Early Movements and Rhetoricians

11 Fevereiro 2020, 14:00 • Fotini Hadjittofi

Sophism and Sophistry

Questions

To which genre does Gorgias’ speech belong? Does it aim to persuade? Does Gorgias appeal to the audience’s emotions? Think about the correlation between prose and poetry in this text.

What do we know about Helen from other, earlier texts? How is Gorgias’ Helen different?

Primary Text
Gorgias, Encomium of Helen

Secondary Readings

Gagarin, M. 2001. “Did the Sophists Aim to Persuade?”, Rhetorica 19: 275–291.
Porter, J. 1993. “The Seductions of Gorgias”, Classical Antiquity 12: 267–299.
Shaffer, D. 1998. “The Shadow of Helen: The Status of the Visual Image in Gorgias’s

Encomium to Helen”, Rhetorica 16: 243–257. Cicero

Questions

At the beginning of the De Inventione (84 BCE) Cicero follows Aristotle in linking rhetoric with political science, but he quickly moves the discussion from deliberative to forensic oratory and does not examine in depth the role of rhetoric in politics. Is it possible to relate this change in the topic of discussion to the socio-historical context of the time?

In De Oratore Cicero states that only someone who has “gained a knowledge of all the important subjects and arts” could be an outstanding orator. What would Plato think about this claim?

What does Crassus mean in De Oratore when he states that the “pretty Greeks” are “fonder . . . of an argument than of the truth”?

Cicero maintains that the aim of oratory was to prove, delight, and persuade. Does any of these three aims tend dominate the passages you have read? What features, if any, seem to be aimed at “delighting” Cicero’s readers?

In In Catilinam 1 Cicero uses various rhetorical strategies, among them invective and hyperbole, to convey the idea that Catiline was planning a violent revolution. To what extent does Cicero seem to exaggerate (hyperbole) the extent of the threat in order to magnify his own achievement in suppressing it? What leads you to believe this based upon his actions and words in In Catilinam 1? To what extent are invective and hyperbole effective as rhetorical strategies in this speech?

Primary Text

Cicero, De Inventione 1.4-11
Cicero, De Oratore 1.1-79, 113-133, 147-159, 178-196; 3.19-73 Cicero, In Catilinam 1

Secondary Readings

May, J. M. 2007. “Cicero as Rhetorician”, in W. Dominik and J. Hall (eds.), A Companion to Roman Rhetoric: 250–263. Oxford.

Craig, C. P. 2007. “Cicero as Orator”, in W. Dominik and J. Hall (eds.), A Companion to Roman Rhetoric: 264–284. Oxford.