barthes rhetoric aide memoire
TRANSCRIPT
Jle,MA-i 6 £07;cJ J
/-h J I Dl JJ '"-"'j. l-h "" 4 'Y J.
Tbe olJ Rbetoric: an ajJe-memojre
Wha, follows is the transcription of a seminaT .!riven at the Ecole pTalique des hatHeS iLudes in 1964-1965. A! !he souTce-or on !he horiton-of this seminaT, as always, !heTe was lhe modem !exl, i.e., the text which
does not yet exist. One way 10 ap/JToach !his new !ex! is '0 find OUI
fTVm what point of de/raTIUTe, and in oP/lOsitil, n 10 what, it seek.. to come infO being, and in .his way to con(Tont the new semiotics of writing wi.h ./" classicallrTactice of li.erary language, which for centurie.1 was known
a.< Rltetmic. Whence .he notion of a seminaT on .he old Rheltnic: o ld
does no' mean .Iw •• here is a new Rhetoric today; ra.heT o ld Rhetoric
is set in ol'lJOsition to that new which may not yet have come inro beillg: the wOTId is incTedibly full of old .Rhetoric.
NOT Ultmld .hese wOTking notes have been published if ./teTe exiSled a book, a rnanual, a memorand .. m of some sort which migh. IITesen' a elmmo/oRical and syslerna.ic panorarrw of .hat classical RhelOTic. Un
fOTtl<l"Jleiy, so faT a.< I know, l/tere is norhing of the kind (ar 1ea.1! in
FTench) . I have .heTefore been oblir,ed '0 cons.ruc. my knowledge myself, and i. is .he Tesult of this IJeTSonal pTolraede .. tics I"hiel, is offeTed heTe: .his is .he manual I should have liked 10 find Teady -made when I began 10 inquiTe in.o .Ite dearh of RhelOTic. Nu.hing mOTe, .hen, .lllln (In
elementary system of infonnotion, (m introduction [0 a (erwin numhcr
I2 ELEMENTS
of tenns and classificalions-which does not mean lhat in the course of Ihis study I have not often been moved to admiration and excitement fry the power and subtlety of that old rhetorical system, and the modernity of certain of its propositions.
Unfortunately, I can no longer (for practical rea,OIlS) authenticate the references for this "scholarly text" : I mlt.\f write tllis nla",,,,l in tKlrt from memory. My exc""e is that it deals with a commonplace warning: Rhetoric is inadequately known, yet knowled!{e of it imt,lies no Wsk of erudition; hence anyone can readily avail himself of the bibliogT<lt,l,ic references which are lacking llere. What is collected (sometimes, tlerhatlS, in the form of involuntary quotatiom) deriv" essentially: I . from seveml treatises on rhetoric fTOm classical antiquity; 2. from the scl10larly introductions 10 the Guillaume /JtuU series ; 3. from two fundam ent<.ll b""ks fry C urti"" and /Jaldwin; 4. from several specialized artic"",, ''''ftlhly with regard to the Middle Ages; 5. /rom "veral reference /X.,ks, indudin!{ Mcniefs Dictionn.ire de rhetorique, F. Bnmot's Hist"ire de 10 langue fran~aise , and R. Bray's La Formation de la doctrine classi"lIc en France; 6. from several related readings, the,me/ve., incom/,lete and contingent (Kojeve, Jaeger) . '
0.1. Rhetorical practices The rhetoric under discussion here is that metalanguage (whose
language-object was "discourse") preva lent in the West from the fifth century B.C. to the nineteenth cen tury A . U. We·shallnot dcal with more remote efforts (India, Islam). amI with regard tn th e
I Emst u.. C Ull ius, Europran U'tffl/UTt' and lhe U.ltn Middk ARt) . lrans. Wllbml R. T"ISk. N~w York : Bollin~tn Foundation, 195J.
e harlt's S. lhldwin, Ancienl R~,uric and Pnrlic '",c$rlr(I !fllm Rr,',eH'1Hiru"r \Vmlu, G louc(:slt'r, Ma~s.: PClcr Smilh, 1959; Mtd.tll(tl RhcWric aud PutilC (I'J '''(0) /nlcrt"t lrd fWIll Rt'I"rscnltuiut War/,",. Gloucc=sltr, Mas.. .. . : P~IC'r Smilh. 1959.
Ft'ld in and Brunm , HiHmr(' tit fa lan.(l~ h Cln.t;OHt' . Paris: Culin . 191 \ . Rt'nr: Bray, I.A Fllmlllrion de Ia cJoclnfll' d ll.lJit,lIt' en France , ";ui\: NIU" . 1951. 11(, llfi M llritl. OicfifmntUTt tk poClU,lIt t'l dt rhimru,IIt'. ra,is: r UF. I Q(, I.
Wtrncr W. JatJ:c=r. Po.idtia : The Irkou q Gut'k CufIUft'. trans. (i, ll~ r' IIIJ!hrl . J Vilis..
Nc=w York: Oxfultl Univt: l~i IY rrc=~~, IQ4 J.- 194S. A It' x;lOd,t: Knjcvc=, EHai d'ullc hUlflift' Y(ll,u"mcr dt Itl plulo10/,IIIt' p<rirrml'. 1 vll l~ . • "am:
vallim;mJ. 1968.
The Old Rhetoric: an aide-memoi" 13
West itself, ;"e shall limit ourselves to Athens, Rome, and France. This metalanguage (discourse on discou"e) has involved several practices , simultaneously or successively present, according to pe .. riods, within IlRhetoric";
I . A technique, i.e. , an "art." in the classical sense of the word;
the art of persuasion, a body of rules and recipes whose implementation makes it possible to convi nce the hearer of the discourse (and later the reader of the work), even if what he is to be conv inced of is "false."
z. A teaching: the art of rhetoric, initially transmitted by personal means (a rhetor and his disciples , his clients), was soon introduced into institutions of learning; in schools, it formed the essentia l matter of what would today be ca lled higher education; it was transformed into material for examination (exercises, lessons, tests) .
J . A science. or in any case a proto-science, i.e. , a . a fi eld of autonomous observation delimiting certain homogeneous phenom· ena, to wit the "effects" of language; b. a classi ficat ion of these pheno-;"'ena (whose · - best - kno~;n·--t~a~~· is the list of rhetorical
"figures"; c. <In "operation" in the H;elmslevian sense, i.e., a meta· language. a body of rhetorical treatises whose substance-or signified- is a language-object (argumentative language and "f; ~~ured"
language) .
4. An ethic: as a system of "rules," rhetoric is imbued with the amhiguity of that word: it is at once a manual of recipes, inspireJ hy a practical goa l, and a Coole, a body of ethical prescriptions whose role is to supervise (i.e . • to permit and to limit) the "devia tions" of emot ive language.
5. A social l)racrice: Rhetoric is thM privileged technique (since onc mllst pay in order to acquire it) which permits the nlling classes
ELEMENTS
to gain ownership of .,peech. Language being a power, selective rules of access to this power have been decreed. constituting it as .. pseudo~science , closed to "those who do not know how to speak" and requiring an expensive initiation: born Z500 ye"rs ago in leg"1
I cases concerning property, rhetoric was exhausted and died in the \.urhetoric" class, the initiatory ratification of bourgeuis culture .
6. A ludic practice: since all these practices constituted a (or
midable ("repressive." we now say) institutional system, it was only natural that a mockery of rhetoric should develop, a "hlack" rhetoric
(suspicions, contempt, ironies): games, parodies, ;;otic or obscene allusions,2 classroom jokes, a whole schoolboy practice (which still
remains to be explored, moreover, and to be constituted as a cultural code).
0.2_ The rhetorical empire All these practices attest the breadth of the rhetorical phenom
enon-a phenomenon, however, which has not yet produced any
J important synthesis, any historical interpretation. Perhaps this is
because rhetoric (aside from the taboo which weighs upon lan guage), a veritable empire, greater and more ten"cious than any political empire in its dimensions and its duration , flouts the very
I Num~rou5 obsc~n~ jOk~5 on emu.! and conjunctio (aclu;tlly J.!:ramlll;nicall~rllls ), o( wh it- It thi~ ut~nd~d m~13rhor, honoww from th~ Arabian Ni1{hH, ~;v~s ~(lmc nntion : "Thf'n he
spent th~ r~st of Ih~ ni~ht with h~r ill ~mbradnfi! and clirrinj(, rlyin~ Ihf' rarlicl~ o( cI'pu lation in concert and joining the conjunctive wilh Ih~ cun jnincd , whi lM h~ r hmh:mJ w;u a~ a cast -out nunnation of cnn~tnlCli()n . " 113l1rlOn translation, Tht Flook 01 T~ Th()I(5(l1l{j
NiRhu and a NiRhI. N~w York : H~rita~e rr~5.', 1962. vol. 4. p. 34841. Mor~ nohly, Alain ll~ lill~ explains that humanity commits ixlrbtlrisrru in th~ union (I( the .~ellc.~. I'lU'lI lp~Urm
(Iiccn~s) which contravene the ruloes of Venu~ ; man falls into tI,lltStrnt'N-l (i1lv~f5i"n~ (" conslnlCtion); in his (oil y. he even commiu ITm'JiJ (C UftjU$, 01). (If . , pr. 414-416) ; ~jmi larly
Calderon. commenting on the siruatinn o( a lady o~rved whi le v i ~ ilillR her sUl tnr: "" i~ a R,eat h:nharism or love to venture ttl sec and to he se~n , (or, as a had J:r;muTl;u i:m. a J1as..~ive ~r!lon may he made jnln an aCliv~ person." We know in what an:llmnica l ~('n 'e ri('"~ KI05.<;owski I;udy revived the t~m\s nf .sc:lwla.\lic isrn (WOun.\ if , S£tl ( 1JIlIM. IUICUIIIII .
quitftll : "The Imptc lr(':~s's (fuide.'!!") . It ({II lows Ihal Ih(' c(lllll.~ion pf J!rall1m:u (of rheluric III
I n( scll('las ti~ i~m). ami th~ ~rntic i~ nol ulily " ~\lnI\Y" ; it marks mil wilh !,,('cision and serin\lm('~s
a lfansgreMlve s\le where two tahoos art I,flet! : Ihal o( lanJ:u3J!e ami thaI of sex .
