Rhetorical Stance in Modern Literature: Allegories of Love and Death

148 Pages·1984·13.58 MB·English

by  Lynette Hunter (auth.)

RHETORICAL STANCE IN MODERN LITERATURE
Most of us are aware of the split between fact and value: while value
implies an element of subjective judgement, fact is indisputable.
Inasmuch as language expresses fact from the subject's point of view, a
wholly neutral language is impossible. Yet while many pay lip-service
to the impossibility of a neutral language, few are prepared to
acknowledge the elements of persuasion in their own method of
communication-their own rhetorical stance. Once the importance of
rhetorical stance is realized, much criticism of modern literature
becomes suspect.
Taking Plato's Gorgias and Phaedrus as examples, this study tries to
suggest alternative approaches that do not inevitably separate fact and
value and that go out of their way to emphasize the non-neutrality of
language. The Gorgias is set up to propose exactly the neutralities of
science and games so that Plato can expose them as attempts to hide
their persuasiveness, to disguise their stance and the moral implica
tions of their strategies. The Phaedrus goes further and, through a
series of allegories on love, suggests different attitudes to rhetorical
stance.
Many of the contradictions in contemporary criticism arise because
it remains within the grounds of the Gorgias, and fails to recognize the
fallacy of its neutrality. It is significant that in redressing the balance a
number of writers have turned to the Phaedrus, and iri discussing the
alternatives Rhetorical Stance brings together the superficially dispa
rate studies of Plato by Jacques Derrida and Iris Murdoch: the one
commenting on attitudes to non-neutrality and the other on the fact
and value split. Again through allegories of love and death, both
writers propose stances of continual interaction that deny neutrality,
imply active morality and fuse poetic into rhetoric.
Dr. Lynette Hunter is a Research Fellow at the University of Wales and
was previously the University Research Fellow at the University of
Liverpool. She is the author of G. K. Chesterton: Explorations in
Allegory and George Orwell: The Search for a Voice and has
contributed articles to various literary journals.
By the same author
G. K. CHESTERTON: EXPLORATIONS IN ALLEGORY
GEORGE ORWELL: THE SEARCH FOR A VOICE
RHETORICAL
STANCE IN
MODERN LITERATURE
Allegories of Love and Death
LYNETTE HUNTER
M
MACMILLAN
© Lynette Hunter 1984
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1984
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form
or by any means, without permission
First published 1984 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS L TO
London and Basingstoke
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
Typeset by
Wessex Typesetters Ltd
Frome, Somerset
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Hunter, Lynette
Rhetorical stance in modern literature
1. Plato
I. Title
184 8395
ISBN 978-1-349-07063-3 ISBN 978-1-349-07061-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-07061-9
To the memory of Thomas Lichtenfels
Contents
Acknowledgements IX
1 The Field of Rhetoric 1
A Background 1
Modern studies of rhetoric 8
II Positive and Negative Rhetoric 12
Rhetoric and politics 14
2 Rhetorical Stance in 'Gorgias' and 'Phaedrus' 21
I The Gorgias: Background 21
II The Phaedrus: Background 22
The criticism 24
The speeches 27
The conversation 30
The third speech 31
III The Narrative Interludes in Phaedrus 33
The legend of Oreithyia 34
The allegory of the soul 35
The analogies 36
The writing 39
IV Rhetoric and the Analogies in Phaedrus 43
The myth of the cicadas: reader and writer 43
The story of Theuth: writing 48
The analogies of the garden and of medicine:
reader, writer and writing 51
V Summary 54
3 Rhetorical Stance 58
Logic, Grammar and Poetic 58
II Rhetoric and Logic 64
A Seventeenth-century background 65
Logic 72
VII
Vlll Contents
III Rhetoric and Poetic 76
Early attitudes to rhetoric and poetic 77
Rhetoric, logic and poetic: contemporary attitudes 79
Argumentation 83
IV Twentieth-century Views of Poetic and Rhetoric:
Science and Games 86
Models of science 86
Models of games 92
V Fact and Value 102
4 Allegories of Love and Death 106
Iris Murdoch: Allegories of Love 106
Eros and play 115
II Jacques Derrida: Allegories of Death 120
Notes 128
Index 135
Acknowledgements
The research for this book was undertaken during a University
Research Fellowship at the University of Liverpool from 1978 to
1981. I would like to thank all the members of the English
Department for their help, especially Diane Macdonnel for her series
of seminars.
The book was written while I held a Research Fellowship at the
University of Wales, the Institute of Science and Technology, 1981-2,
and was prepared for publication with a grant from the British
Academy.
I would particularly like to thank Peter Lichtenfels, John Thompson
and Diane Macdonnel for reading the script and for their advice, and
Annie Davies for her painstaking care in typing and retyping.
L. H.
IX
1 The Field of
Rhetoric
A BACKGROUND
In popular contemporary terms 'rhetoric' is often thought of as a
derogatory expression referring to arguments that persuade you
against your will. But this denigration of the topic is a fairly recent
occurrence, an accident of history that has come into effect only in the
last two hundred years. Traditionally, rhetoric has been concerned
with persuasion: its art and technique. As such it has reached into all
aspects of expression and communication, both positive and negative.
Many twentieth-century critics and theorists have returned their
attention to the topic, realising its broader scope. Yet, while some
studies have recognised its ability to fill a gap in areas of current
philosophy, most have concentrated on rhetoric as technical profic
iency in persuasion and have dismissed or simply set aside the
restricted popular definition. These arguments of current rhetorical
studies have been mainly concerned with a distinction between
classical 'map' rhetoric and contemporary 'design' rhetoric. Map
rhetoric has been criticised for its fixity while design is praised for its
flexibility. But the discussions have all too often failed to perceive the
underlying problem of fixed map rhetoric, which is its hidden arbitrary
nature, and have neglected the limitation in design rhetoric when it
converges on its own fixity. The distinction is summed up clearly by
T. 0. Sloan's entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, when he says that
classical rhetoric looked 'at a text as though it were a kind of map of the
author's mind on a particular subject. The [modern] rhetorician ...
regards the text as embodiment of an intention, a design - not as a
map.'1 The distinction here is that map rhetoric charts out a specific set
of tactics, while design accommodates a flexible strategy; but design in
practical effect is simply the obverse face of map.
The stress on design appears to derive at least in part from the
increasing scepticism of the Western world toward the totality and
1