This week had quite a hefty amount of reading! From The Rhetorical Tradition I read Cicero's "De Oratore", Longinus' "On the Sublime", and Quintilian's "Institutes of Oratory". I only read one work in Cross Talk, Royster's "When the First Voice You Hear is Not Your Own". I was asked to consider whether Royster employed any of the Classical writing techniques described in the first three readings.
In an essay concerning subject position, Royster did an excellent job at - through words alone - putting the reader in a position that they could better see what she was conveying. I wonder how much more of an effect she could elicit had we listened to her present her essay rather than reading it. In a way, perhaps, she was able to illustrate how important subject position is by attempting to place the reader in as close a position as possible to her own, allowing us to feel our “sense of order and rightness [being] disrupted” through her words, even if limited in comparison.
I don’t feel that her argument would have been as persuasive had she leaned more on logic based examples. It was through her use of amplification and visualization that she was able to render her beliefs and emotions much clearer than perhaps a solely logical approach might have allowed. For me, her breaking down her idea into scenes reflected Longinus’ explanation of Amplification to a T. He explains that to utilize amplification, one must “wheel up one impressive unit after another to give a series of increasing importance”, and her scenes did just that – they were able to extend her thesis and strengthen her argument by prolonging its delivery.
While reading this I kept thinking back to times where I was misunderstood. I think that was something that Royster was going for, to emphasize our need to consider ours as well as others positions during communication.
In an essay concerning subject position, Royster did an excellent job at - through words alone - putting the reader in a position that they could better see what she was conveying. I wonder how much more of an effect she could elicit had we listened to her present her essay rather than reading it. In a way, perhaps, she was able to illustrate how important subject position is by attempting to place the reader in as close a position as possible to her own, allowing us to feel our “sense of order and rightness [being] disrupted” through her words, even if limited in comparison.
I don’t feel that her argument would have been as persuasive had she leaned more on logic based examples. It was through her use of amplification and visualization that she was able to render her beliefs and emotions much clearer than perhaps a solely logical approach might have allowed. For me, her breaking down her idea into scenes reflected Longinus’ explanation of Amplification to a T. He explains that to utilize amplification, one must “wheel up one impressive unit after another to give a series of increasing importance”, and her scenes did just that – they were able to extend her thesis and strengthen her argument by prolonging its delivery.
While reading this I kept thinking back to times where I was misunderstood. I think that was something that Royster was going for, to emphasize our need to consider ours as well as others positions during communication.