The Old Rhe<oric: an aide-memoir. 15
concepts of science and historical reflection, to the point of calling into question history itself. at least as we are accustomed to imagine
and employ history, and of compelling us to conceive what we might elsewhere have called a monumental history; the <cientific scorn attached to rhetoric would then participate in ~hi~-generalrefusal to recognize multiplicitY, ·overdetennination. Yet if we ~~~_ sider that . rhetoric-whateve; the ~yst~m,; 'i~temal '~ariations may
have been-has prevailed in the West for two and a half millennia, from Gorgias to Napoleon Ill; if we consider all that it has seenwatching immutable, impassive, and virtually immortal--<:ome to life, pass, and vanish without itself being moved or changed: Atheni"n democracy, Egyptian kingdoms, the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire, the great invasions, feudalism, the Renaissance, the monarchy, the French Revolution; it has digested regimes, re ligions, civilizations; moribund since the Renaissance, it has taken
three centurie,s to die;3_n_c!ii~'is not dead for sure c:..v_~_n.!'ow: f{hetoric grants "ccess to what must be called a super-civilization: that of the historical and geographical West : ,t nas been the unly practice (with grammar, born subsequently) t1;rough '~hi~-h' ~~; 'soci~ty has recognized language's sovereignty (ku.a;;;; a;' Gorgias says), which
was also, socially, a "lordship"; the classification it has imposed is the only feature really shared by successi ', e and various historical groups, as if there existed, superior to id"ologies of content and to direct determinations of history, an ideology of form; as if- a principle anticipated by Durkheim and Mauss, affirmed by LeviStrauss- there existed for each society a taxonomic identity, a sociologic in whose name it is possib:e to define "nother history, another sociality, without destroying those recogni1Cd at other levels.
0.3. The journey and the aetwork This Yost territory will be explored here (in the loose and hasty
sense of the verb) in two directions: :1 diachronic direction and a
system~tic direction, We shall certainly not reconstnlCt a history
of rhetoric; we shall confine ourselve. to iso lating a few significant moments, we shall traverse Rhetoric's two Ihollsand years by making
16 ELEME N T S
/ a few SI"puve rs whi ch will he something like the "llays" IIf our j(lurncy- ' (ii,e~e ' ;~la ys" may he of ve ry ul1e411al length) . In " II. this
long diachrony will comprise seve n moment s, seven "da ys" whose
"" value will be essentially e1ielactic. Then we sh,,11 collec t the rhetors'
classifica tio n s in order tu form a single ne twork , a kinJ of artifac t
which will permit us to conce ive of the art o f rheto ric as a kind of
subtly articulated ITIr.chine, a"'trce of operations. a "program" dcs ~
tineel to pnxluce e1iscourse.
A. THE JOURNEY
A.1. Birth of rhetoric
A . I.1. Rhetoric and property Rhetoric (as a mctal.mguagc ) W ;lS horn in the It·J.!:l l ;K l i ull ~ n Hl ~
ccrning propert y. A round 485 H.C. , two S ici lian tyr;lIlt s, G elon and J-lic run , effected depo rt ations . transfers o ( population, ;md ('x #
pro pri atio ns in orde r to po pulate Syrac lise and pay the merce naries;
whcn they wc re deposcd by a de tnoc r<ltic uprising and an :l lt emp'
was tn:ldc to return to the ante lillO, there W;l S endless litigation.
fo r property right s had heen obscured . Suc h litigation was of :l new
type: it mo hilized large people 's juries Ihal h ad to he con vinccd hy
the flc!04ucncc" of those who arpcarcJ before tht.: m. S ileh do· qucncc, pa rtiy oCll1oc r<l t ic and Pt-utly dCll1 ilgngic . r ard y judic iary
anel partly politica l (which was suhse<tuently known as drl" .. nHil 'f ). was mpidly const itut eJ into an ohject of in st rue I ion . T he lirst tC;l( h ·
crs of this ncw Jisci pline werc Etnpedoclcs of Agr i l~c nl(l ; Co rax.
his pupil from Syracuse (the rlfs t tn he "aid for his illstrIlClio ll) ;
anJ Tisias. Such leaching passed nn less rapidl y 10 Attica (afler
the Pe rsian wars), thanks In the litigation of merc h;1Ilts. whu plc;,dl'd
l ~ lth in Syrac llse and in Athens: h y the middle of ,he fir,h ce nlury,
rheloric w;ts a lready rarlly Athe n iall .
The Old Rhe,oric: an aide· nimoire 17
A.J .2. A great .yntagmatic. What was this proto-rhetoric, this C oracian rhetoric! A rhetoric
o f the syntagm, of discourse , and nOl o f the feature, of the figure.
C orax already posited the five major parts IIf oralio whic h for cen
turies wo uld form the "plan" of orator ica l discourse: I . exordium;
Z. narratio n o r ac tio n (the relatinl . of fac ts); J . argument or proof;
4. digressio n ; 5. epilogue. It is easy to see that in shifting from legal
discourse to academic dissertati on, this plan has kept its main or·
ganizMion : an introduction. a demonstrative body, a conclusion . This first rhe toric is by and large a great syntagmatics.
A. J.J. Feigned speech It is ente rta ini ng to note that the a rt of speech is origin ally linked
to a claim of ownership, as iflanp, uage, as ()bject o f a tnms(onnation,
conditi"n of a practice, had been de termined no t from a suhtle ideologica l meJiation (as may have been the case in so many forms
o f a rt), but from the baldest sociality, af:". rmed in its fundamental
brutality , that of earth ly possessio n : we began t J reflect upon. Ian· guage in o rder to defend our own: It ison the le~;f of ;oc ial conflict that was born a first theo retical sketch of feigned speech (different
from fi ctive speech, that of the poets: poetry was then the only
lite rature, prose not acceding to this status until late r) .
A.2. Gorgias, or prose as literature
Gurgias of Leontium (today Lentini, north of Syracuse ) ca me to
Athens in 427 ; he was the teacher of Thucydides , and t he Sophist
interlocutor of Socrates in the Gorgias.
A .Z. I. Codification o f prose
Gorgias's role (for us) is to have brou~ht prose under the rhe torica l
code. ,l(c rcJiling it as a learned discourse, an esthe tic ohject. "sov· e rc ign language," ancestor of HlilCra tllre. ,. How! T he fun era l pan#
egyrics (threnodies ). initia lly composed in verse , shift to prose , they
18 ELEM ENTS
arc entrusted to ~tatcsmcn; they arc , if not writt en (in the modern
sense of the word). at least mctnOrilcti, i. e .• in a ccrtain fa shion ,
SeI; thus is born a third genre (aft cr the lega l and Ihe delihe r"l ive).
the elJicieiclic: this is the aJvcn t of a decor.Hive prose , ;, prosc ·as· spectacle. In this transition fronl verse to prose, mc:ICT tlnd Inusic
arc lost. Gorgifls seeks to replace them hy a COlic immanent to prose
(Ihough borrowed from poelry): words o f similar «lnsonancc. sy m
metrical sentences, antitheses reinfo rced hy aSSt )l):lncc . allitcralitHl,
mctaphor.
A.2.2. Advent of c1ocutio Why ooes Gorgias constitute fI stopover on otlr joUrtll'Y ? T here
arc. by and la rge. in a complelc art of rheloric (Ihal of Q "il\lili :lI1.
for instance ) two poles: a syntagmat ic pole (!Il l' order of the part s
of the di scourse. tlIxi~ O f dis,m~ilio) ;md a paraJ iglilatic pull' (rill'
"figures" of rheto ric , lexis o r elo( ucio) . We have secn that Ctnax
had init.iatcJ a purely synt ;lgulatic r"e roric. Gorgias. requirin!.! the
elahoration o f "figures," gives rhetor ic a pa radigma tic perspec ri vc:
J hc opens prose to rheto ric, anJ rhetoric to Ols t y l i sti c~. " ---------_.--_. -_ .... -_ .. - --
A.3. Plato Plato's di alogues which deal direc tly with Rheloric :1fe ti ll' UlIl'gid.1
"nJ thc PIIL"c1w.s.
A.J.1. Tile tlVO rllctorics Plato d c" ls with two rhetorics. o ne hall. thc o lher 1:.-,,1: I. Ihe
rhetoric of fact is conslituted by 1()~()I(I"(II) ItJ. an aCli vity whi.-h con
sists in writing any discourse whatever {no longer a qlles tio n (If legal rheto ric a lone~ the totalization o( the Ilo tio ll is irnportant)~ it S ohject is verisi mil itllJe . illusion; ,his is t he rhetoric o( t he rl n' tor:;,
o( the sch ools, o ( Gorgias, o( rhe Sophists; 2. the rhetoric of law is the true rhetoric. a philosophic or eve n dialectic al rhetu rici its
The Old Rhe'mic: an aide-rncmoire 19
ohject is Ihe Irlllh ; Plato ca lls it " ,,,ycllll~()!a (formatio n of snuls
hy srccch) . - The orrosition of g(Kld to bad rhetoric. of Pia Ionic
ttl Sophistic rhetoric. hclongs ttl ~ larger r~rildigl1l : on one side,
f1 ancril'~' sc( vile occupat io ns. fa l ~ehooJs; on the o t h er, auste rity ,
the rejection o( all compl acency; on one side. empiricism and rOll#
tinct on the other the a rts: the industries of pleasure a rc a oespi #
cahle imilalion of the arts of Ihe Good : rhcloric is the cou nte rfc il
of Juslice . sorhislry of legislation. ClKlkery of medic ine. to iletry of
gYllInaslics: rhcloric (Ih at of Ihe logograrhers. of the rhe tors . of
the s(lphi ~ ts) is therefore not an art.
