradition

The data consist two citation texts of prominent civil servants in Nigeria. There are two reasons for this choice of data: first, these texts have explicit intertextual relations to oral delivery being a text configured for the ear and second, there is the network of features associated with the Yoruba oriki social culture that is pervasive in the performance modes of personal citation<br>