Mocked as uptight grammarians, more often typecast as junior-high schoolmarms than poetic personalities, English teachers, contrary to stereotype, actually continue a noble tradition whose origins date back to the Greco-Roman beginnings of Western civilization. A scholarly anthology titled Essays on Classical Rhetoric and Modern Discourse explores this ancient heritage, linking today’s writing classroom with the great names in rhetoric from Greek and Roman times. Noting the influence of such luminaries as Plato, Aristotle, and Quintilian, the book traces the evolution of rhetoric through time, providing a fascinating perspective on how rhetoric and the quest for truth relate historically and inform English courses today.
While “quest for truth” perhaps overly-dramatizes what writing students experience, Plato teaches that a spiritual element underlies writing pursued as an act of discovery. An essay by Jeremy Golden elaborates: “the subject of knowledge. . .has as its starting and finishing points ideal forms situated in the mind of God. The forms. . .represent the ultimate truth to be sought.” Plato’s rhetorical forms--particularly the famous dialectic--function as yoga for the mind, deepening the awareness of dedicated rhetoricians. The dialectic, defined as “purifying” process of refutation and re-examination, provides a strategic formula for clarifying ideas, developing arguments, and thinking critically. Today, English teachers invoke a basic dialectic when they encourage students to write with a reader’s perspective. Switching roles from writer-based text generation to reader-based text evaluation helps students clarify unstated assumptions and encourages a revision of content and phrasing that teachers might call “sentence truth.”
Plato looms large not only for his direct influence on rhetoric but as a counterpoint for other thinkers who modified his ideas through time. An essay by James Kinneavy describes these changes and their perpetrators: “on the issue of epistemology Isocrates directly opposed Plato. . .In speech after speech he inveighed against the type of theory and science represented by Parmenides and Plato.” Similar to the Sophists, a group skilled at using emotional appeals and figures of speech to persuade audiences, Isocrates knew how style could influence jurors, and began a school dedicated to the intense practice of courtroom oratory. Unlike Plato, he did not attribute a spiritual value to the theory of forms nor did he require true evidence to support his arguments. Rather, the school emphasized imitation and manner, an approach which ultimately had a lasting effect on rhetoric and Isocrates’ place in history. Says Kinneavy: “It was through these kinds of discourse, learned by an almost mechanical imitation, that most of the writers of western civilization in antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance learned to write. Isocrates, in this sense, is the father of western humanism.” Though criticized through history for their emphasis on style over substance, the Sophists nevertheless exert an influence in the today’s writing classroom. When English teachers call attention to model texts, literary tropes, and artistic devices (e.g., parallel structure, active voice phrasings, etc.), they echo Sophist principles that emphasize stylistic presentation.
Other names deserve honorable mention. The widely taught (and widely disliked) five-paragraph essay originated with Quintilian, a Roman who thought it the ideal form for courtroom oratory. An introductory paragraph sought to win the sympathies of the jurors; a magic number of three supporting arguments sought to justify those sympathies; and finally the conclusion reminded the jury why they felt sympathetic. Though criticized by many teachers as artificial and impractical, a form stifling to creativity and irrelevant to how actual writers approach real-world writing tasks, the five-paragraph model nevertheless exemplifies the enduring influence of classical rhetoric. At its core, writing consists of assertion and proof, a conceptual movement from general to specific (and vice-versa), patterns the five-paragraph model emphatically reinforces. Designed for courtroom oratory, the five-paragraph model emphasizes that writers function in partnership with an audience who expects clarity and organization. The fact that English textbooks have devoted more ink to the five-paragraph format that any other organizational approach testifies to Quintilian’s legacy.
The editors of the book conclude with a message for English departments in particular and academic institutions in general. At one time, no departments existed in colleges, and rhetoric represented the main discipline. During the Nineteenth Century, however, the Belles-lettres movement downplayed ancient rhetoric influences, advocating English studies in place of the classics. The discipline of English severed from rhetoric (later the concern of Speech Communication) to the detriment of both. While many attempts to re-unify the two disciplines took place over the years, not until the publication of Rhetoric: Principles and Usage by Duhaumel and Hughes did classical rhetoric return as a subject worthy of English studies. The challenge of rhetoric today, contend the editors of Essays on Classical Rhetoric and Modern Discourse, is to unite disciplines previously in contention with one another, to the advantage of both.
In light of recent instructional trends, the book perhaps offers an additional message: proper writing instruction emphasizes the principles of classical rhetoric. At a time when English teachers increasingly embrace identity politics, masquerading as sociologists while they discuss “positionality,” “asymmetrical power structures,” and other notions borrowed from post-deconstructionist, post-relevant discourse theory, the practical purpose of English courses increasingly diminishes. Most students today express little interest in agitation propaganda. Juggling work, school, and family obligations, they seek not to disrupt the dominant paradigm but find a place within it. In this regard they have much in common with the tunic-clad Athenian youth who, admiring Plato in 400 B.C., sought insight from “the good person speaking well.”