A.J.l. Eroticized r'lC!oric True rhelori c is a psychagogy; it requires " lotal. disi nleresled.
I~ene;;\r lOll! ;;;'i~~i ~~-( ti; oi~-' ';' ; II Il('come a tr",,,, in Cic"ro and Quin
lilian. hili Ihe notion will be llIadc insipiJ : what will he asked of
t he orator is a gotx..1 "gcneral culttlre")~I~e ohject o( th is "synoptic"
knowledge is the correspondence o r the interact io n which unit es
Iypcs of souls to types of discourse. P latonic rhetoric sets writing
as ide ilnd see ks out person a l interlocution, lUlIlOminlJ fio; the hasic
mode of d iscourse is the dialogue hctween (eache r and pupil, unit eJ
l"lY Illl inspired love_ Thinking in common might be tI ~c !,nott ~! .o( d~c
dial ectic. Rhetoric is a dialogue of)~\ve.
A.J.J. Division and mark Dialeclic i:lIls (Ihose who livc Ihis eroticized rhcloric) undertake
two a lli ed ent erprises: on the one h and. an impulse o ( union , of
ascent toward an unconditional goal (Socr"tes, reproving Lysias in
the I'lwcclTI(S. dclines love in its wrallmiry); un the o the r. an il1lpul~e
of descent. ;1 division of unity according to natural articulations,
according to ir ~ tyrc~. down to indivis ihle species. T hi s "descen t "
proceeds in SICPS: ar eac h s ral-!c, o n each step. the re are two terms;
U lll' must he c hosen over the u ther in order to t;lkc the nex t s t l'P
duw n and accede to a new hi nary opposition, (rom which th e
descent will continue; suc h is the I-!raJual definition o( the sophi ... t :
zo ELEMENTS
hunting (or Rame . ~
Wild/' lame (man)
by (or~~r5ua5iOn . /bl·~· In pU Ie In pnv;ue
r ·f/ ~r . or gl 15 Of ~ :lIn
(or ~lIhS i s ttcc ""fm money Flartercrs S< ,phi sts
This divisional rhetoric-as opposetl to Aristotle's syllogistic
rhctoric-clos.cly resembles a cybernetic. digilal program: each choice determines the next ahcrnativci or again. it rcscmhlcs the para
digmatic structure of language, whose hi nary oppositions involve a
marked and an unmarked term: here the markcJ {eTm se ts up a new
alternation . But where does the mark come from r Here we H.' l\Irn
to Plato's erot icized rhetoric: in the Platonic Jiaillguc, the mark I"
eWectetilry lin lICkn()wledgmenl of tile res/","denl (the plIpil) . Plalo's
rhetoric impli es two interioclItors, one of whom offers an <lcknow l-
J" cdgmcnt o r a concession: this is the cond itiun of movcment. li enee
~II those p .lrliclcs of agreement which we encounter in ("btu's
dialogues and which often make us smile (when we do not lind
them tetlious) by their silliness anti Iheir apparent hanality, ,ne
aClnally stnlCtural II marks," rhetorical acts.
A.4, Aristotelian rhetoric
A,4, I, Rhetoric and Poetics
f Isn't "II rhetoric (if we except Plato) Aristotelian! No ,Iouht it
is: all the ditlaclic elements which feed the classica l trla'H.als come frum Arislode. Yet a syste m is n( ll defined only hy it s clements--
il is also ami especia lly tlelined by the opposilion in which it is se t.
Aristotle wrote two treatises which COllcern the phenomena of discourse, hut thcy mc quite distinct: the Tcduu! r/u!Ionkc de:lis with
an art uf everyday cnmmtlnic~tion, wit h !",uhl ie discourse; I he Tcdlfle
The Old Rllc'aric: (m (liJe ~nt':,"flire 21
IkJierikc deals wilh an art of imaginmy evocation; in the first case.
we arc concerneJ to order the progress of the discourse from idea 10 idea; in the second , the progress of Ihe work (rom i~~age to
image: Ihest' me, (or Aristotle, two specific Jays of proceeding, two
:lut(ln(lI1H)lIS "fednUl;"; and it is the ()PfK)sition of these twu systems,
one rhelorical, the other poetic, which in fact tlclines Aristotelian
rhetoric. All the authors who ack nowletlgc this opposition can be
situ;lI ed within Aristotelian rhetoric; th ~lt rhetoric will cease when
the opposition is neutralized, when Rhetoric and Poetics unite
when rhetoric hecomes a poeti~ reclme (of "crention") : this occurs:
approximatciy, in the age of Augustus (with Ovitl and Horace) and a lillie lat er (with Plutarch and Tac ilus)-tho,,~h Quintilian sti ll
practices an Aristotelian rhetoric. The fusion of Rhetoric and Po
etics is consecralctl hy the vocabulary of the Mitldle Ages, when
the POCI ic arts ;lTe rhetorical arts, when the great rhctnrici:lns ~re ptl4,.' t S. T his (usion is crucial, for it is at the very source of the notiun
t,f lit crattlre: Aristnteli:ln rhetoric emphasizes relsoning; dfICurio (or I the dislrihution of figures) is only .1 part of it (a minor part in
AriSlotie himself); subsequently , it is the contrary whic h is Ihe
case : rhetoric is identified with problems, not nf "proof" but of
composition and of style: literature (the total act of writing) is
defined hy fine wr;rin,l!. Hence we must constillit e as a stopover of
ollr journey, under the general name of Aristotelian rhetoric , all
the rhetorics anterior to poetic totalization . This Aristotelian rhet
oric is theorized for us by Aristotle himself. is practiced by C icero,
is taught hy <..luintilian, and is "ansforrnetl (generalized) hy Diony
sillS of I fali ea rnasslIs, Plutarch, ;~nd the anonymous flllthor of the Irea l ise 011 II.e Sublime.
A.4.2. AriMotle's Rhetoric
Aristotle defines rhetoric as "the art (If extracting (r(l1l1 every
s'lhjec t 1114..' pTt)pcr degree (,( persll:lsil,n it all(lws," (lr as "the f:lClilty
of spccubtivc:ly discovering wh.H in eilch case arc the <lva ilahle
Illeans {If persuasion." What is p"rhaps more important than these
dcliniliulls is the fa ct that rhetoric is a tcc/me (npt ;Ill empiric
22 ELEM ENTS
pract icc), i. e. : Ihe means of ImKlucing a Ihin~ whidl !lUlY e'jlwlly he or nut he, whose origin is in the cfcatinJ,.! aJ,!cnt, nut in the ohj(~(t
created: there is no tedllle of natllral Of ncccss;1 ry IIling.s : thus dis#
course belongs to neither the one nor the other. - Ari.stodc COIl#
ccives of discourse (oralio) as a mcs~agc and subjects it to a division
of the cybernetic type. Book I of his Hheloric is the h"ok of the message-emitter, the Ixx,k of the orator: it Jeals chielly with the conception of arguments, insofar f}S they depend on the orator, nn
his aJaptation to the public, according to the three recognized kinds
of discourse (legal, deliherative, epidcictic). Ixxlk II is the h""k "f the message-receiver, the book l,f the puhlie: it deals with the emutions (the passions). anti once again with argUlTlent s, hut this
time insofar as they are received (and no longer, as hefore. conceived).
Book III is the IXlOk of the message itself: it dca ls with lexi.1 or clclCutio, i. e. , with "figures," and with ((Ixis or dis/~'si(i(" i.c. , with
the orJer of the parts of discourse .
A.4.J. Probability Aristotle's Rhetoric is above all a rhetoric o( proo(, of reasoning.
of the approximative syllogism (cnthymcrnc); it is a ddihl.'ratc.:l y
jdiminished I"g'c , one adapted to the level of the ·'puhlic ," i.e., of common sense , of urdinary opinion. Extended to literary prndue·
tions (which W;IS not its original intention), it would imply 'If)
esthetic of the public, more than an esthetic of th" work . This is why, mutatis JIIl(wnJis and making all (historical) allowances , il
would he well suited to the proJuc ls of our sO·GIIIt·d mass culture .
in which an Aristotelian "prohability" prevails, i.e. , "whar the
public helieves possihle." Huw m:lIly films, pull' novels, clHlIlIICfcial
(articles might take as their motto fhe Aristotelian ruk: "het ter an
impossible probability than an illlproLdlle possihility" : hCllcr tell what the puhlic helieves possihlc, even if it is sc ien l ilically illlpo!'"
sihlc, than tell what is really pos.l ible, if such I'0ss ihtlity is Tejcclnl hy I he collective cen~( )fsh ip (",,)Uhlic 0/';11;011 . Iii !" (llwu Jllsly Ic mpt illg
to conflate this m;lss rhe toric with Aristode's politics; whi ch was,
;"IS we know t a politics of the h;lpPY medium, favoring a h,,!;mced
The Olel Hll('luric an dide-mernoire 2J
Jl'11l0cracy , celltereJ on the middle classes, and responsihle for
reducing antagonisms between rich and poc..u, majority and minor
j ity; whence ;1 rheloric of gooJ sense. delil - rarely suhorJil1ate to \ the "psychology" of the public.
A.4.4. Cicero' .. Rhetoric.
In the second cenWry I) .C. , Greek rhcrors ahuunc..kJ in Rome;
schools of rhetoric were founded which fun ctioned in classes de
termined hy a~e; here two exercises were c urrent: the .'HUI .wriae, a
kind o( "persll:lsive" composition (especially in the delihcr:ltivc
genrd (or cllildrc n, find the con[TOtJene."i (legal genre) (or older
students. The earliest Latin trcflti sl" is the Hhetorica ad Hercnniunl,
sometimcs attrihuted to Cornificills, sometimes to Cicero. In the
Middle Agcs. which cease lessly rep",duced this manual, it heca me the fund:lI11cntill text on the art o( writing, along with C icero's De im/(,Htillnc. - C icero is an orator who speaks o( the art of oriHory;
whellce i l certain pragmafization of Aristotelian theory {and there.
