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Rhetorical Stance in Modern Literature: Allegories of Love and Death PDF

148 Pages·1984·13.58 MB·English
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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

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