(ore..' Ilolhing really new in relation to (his thl' try). Cicero's R/I(!torica comprise: I. the Ullewrica ad HcrcJluium (assuming it is his), whic h
is a soTl o( dige!"t o( Aristotelian rhetoric; how··ver. the classification
o( "quest ions" replaces in importance the theory of the ent hyrnemc:
rhe toric is pr(l(c!"sionalizcd . The theory o( the three !" tyll's (low,
high, middle ) also appears here. Z. Dc ifltJcrHione OTulmia: thi !" is an
(incomplete) work of the "uthor's youth, purely legal, chiefly devoted to Ihe el,;dleireme, a developed syllogism in whic h one or tWD
prcmises me followed hy their proof,,: this is the "good argument."
J. Dc oru{orc, a work highly regardcJ lip to tl. e nineteenth cenlury
("a nI;l:->lcrpiece of good sense," "of healthy and right reason," ''(If
gCl1crnu!" and lofty thought," "the most original of rheturicd Irea .
lises") : ; IS i( he haJ Plato in minJ, Cicero moralizes rheturic and
re;Jet !" against the te;lching of the !"chools:"fhi s is Ihe c ultured man
turning ;Igaiwa speci alization: fhe work takes the f(lrm (I( a dialogue
(Crilss lls. Antollius, Mtlcius ScaevoIa, Ru(us, C otta) : it dcfint's the
or;1I0T (whtllllust have;1 gellcral culrllre) and reviews the Ir;lllil iOllal
d i visillfls (If rlll' l< Irie..' (;m1cnr;f), tI;.~/'1 '$;Iil', ell Jew;o) . 4. Bl ut" .~. a It iSh Iry
ELEMENTS
of the art of omtory in Rome . 5. Or' lIl1r, an ideal I~lftrait of the Orator; the second part is more didactic (it will rece ive lenglhy commentaries by Pierre Ramus): h ere is specified Ihe Iheory of Ihe
oralorical"numhc r," repeated by Quintilian. 6. The Tll/lin!: a digest
of Aristotle's To/lies written from memory in eight elays on the ship
taking C icero to Greece after Mark Antony hael seized power; Ihe
most interesting thing alxlUt it for us is the struc tural network of
Ihe <llInestio (cf. infra, B.I. Z5). 7. The ""rlilion,s: If,i ' lillie n"","al
of questions and answers, in the form of a dialu~lIc between Cicero
and his son, is the driest anelleas! ethical of Cicero's lIeatises (and consequently the one I prefer): it is a cmnplctc elementary rhetoric .
3 kind of c atechism which has the .. Jv~lIlfaJ.:c uf giving the entire
scope of rhetorical classification llhis is the I1lc:minj.! of IN,ITlirio:
systematic segmentation).
A.4.5. Ciceronian rhetoric C iceronian rhetoric can he c haracterized hy the following fea
tures: a. fcar of "system"; Cicero owes everylhing h I Aristotle. hilt
dc.intcllccttmlizcs him, seeking to penetrate Ihe spt.·c lIlation on
IItastet" on the IInatural"; the apex o( this deslrtlc tllring will he
reached in Augustine's R/,elrJrica ,tlCTa (B<Klk IV of Ihe C /ITisti"n
Doclrine) : no rules for cloquence, which is nonelheless necessary
for the C hristian "',1I0r: one need only be clcar (this is an act of
charity). lind more concerned with truth than with tcrms: stich
rhetorical pseuJo~nal\lralism still prevails in :1cade mic c(HlceplitHls
o( stylc; b. nalio naliz;uion o( rhetoric: C icCHJ tries 10 rOl'l1<lnizc it
(the me"nin~ of (he DrOll..,), and TOmttniws "ppe",,; c. mythic col lusion of pro(essional empiricism (C icero is ;1 lawvcr immersed in
political life) with an appea! to high culture; Ihis w llusion will
have a great future: culture becomes the hackd",p for politics;
d. a~umptiun o( style: Ciceronian rhclOric heralds II develo pmcnt
of docl«(in.
TIle ()ltJ I<hcrorit:: LUI (lide~rncrnuire 25
A.4.6. Quin/i!ian'.< work
There is a certain pleasure in re"eling Quintilian; he is a I!l~KI tcaclu.·r, not too prolix, not tou moralistic ; a mind at once cla s..."'ii(ying
and sl'nsitive (fl comhimltiun which a lways Seems astounding to the
world at large) ; we might assign him the epital,h M. Teste dreamed
offor himself: TTllrt<iil c/ll5sificando. He was an ollicial rhetor, ar
pmnted hy the Slate; his fame was very great in his lifelime, soffered
an eclipsc upon his death, hut was revived in the (ourth century;
LUlher preferred him to all others; Erasmus, Bayll' , La Fontaine,
Racine, Rullin thought highly o( him . His De iJl.Hitwionc onttorid traces in twelve hooks the orator's education (rom c hildhood on.
it is a cOlllrle le plan of pcd"~ogical fO""'Hion (the meaning of inslillllio). Ihlk I deals with elementary education (stuJies with the
grammarian , then with the rhetor); Oook II dl'fin es rhetoric . its
utility ; B< xlks III tll VII eliscuss llllJ('7l(io anel Dispusilio; BlHlks VIII 10 X discuss £ /O(lIlio (Book X gives prac tical ;1dvicc on how to
"write") ; Il" ,k XI elisCllsscs minor aspects of rhetoric: ACli" n ("rep
a,"lion of the discourse) and Memory; B<xlk XII disc usses the ethical qualiti es nl'cessary to he an orato r ;lnd posits the requiremellt o( a gl'ncral c lihure.
A.4. 7_ The rilC/orical course of study
Educalion COllsists of three phases (in France tlxIay, we speak of
thrce c ycles) : I. ,'rrrcnticeship to hlnguagc; nurses and tutors must
have no I:mguage de(ccts (C luysipPlis wante,1 them tn he trained
ill rhilllso"hy); parent< shoulel he as educated as rllssihle; Ihe student mwil hcgin with Greek, then learn to read rind writ e; studenl s
arc not tn he hit ; 2. studies with the RTammaricu.s (a more extended
f11eaning til:," ollr word "gmmmarian": one might say it means
JIItlHcr of ,I.,'Ttumrwr) ; the c hild works with the ..,-tmlHl<Ilinu: (rom tll C
age o( seve n ; he Ilsll'ns to lecturcs on poetry and reads aloud (Iectiu) ;
he writes thellles (relells fables , paraphrases p"ems, expands on maxims ); ill' fakes lessons (rom fin fiChu (animated recilation);
J. stlldies with Ihe rhelor: the student mWH hq.:in rhetoric quite
early, prohahly at (ulIrlt'en, or at pllhc rty; the le;lcher I1IIISI <':011 -
26 ELEMENTS
stantly provide examples himself (but the students are not to stand up and applaud him); the two main exercises arc: a. narralioll.l, summaries and analyses of narrative arguments, of historical events,
elementary panegyrics, parallels, amplifications of commonplaces (themes), speeches following an outline (fJrefonnalll maleria) ; b. declarnatioll.l, discourses on hypothetical cases; an exercise, so to speak, in fictive rationa/it] (hence dec/arnatio is already very close to the finished work) . We can see how far such pedago~y fmce> speech: speech is beset on all sides, expelled ftom the student's body, as if there were a native inhibition to speak and it required a whole technique, a whole education to draw it out of silence, and as if this speech, learned at last, conquered at last , represented a good "object relation" with the world, a real mastery of the wurld and
of men.
A.4.8. Writing In dealing with tropes and figures (Books VIII to X). Quintilian
establishes a first theory of "writing." Book X is addressed to Ihos< who wish to write. How to obtain this "well ·founded fac ility" ({imw facilitas), i.e. , how to conquer native sterility, terror of the blank page (faciliras), and yet how to say something, not to be ca rried away by garrulity, verbiage, logorrhea ({inna)! Quintilian sketches a propacdcutics for the writer: one must read and write frequently, imitate models (make pastiches). revise constantly, hut only afler having let the matter "test," and know how to end. Quintilian notes that the hand is slow, "thought" and writing have two dif· ferent speeds (the <urrea lists' problem: how to achieve writing as rapid ... as itself!); here the hand's deliberation is beneficial: no
dictation, writing must remain attached not to the voice but to the hand, to the muscles: to remain with the hand's slowness: no quick
drafts.
A.4.9. Generalized rhetoric The last stage of Aristotelian rhetoric: its dilution hy syncret ism:
Rhetoric ceases to be set in oppositiun to Poetics but becomes a
T~ Old Rht!loric: an aik~mimoiTe 27
transcendent notion which we should today call "literature"; it is no lon~er exclusively constituted as an ohiect of instnlCtion but becomes an mt. in the modern sense of the word; it is henceforth
./buth a theory of writing and a thesaurus )f literary forms. We can ohserve I his transition at five points: I. Ovid is often cited in the Middle Ages as having postulated the relationship of poetry to the art of oratory; this comparison is also affirmed by Horace in his Ars I'oelica, whose substance is frequently rhetorical (theory of,t]les); 2. Dionysius of Halicamassus, a Greek contemporary o( Augustus, on his Dc com/JOSilione verlxm.m, abandons an important element o( Aristotelian rhetoric (the enthymeme) (or an exclusive concern
with " new. value: the movement of sentences; here appears an aU lonomous notion of style: style is no longer based on logic (subject before predica te, substance before accidence). word order is vari able, guided only by rhythmic values; J. in Plutarch's Moralia we fond a tract "Qltomodo adltlescens fJoeras 'ltdire debcar" (how the young should study poetry), which thoroughly moralizes the literary esthetic; a Platonist, Plutarch tries to lift Plato's ban on the poets; how! precisely by uniting Poetics to Rhetoric; rhetoric is the means by which to "detach" the imitated action (often a reprehensible one ) from the (frequently admirable) art which imitates it; from the moment one can read the poets esthetically, one can read them morally; 4. O n Ihe Sublime (Peri Hypsou.s) is an anonymous treatise of the first century A.D. (mistakenly attributed to Longinus and translated by Boileau): it is a sort of "transcendental" Rhetoric'ltb/imiras is actually the "elevation" of style; it is style itself (in th~ expression "to have style"); it i, literariness, defended in a heated, inspired tone : the myth of "creativity" begins to dawn; 5. in the
DialoRlte of tile Orators (whose authenticity is sometimes contested). Tacitus POlilicizes the reasons for the decadence of eloquence: these reasons :lre no t the "bad taste;' ·o(th~ times, but Domitian's tyranny
~hich imposes si lence on the ['onlm and shifts poetry toward a jllon ~engaged an; but thereby eloquence emigrates to "literature ."
penetrates it. anJ constitutes it (doquenria comes to sig nify li(era~ litre) .
28 ELEMENTS
A.S. Neo-rhetoric
A.5.1. A literary eJthetic We call neo-rhetoric or secont! sophistic the literary esthetic (Rhet
oric, Poetics, and Criticism) which prevailed in the united GrecoRoman world from the second to fourth centuries A . u. This was a period of peace, of commerce, of exchanges favorable 10 leisure societies, above all in the Middle East. NeD-rhetoric was truly ecumenical: the same figures were learned by Saint Augustine in Latin Africa, by the pagan Libanius, by Saint Gregory Naziamen in eastern Greece. This literary empire was built on a double reference: \. sophistic: the orators of Asia Minor, without political allegiance, seek to revive the name of Sophists, whom they suppose they are imitating (Gor~ias), with no pejorative connotation; these
entirely decorative orators enjoy widespread celebrity; 2. rhetoric: it encompasses everything. no longer count ers any neighbo ring idc;1,
absorbs all speech; it is no lonf(er a (specialized) ICc/me, hut a general culture, and even more: a notional education (at the level of the schools in Asia Minor); the sophistes is the director of a school, appointed by the emperor or hy a city; the teacher serving under him is the rhelor. In this colleclive institution, no name can be cited: there is a dust of authors, a movement known only Ihrough Philostratus's Uves of the So(,ltists . What did this educaton of speech consist oH Once again we must distinguish syntagmatic rhetoric
(parts) from paradigmatic rhetoric (figures).
A.5.Z. declamatio and ekphra.is On the .yntagmatic level, one exercise is preponderant : decla
mario (meli(c); this is a regulated improvisation on a theme ; for
example: Xcnophon refuses to survive Socr,ltcs; the C retans c1~im they possess Zeus's tombi the man in love with a statuc. ct c. Im ~ provisation shifts the order of the parts (dis(,,,, ili,,) to the background; discourse, having no persuasive goal but hc ing purely
decorative, is dcstructurcd. ;1tomizcd into a loose s<'Ties of brilliant
fragments, juxtaposed acco rtling to a rhapsodic model. The prin-
The Old RhelOric: an aide-memoire 29
cipal fragment (which was highly prized) was descriptio or ekphrasis . Ekphrasis is an anthology piece, transferable from one discourse to another: it is a regulated description of places or persons (origin of certain medievallo(mi). Here first appeared a new syntagmatic unit, the piece: less extensive than the traditional parts of the discourse,
longer than the period; this unit (landscape or portrait) abandons oratorical (legal, political) discourse and readily unites with narratio n. with a story line: once again, the rhetorical tleats into" the literary.
ASJ. Atticism / asianism
On the paradigmatic level, neo-rhetoric consecrates the assumption of "style"; it assigns an ultimate value to the following ornaments: archaism. extended metaphor, antithesis. rhythmic phrase.
Since this tendency toward the baroque produces its reaction, a
struggle begins between two schoo ls: I. A lIicisrn , chiefly defended
by grammarians, guardians of a p"re vocabulary (the castratin/; ethic of "purity," which still exists today); 2. ,.sianism refers, in Asia
Minor, to the development of an exuberant style tending toward the strange, based, like mannerism, on the effect of surprise; here the "figures" play an essential role . Asianism was obviously condemned (and continues to be by the classicizing esthetic which is the heir of atticism). '
A.6. Tile Trivium
A.6.1. Agonistic structure of instruction In Antiquity, the mainstays of culture were essentially oral in
struc tion and the transcriptions to whic h it might give rise (acroa ~
, Auu.:i51n: TIIi~ ~lllIInC~nffi$m obviously invoke~ wh ::u mi~llI he c"lled a C I;H~ r:lchm: if ~1\.I~ t nil' N- (II IJ!urr~n 1/1", the e xpttssio n "d"$sic"I" C"d"lsicism", OIi~ina (t~ in tilt (}pf""l. SIIlo n prnpllst"J hy Aulm Gdl i .... ) (stcond c('",my A.n. ) httwf'~n lilt cltminu aUlho r "nil lilt f,,·Jl,. 'lIOIu : "Uu~iCln III Ihe ctln~litulion of Sc- fviu5 Tullius. which di vidaJ cili lt m "ccordin~ '0 wc;,h" tIllll (lYC da~~~5. lilt f1, ~ , n( which (m mf'd Iht d l'U5ici hilt I~wkldll i "'("~ C>1II ~ldc Iht~ d:m~~ ); h~nct d ll.UlC ttymn lllRlc"U y Ine"ns: h~lllfl~ i nJ: ttl Ihe social "UI'~f e l1.ISI"
(wcalth ,,"d powrr) .
)0 ELEMENTS
marie trc;lIiscs anJ the '_CdHtdi of the logoj:!rilplu .. · rs ) . After the ci)..!hlh
cenUlry, inSlfuction takes an agonistic 1\lrtl. relll'uing a situathlll of sharp rivalries. Free schools (~llongsidc the monastic or episcopal
schools) ~rc left to the initiative of any l1l:lstl"r. (liten a very yotlng
one (in his twenties); everything depends 011 success: Ahcl:m.l, a
gifted student. Udefeats" his le:'!chcr. tilkcs aWflY his paying alldi ~ cnec. and founJs a sc hool uf Ids own; fin;mcial rivalry is closdy IinkeJ to the rivalry of iJeas: t he same Ahelard forces his teacher Guillaume tic C hampcaux to rCllouncc realism : Ill' lij'J(idd(("~ it. (roln
every point of view; the Olgonistic struc ture coincides with the Cllm ~ mercia I structure: the SdlOlil'i(icCJs (reacher. student, Of (urllll'r ~ 11I ~ dent) is a cOll1hntant of ideas anJ n professional rivfll. There arl'
two school exercises: I. the lc _~mfl, re;H.ling ;md e xpl ica tion of a !'iet
text (Aristotle, the Bihle), wl,ich includes: <I . exl,osilio, interpre ' tation of the text according til a suhdividing me rlHlJ (a kind of
analytic delirium); b. ql.wCSliollcs, propositions nf the h .' xi which
can h~vc a ,"0 or a CHn : the !ic arc discusscJ a nd dctnl1lincd hy refutalion; each reasoning must hc presented in the ('lrm of a cpm
plete syllogism; the lesson was grad1lally nl'glec ted l1l'cause of it!'i
tedium; 2. the dislmle, a cerel1lony, a dialectic ,' dud, condllc tl'J
wil h the teache r presiding; after scve r~ll Jays, the teacher d e terinilll'S
the result. What is involvcJ here is hy and large a I-!arnc ( lihurl' :
athletes uf speech arc tmined : speech is the ohjec t of a ccrtain
glamor and of a regulated powe r, aggression is (oded.
A .6.2. TIle wri/tcn text As for the written text, it was not suhjec t, :' s il is ttldilY, 10 a
judgme nt (,( nriginr.lity; what we ca ll the (lur/uJr did ", )1 e xist; ;IHHI.nd
the ancient text, the only text used ilnJ in ;1 S('l1 S(' mll1l(l,l!t'd. hh' rcinves tcJ capital, there were various (unctions: I. the srrilHllr who
purely anJ simply copies; 2. the cmnlJil£llllr who adds 10 what he
cnpicst
hut nothing Ihal comcs (nun himsdf; ~ , the (fJIIIJIICllf(/fllr
who introduces himself into the copil·J tex l, hilt o nly ttl Illake il
intelligihle; 4. the llU( (Or, finall y, who pa'Sl'nl S Ilis own ideas 'lIIl
.dways hy drpcnJing 011 1I1ha authoritks. The::e ftlil c tiom: ;tre 1101
"
Tilt Old Rhe,oric: an aide· memo;" )(
clearly hicmrchized: the commentator, for example, can have the prestige a great writer would have today (this was the case, in the twelfth century, of one Pierre Helle, nicknamed "the Commen. tator"). What we might anachronistically call the writeT is therefore essentially, in the Middle Ages: I. a transmiu,,-: he passes on an absolute substance which is the treasure of antiquity, the source of authority; 2. a combineT: he is entitled to "break" works of the past, by a Imlltless analysis, and to recompose them ("creation," a modem value, had it occurred to the Middle Ages, would have been de. sacmlizcJ into a structuration) .
A.6.J. The Septennium
In the Middle Ages, "culture" is a taxonomy, a functional net. work of "arts," i. e. , of languages scbject to rules (the etymology of the penod relates aTI to aTCIUS, which means aTliculatedl, and these "arts" arec.alled "liberal" because they do not serve to ram money (Ill Upposlrton to the arles mechanicae, manual activities): these are
general, sumptuous languages. Such liberal , rts toke the place of that "geneml culture" which Plato rejected in the name and behalf of philosophy alone, but which was subser, 'en!ly reclai med (Iso. crates, Seneca ) as propaedeutic to philosoph\,. In the Middle Ages, philosophy itself is reduced and passes into the geneml culture as
one art among the others (Dialectical . It is no lo,,~er for philosophy that a liberal culture prepares, Lut fo r theology, which remains ' sovere ignly outsiJe the Seven Arts (the SeIJlenni"m) . Why seven! As early as Varro, we find a theory of the liberal arts: they arc then nine (ours, with the addition of medicine and architecture); this structure is repeated and codified in ti,e fifth and sixth centuries by Marti:lIllls C apena (a pagan Africanl who institules the hierarchy of the Seillenniunt in an allegory, The Mamagc of MCTcury and PhiIolulD' (l'hilalnlD' here designares total knowiedge) : Philology, the learned virgin. is prumised to Mercurv; she receives as a wedding
prese nt the seven liberal arts, each being presenteJ with ils symh"ls, it s costume, it s kmguage; for cxmnplc t G mmmruica is.1I1 old wuman.
she has lived in Attica and wears Roman gallncnts; in a little ivory
32 ELEMENTS
casket, she carries a knife and a file to correC( the chi ldren's mis-t k . Rhelorica is a beautiful woman, her ~arments arc embe lhshed ~ es, wilh a ll the figures, she carries the weapons int ended to wounJ her adversaries (coexistence of persuasive rhetoric ftnd ornamen ta l rhet~
oric). These allegories of Martianus Capel la were widely known, we find statues of them on the facade of NOIre-Dome in Paris, at CI,anres, and drawn in the works of Botticelli. Boethiu, and Cassiodorus (sixrh century) specify the theory of the Se" renni"m, the first hy shifting Aristotle 's Organon into Diaieclica, the second by postulatmg that the liberal arts are inscribed for all eternity in divine wisdom and in Scripture (the Psalms are full of "figures"): rhetoric re~eives .the guarantee of C hristianity, it can legally ernigr;~ tc (rom ~n~lq\llry. llito
the Christian West (and hence into modern tllnes); thlS Tlghr w,1I be confirmed by Bede, in Charlemagne's rime. - What constitutes the SepLennium! First we must reca ll to what it is oppused: on the one
hand. to techniques (the "sciences," as disinterested langu:l':cs, belo ng to the Se'Jlennium) and, on the other, 10 theology (the Se,,lennium organ izes human nature in its humaniry; this nat UTe can .he subverted on ly by the Incarnation which, if it is applied to a class,fication, takes the form of a subversion of language: the Creator becomes creaturc, the Virgin conceives, etc.: ill lute vcrlJi cO/JUW slul,et
omnis reguln). The Seven Arts are divided into two unequal _groups, which correspond to the two paths (viae) of wisdom: the rnvuml includes Grammarica, Dialectica, and RhelO1iCLI; the QUlulriviwn in,
cludes M'<lica, Arithmerica, Geometria, Aslron",,,ia (Medicine will he added later). The opposition of the Trivium and of the Quadri vium is no longer that of Letters and Sciences; it is ""Iter the opposition of the secrets of speech and the secrets of nature .'
'11 . .• n ·,c li'l o( Ih~ ~vt:n ar15: Grmn(m:UI(:") k'4l1i 1tlf . 1J.i,(1('>cUC;t) lele ('>.,~tcu a mflt:mo . . I N'"(, ,- J y"h, colorat Mw(sica ) canit . Ar(hlllll,"lIca) numef:lII . Gdufnt: tna) v('>ra (nee!. nc or~a _
pnnJe, :u . As(tronomi;t) colil aslr.\. . . An allegory hy Alain de Ulle (lwelflh ct: nlUry) aCCllunu (ot Ih('> 'y'lem In "II ~IS ctlfnplexllY:
the Sc=v('>n Art~ arc summnned to prllvide :t ch",i{'1 (\If I'rwirll"n, who w'~he~ I" ~ul\ le
, . I G ,'-. p,"vi,I"s Ihe ..... ,Ie I..n~m (m 1)I(,k' lh lrl Ihc ;:"dc , wlul'll IUr('>ln,u.:a IlIanKlnl : wml"f1(l... ~" , ., I f 'II· I ·,1, ·"w,I,· ,h, qU:lJrivium (urnhh('>\ Ihe (nur wlw<>i\, iiII' hnut·~ ;11(, I u: 1\'(,
emnc 15 les WI , . • I I I I . 5('n'«:5, h:ltllC55Cd by Rillill; Ihe cqllir;I~(, J!11('>5 I\.w:ml Ih(' ':I ~n l < , Ma ry: (" .. ; W 1('11. I 1('> 111111 ( I . ' cl"d Tivult , .... , tc l it'vt: ~ "nu.k'lIlll (hlm::!lu", I ~ " rcdcmp'Ion) . o IlIm:ln powers IS It'.. , I<~
The Old Hhclflnc: art aicle ,"rmoire 33
A.6.4. The diachronic play of the T rivi ,Im
The TritJiu," (which alone concerns tiS here) is a taxonomy of
spt'ech; it att«ts to the persistent effort of the Middle ARCS to estahlish the piece of speech within man, within nalllre, within the creation. Speech is not in this period, as it will be suh,equentiy,
:0 vchicle, an instrument, the mditati"n of ,orroelltiroR else (solll, tho ught, pa s.o; ionL it ahsorhs the entirety of the mental : no expe ~ rience, nu psyc hology: speech is not expression hut immediate con ,
srruc rioll . What is interesting ahollt the Tritlilml is the re fore less
tlte w ntent of each discipline than the play of these three disciplines amung themselves, down through len centuries: from the fifth 10
the ,i fleent h centuries, leadership e migratcd from one art 10 an
o,lter, so that each period of the Middle Ages comes under tlte dominance of one art: in turn, it is 1?11cloriCQ (from the tifth to the
scvl'nth ccnillry). then Grarmruuictl (frolll rhe eighth 10 tht, tenth
century). then L'Riw (frum lite cleven, I. to Ihe fifteenth cen,ury) which dOfllinates her sisters. wlltl arc consign,~d to rhe rank of pour relat ions.
Rhclorica
A.6.5. Rherorica as .mpplement
Ancient Rheloric had survived in the tradit ions of severa l Roman
schools in Ga lli anJ among certain G;dl ic rhctors. such as Ausonitls
(1/0- )93), RT(llIImaricus and rheror in Bordeaux, and Sidon ius Apt,l linaris (430- 484), Bishop of Auvergne . C h;orlelllagne entered tlte figures of rheforic in his aC:lJemic reforms. affer the Venerable I1etlc
(67 J- 7 J5) Itad entirely C hristianized rhetoric (a task hel(lIn hy Sain' Allgllstine and C;,ssiodorus), showing tltat the Rihlc it self is filII of ",iJ.:lln .. 's." Hlll,toric does not prevail for long; ir is soun "sq Il Cl~zcd" hCIWCl'U (;nUIIHllIticd anJ LfiRicCI: it is tlu ptl()r rclilti(lIl ()( rllc Triv
iUI1I, dc:-; tilll'd 10 h;lvc ~I splendid resurrecfion tlnly Whl'n it GlTl
revivl.' as "Pul'try" ilnd more generally as "1\t'lles Lctlfl'S. " This
wcakfll'SS (If Hlu: 'llric . diminished hy tlu.' Irilllllph (If the cas lr:1fing
1a1lJ.:II:lgCS , grall1lllilr (we reca ll the fil e and th e knife of Marrianus
J4 ELEMENTS
Capella) ami logic. results perhaps from the fa ct that it is .entirel y
shovcJ to ward (mllimerH. i. e. I toward what is rCl!ilrdcd as tncsscn·
tial- in re lation to trllth a nd to fan (first ;lppCil rancc of the refer·
e ntial ghost 'i ); it the n appears as what coml'S a[r r rwarJs. to This
medieval rhetoric is supplied essentially hy C icero's treatises (/<I,ctorica ad I-Ierennium and De invcnlil1nc) and QlIilltili .. tn's (helter
known to teachers than to students)' but it did produce trc.uiscs
chiefly relative t.o ornaments, to figures. to "colors" . koj(~~l'S ,rll c(O.
. .) I t rts of "netry (artes veni(iwtoriCle); JIl'" >SI"O IS ap-nel • or a cr a I" . 11 proached only from the angle of the "IJe~inning" of the discourse
(ordo artificiali, . ",do naturalis) ; the figure s identlf,ed arc c1uefly of
amplification and abbreviation; style is rela ted to the tllTee genres
f V · '1' I e17. gra",', ',umilis meoioCTu5 and ~{l two ornaments: o Irgl S W le . v , , ,
facile and difficile.
A.6.6. Sermon .• , dictamen, arts of " ,,,:try The domain of Rherorica encompasses three canons of rul es. three
I Artes ~ermocirlllfu.li: these are the o ratorical arts in general arCcs . . . (the ohject of rheto ric , stric tly speaking) , i.c . . essentially, Serll10~l S o r paraenctic discourscs (exhorting to virtue); serm(lns can he Wrlt ~
'n ' I '" ,·.tt w·tk. l)\It~illc nfFt;mce Itll.iay , in cerlai n ("I"' llllfie~ wlwf(' il i~ n('( t·~s"ry. 1I~ g It"" ~ ... ,. . _ I . .
. " , , ot ••••• · ·.I'n~I It. rt:JIJ( c Frc llc h It> II ll' sI;I!II\ of a hll('iJ-:" ;11lJ-:llal-!(' , II 1.\ III "proSltlOn tl:l " . ' . .• I 1_ , , , . dcc!afrJ 11t:1I wh;tl mllst l'It' ' ;lIIgh i is nnly , hc "'t'm:!' b llJ-: II:l f.:t', ~nd !lll i 1·1l I\( 1 III ' ,I I:lrt .
a~ i( ,hefe W(,f(, a Illfe ~hold N-Iwccn !;mf,:lI;If,:C a nd lilera lulc, a ~ I( 1,IIlI: U;I j!l ' WI" : hnr ,md . h 'r . t' Co I,. " , d some whe re ,",cyond whi(:h ,hl'ft· wOItlld l't, Hw:-o~t"llt lal 1\(11 I CJl', :1.\ I II ("OU U 1"1:.. . ,
5t1ppit-menu, lit craturc among ,hem, .. " " Suln-tmd tnlJl1Ul (ltJ(xlnil, "PIl.~UC j! "I"'lIn I Pnjicil dle/IIC ~l""~t'I ' ffU: IUII1 1I("fn ln' ~ _ 'm'dl .
"IRI . I a L ,I" 'n .. 1 10 llch cumplC:: lcs Ihe wurk t,f lie f :- 1 ~ ICrs. ;111" cmhc l1l ~" ("s d \(, lc lutlC :lnn rw II.. •
(;lc t in a mUTt' ;I('cnmrli:-oh cd (,,:-oh ion ," 1 Vitj!il· ... wheel i.\ ;I fi~llfrd c!a.\.\ ifl0 Iioll of Ihl' IlIfe(' ·\Iy l.· ... .. : 1.' ;1( 1. o f 1I1l' tlHl"l" :>1.' .: 101:-0
o( th(' whcel ;\.'\..'icmhlcs a h(lmt1~cneom ~rollp o( term ... :lnd ... VUlIo .. !...;
ACIlt'id EcI"R"lI.('s ~~£It~ -- I IlICm" " .u"'/U$ "w,/""'us sfJ lul R"HWil j fJ Il.~ J
milt" (L"ninOlu / hfm. Aj{lx
f'f /1I14 1
RLII /IIU ur/'I , n llfrwn
LIUT"S. cf'clru.s
11<1111'''' IIfio_\Il.1
TilJfU.I, M d'/"I(' II_1
H4. ~ 1
h kul,u ,,,,\,UII
/llt UI
"/:''' ',,111
·' ·n/*,/"'1I1"1 / .. ,. II: t llllll11
,,!!,"
11<1"" 11..1
:,
~.'
35
ten in two languages: .'cnllones ad /)(),,,,/um (fo, the people of the
p;ui !'i lt), written in the vern<lcul ar hmgll<l~e, and sermones ad clcrtlm
(fo r the synods, rhc schools, the monasteries). written in La tin;
however, everything is preparcti in Lltinj the vernacular is only a
translati(Hl ; 1 . Arles diclaruji, an dicf.llminis, epistolary art: rhe gn)wrh
of administration, after C harlemagne. invo lves a theory o f admin~ istra(ive correspondence: the dicw.men (concerned with dictating
lell ers) ; the .liewt"r is an acknowkdged professio n. whi ch is taught;
the model is the dictllmen of the p"p,,1 chancellery: the <lY/us "'nll!tlle'
takes precedcnce o ver all; a stylistic notion appe:lrs, the (unus, the
quality of the text's fluency . apprehended tI"ou~h criteria o f rhythm
CInJ accentua tion ; 3. ArIes lJOcl icae: poetry initia lly be longs to the dictl.lmen (t he I,ruse/twefry ClPPOS; I ion is for a long time ex trcmciy
vague); th t'n the l!TreS IJOelicae ta ke over r),(hmicum, borro w Latin
Vl.'fse from G rwnrruHicQ, and hcgin to aim at ima~inativc "Ii'era ~ ture .
1O
A sfru c rur':ll reworking appc;us, which will sct ;n oppusition,
at the end of the fift eenth ce ntury. the First "/'etoric (or general
rlletoric) to the Seomd Rhetoric, from which emerge thc Arts o( Pot·try. such :-IS Ronsard's.
Grammalica
A .n.7. D""alU .• and Pr;se;an
Aft e r the In vasions. the leaders of the c,·tture arc Ce lts. English
men, ;lIld Franh; they must lett rn Latin grammar; the C arolingi ans
consccr;lfe the importance of grammar hy the f<1tHoll!'i Schools of
Fuld". Saint Ga ll . and Tours; grammar leads to gene ral eJucation.
tn poetry . to til C lit urgy. to Scripture; it includes. alongside gramlTl ar
strictly spea king, poetry. metri cs. and certain hgures. - The two
great grammatical authorities of the Middle Ages are Donatlls and
Pri ... dan. I , [)unaws (circa J 50) produces an ahridgcd gr;1I11m;n «(ITS
UlIHor) which dea l!'i with the e ight parts of the sent ence, in 'he form
of qIlCS! illns and 'lTlSWcrs. and iln ex tended grammar ((In HllIjor) ,
I )ollatw:; c lljoycJ an enurlllous fame; I);mt c purs him in h elVe-n (as
('pposcd to Priscia n) ; s('vtral pagc~ hy him arc among the firs! print ed
36 ELEMENTS
work, on a footing with Scripture; he has given his name to ele
mentary grammatical treatises, the dontll!. 2. Priscian (end of the
fifth century, beginning of the sixth) was a Mauritanian, a Lat in
teacher in Byzantium, educated on Greek theories, notably the
grammatical doctrine of the Stoics. His lnstiturio grammarica is a
normative grammar (gramfntltica regulans), neither philosophical nor
"scientific"; it survives in two abridgments: the Priscianu5 minor deals with construction, the Priscianus fntljordeals with morphology.
Priscian offers many examples borrowed from the G reek Pantheon:
man is C hristian, but the rhetor can be pagan (we kno w the fortunes
of this dichotomy). Dante sends Priseian to the Seventh C ircle of
the Inferno, that of the Sodomites: an aposwte , a drunkard, a
madman, but known as a great scholar. Donatus and Priscian rep
resent absolute law-except when they do not agree with the Vul
gate: grammar can then be only normative , since it is believed that
the llrules" of locution were invented by the grammarmns; they
were widely circulated by Commentatores (such as Pierre He lie ) ;md
by versified grammars (enjoying a great vogue) . Until the twe lfth
century, Grammatica includes grammar and poetry, and dea ls with
"precision" as well as with "imagination" ; with letters. sy ~lables, the sentence, the period, figures, metrics; it yields very lottie to
Rhetorica: certain figures. It is a fundamental science, linked tn an
Ethica (part of human wisdom, articulated in the texts nutside of
theology) : "science of speaking well and writing well ," "the cradle
of all philosophy," "the first nurse of all literary study ."
A,6.S. The Modistae In the twelfth century, Grammatica becomes specul ;llive o nce
again (as it had been with the Stoics). What is called SpecuuHillc
G ramfntlr is the work of a group of grammarians known as ModlSlde
because they wrote treatises entitled De modis siRlIifiwII<li; many
were fro m the monastic pro vince o f Sca ndinavia then kno wn as
Dacia and mo re specifically fmm Denmark . The Modists we re dc-, .
37
nounced hy EraslIlus (or thei r harhllrotls Latin, for the c haos of the ir
definitions , for the cxces.~ive suhtlety o f the ir distinc tio ns; as il
11l;lttn o( (:H..:I the y provided the hasis fo r grammar d1lring two
Cl'ntllries , and we a rc still in tl\c ir dcht f(lr cellain sprc ulativ(' terms
((or eX;lITlplc : im(allcc) . the Modists' ueatises t<lkc two (orms: the
modi minoTes, whose suhstan ce is prescnteJ modo l>os ilitlo. i.e. , with
(lut cri lical disH lssiun. in a hrief, c!(, .tr, ve ry didac tic fashion, anJ
til(' "IOJ; majoTes . given in the form of (iltLICSlif) di~'mfala . i.e. , with
the ImJ a nd the con, hy increasingly specia lized questions. Each
treatise includes Iwo parts, in Prisc i;ln's manner: Er/, ymolol!ia (tntlr
pho logy )- pour spelling W;IS a peril.J matte r ;lntl corrcsponds tn a
fal se e tymology of the word Elymulllgi<l- and lJiasynlherica (synl:lx),
hilt it i.o; pn.'ceded hy a th eoretic ll introduct ion concerning the
rela tions of the rIIfKli essenJi (hcing and its properties ). the modi
iurd/iJ!c ucii (I;) k inJ,! possession of hci nJ.! under its aspec ts) ,11\<.1 I he
rtlf J(li .~iJ...TJliJi(( tlldi (leve l (If bn~uage) . Thc modi signifh:auJi tile II1sc l v('s
include t wo strata : 1. des ij!THJtion corresponds to the modi signandi;
tiu.'i r cle llH ... ' flt s art' : ' Join ' , thc phon:c signifie r, <lnt..! dietio, the COIl
cept · word, :I gt'll<.'ric SClTlantCl1le (in doloT, do/eo, this is the notion
of suffcrinJ,!, the dolorous); the mCKli si1{llluuii do not yc r hdong to
the grammarian : vox, the phonic signifie r, depends on the I,"ilo.~o/,h"s lllllUTtllis ( we should say t he phonetic ia!'), ;lnd dictio, re ferring
(0 an innt slat<.' of the wo rd, whic h is not yet ;lni111<lleJ hy a ny
re latiu n, escapes the logician of langll<lge (it would de rive fro m
whal wc sh(lllid ca ll lexicography) ; 2. the level (If the tII l><.li si~"lificwuli is reac hed when we .. dd to de.~i~'l1{I(ion an intent iOllal sen ,o;e;
Oil this le vel. the word, nCllt ra l in dir tio , is e ndowed with a rd a tion.
it is <lpprclu: l1dn l as " OJHSITuL'(jlJle" ; it :lpl'c;lrs in the higher ullit
of the Sl.'lltcnce; it ,hen pertains to the speculative grammarian, tn
llt <.' IOl-!ic i' lI1 of Ianj.!uage. Thus, far (rom hlarning the Modisls , as
has somc timl'S hec il the casc, for having reduced l:lngll:lgc ttl a
Iltll1H.:nclat1lrc , we lIlust congra tul:lte (hem for havin ~ d une just the
opposite : f(lr ll1t'lI\ language hegins Ilot ;'I t dieti" a nd at the ~if."TJIifi O HlOfI, i.c., :11 lhe word- ~ign, hllt at the consiJ"FuifictHum o r ( 01l5U·,((.' -
38 ELEMENTS
ribile. i.e. I at the relat ion, at the inlcr·sign : a founding pri vi lege is
granted to syntax, to fl ex ion. to rcefion, (tnd not 10 the scmantc mc.
in a word. to srTltc tuTlllioH, wh ich would pcrllaps he the hcst way
of translating modus significandi . Hence there is a (f:rtain rciatio nship
between Ihe ModislS and eert .. in modern strucluralisls (1ljclmslcv
and glossematics. C holnsky :lnd competence): language is a SUI IC
lure, and this strllcture is in a sense "gua rant eed" hy the sHur tlirc
of being (moJi e"enJi) amI by thaI of mind (moJi inld/i~clUli): Ihere
is a gromntalica unit/cystitis ; this was new, for it was comnHH11y he
lieveJ that there were as many grammars as languages: (JrWIIUlluica
una et eculcm est secwulum 5uh5r£1nCiwn in fmlllilm's liJlJ.!,uis. liee( tlcd
dcnwlirer tllIricrur. Non er/.!o ,l!Tammalicu5 sed 1,/liloso/,/lIIs Iml/,yim 'W~ turas rerum clilij.!cntcr cfntsideran$ , , , gram,nlllionil inVt" lir . (G rall1111;lr
is o ne and rhe same as reg.uJs suhstance in all languages although
it can vary by aeciJenrs, Hence it is not the gr:llnmarian. it is the
philosopher whn, by the exa lnination of the n;,fUre of things, dis·
covers grammar,)
Logica (or Dialectica)
A.6.9. slUJium and sacerdolium '--"J.!icli dominates in the twe lfth and thirteenth centuries: it pilsill's
asiJe I<llctoyicd and ahsorhs GnJI1IJIlari((I, This struggle takes the (Ilrlll
"f a conniel of schools. In Ihe lirst half "f Ihe Iwelflh cenlury, Ihe SCh()(l ls (lfCh ... rtres in pan iculnr dcvchlp I he tcacl ling (lfGn.III1HldliClI
( in the ex tenJed sense we ha ve discussed) : this is ~lIulium, wilh a
lite rary orient:ltionj contrary to it. the school ur Paris develops
theo logica l philosophy: this is sll(cnlllliulfI , There is a vic tory or Paris over C hartres, of s(lCCTllotiullI over 5 1I«./ill 111 : Gwntlllc.llic(l is
"bsorhed by ulJ(im; Ihis is aecnmp,micll by a relrcal of pa~all IiI · erature, hy a n intensified enthusiasm for the vernacular, hy a wilh ~ drawal o(humanis l1l , hy an impulse toward the lucra ti ve disc iplines
(medici ne , law) . f)illlc«(i«(J is initially sustained hy Cice ro's T"I,io
and by the work of l3ucthi lls , who first inlroJllccd Aristo tle; !I,co,
"
"
,. '.
::
"
The Old Rhe((1ric: l lll aide ~mc,"f)ire 39
in the twelfth and thirteenlh centuries, after the (massive) second
enlrance of A ristotle , by the who le of Aristotelian logic which dealt wilh Ihe dialec lica l sy llogism.'
A.6. IO. Vi.<pu/a/io
lJifliecri((1 i:-; an a rt o f living discourse , of dialogue, There is noth ~ ing I'latllnic ;lhll lit stich di:1lllgUC , th ere is Il() ques t ion o f a suhjcc ti()I)
on principle of the heloved to the master; di <1 logttc here is ~Iggrcss ive, its Slftkt· is a vic to ry which is not prede termined: it is a h:lUle of
sy llogisms, Aristotle staged by two p"rtners , Hence Dialecrica is
finally identified with an exerc ise , a mode of exposition, a ccre ~ IIHIIlY, a gallle. Jislmldlio (which might be ca lled: a colloquy of
opponents) , The proceJure (or Ih e protocol) is that of Sic "I Nlln : contradictory testimonies ;ITC collected nn a question; the exerc ise
confront s an o pponent and a respondent; the respondent is lIslmlly
the ca ndiJate : he responds ttl tilt: ohjections presented hy the 0r~ r<mcnt; as ill Conservatory competitions. fhe opponent is on the
stair: he is " friend or is appoinled ex offili .. ; the thesis is posited. the opponc.'nt counlers it (.'iccl contra). tl1(' clndidatc responds
(rc.'i /Jllfulco ): the conclusion is given by the master, who presides.
" In (i lllll! n·lI:.in .mdt' nl lioI'IIfCCIi (cor Il.t, Mit"-lie AJ:ell, il 1I1\1 ~ 1 1lC' fe!Oernl 't'u ,\l lha l Ihe
1I1l11",.I\,.! il1h'!I" lClttal rlllllln ill :llwaYIi Ari li lll!le , :11111 e"'(' n, in a .\C n~, Afill inele fIR/WIU I'bl o .
1' /:111' wa., paflblly Ifa,, ~mil,ct!!-ty S;.inl AUJ!II.\li ,w ;uhl ll\ I ~ I ;.ill ~, in Illl' tw~lf,h Cl'nl lllY , Ihl'
.'\Ch. ",11,1 Cll : I,rH'~ (:I " Iir c!,uy" .~ 11Il( ,1 a~ " rl)f,.~\II(1 ,1.(' ~dU)fll of I '",i ~ , wh k h wa~ " I" l!ka l"
:111.1 A l i ~h'ldi ; '") :ITld ,Iu' Ahhcy of Sa i lll Vic tor ; 11I1W('\lt " in 'he , hirl l'cll lh ('(' nlmy 'he \,"1 .,. 1t".1 1r : III.<i bli"n ~ a I(' II lt~ II( 111(' ""'11:11, "1lI1 Mt ll", and (''''('n '''e~ ;lI e lilll(' knllwn . In Ihe lill n' lJlh ,lIltl ll lxlecII,h CCnluric~, :m inlc II!.C: li lf ll~J! lc iii e llJ!;I~cJ a~ainli l A,i\loill.' in
I 'bl"'~ n ;lIm· (M.u .q l", I:in nll anJ (tilll"anI1 Rru"u) , - A li (Of A'i~lll"(", he (,fl l c', ,, till' Milldle
A~l'" ill IWo lI ' aj!I's: li n- lil.~1 l illlt: , in ,lie s ixlh ,Ifill .'~('""'(, Illh (' cnlt "il'~, a'lll r ;mia lly , ,I"ott!!" M . tfl ia ll u~ ( :"I'dltts, l '"rp"l',y'li ClI' rRUfit,\ , ;l 1I11l\"c, IIiuli; Ihe ~c .. nd lilll (" in (flH'C', in ,h(' Iw,·II,lt :1Ilt! ,h j,h-cnl h n ·l\llIl i('" .... ; in lhe n i"d, ("(' IlUlty, all .. f All Illdc W:l~ II :md"H:d infll
A' :lhll ; til ,I.l· Iwd,," n'lIlul Y, If,tftlibllllll.\ IIf a ll !If Aril- I" "I.' WI' IC a"ai lahl t" clI ,I.1(, e illin
I'llm !lIt' {;n·l·k lit h "lII dl(, Alahir: Ih i ~ i, Ihe rna!.lii ... (' inlh1l1 of Ilt(' r"1fr1l' " An"I.,11( \, ,"('
T",,,, (, I Itt· \'1,111\,,, ,,111"(11111'''''11 , 'he "II.,,,,, allt l Mr~I/>Il"\ln : AII.\,utl" w:t~ ( : lt1i~li;.nm', 1 (S.11111 I h"",;,, ). A "~III,l("" 'hirt! :l1'1,,-·.u alll(' w,1I ..... Iha l Il( hi .... " "('11(\ in Ih l' ~ llCl l·CllIh l l' II'III Y " ' h:tly, i ll 1/ ,(, M·"t· llTl'(·'Hh ('l' IlIIl,y 11\ F' ;lIlt'l "
40 ELEMENTS
DispuflIlio is invasive;" it is a sport: Ihe masters dispute among
themselves in the students' presence o nce a week; Ihe stude nls dispute on the occasion o f the examinations. The argume nt pro
ceeded upon permission granted by a gesture from the presiding
master (there is a parodic echo of these gestures in Rabel"is). All
Ihis is codified, ritualized in a treatise which minutely regulates
disPUflIlio, to keep the discussion fro m digressing: Ihe An ohligatoria (fifteenth century). The thematic material of the dis/llltatin comes
fro m the argumentative part of Aristo telian Rhetoric (through the
Topics); it includes insolubi/ia, propositions extremely diAicul1 to
prove, im(Jossibi/ia, theses which seem impossible to everyone, so/Jhismafll, cliches and paralogism" which serve by and large fo r the
dispuflIliones .
A.6. 11 . Neurotic meaning of the disputatio
If we wanted to evaluate the neurotic meaning of such an exercise, we should doubtless go back to Ihe G reek machi, that kind of agonistic sensibility which made intoleroble 10 the Greeks (then to the W est) all txpressions in which tht subjecl is in contradiction with
'Even C hrist's death on the C r05$ is mitde part of the Ken 'Hio of Dl.lpullIlio (some fW'oplc
today would find this rwuctlon of tht: r:lssinn to a K hool ucrci~ saCf ilrJ:inu5; OIhtrs on
the contrary would 3dmirt~ the medieval heedom of mind which laid nn ,,,,hnn upun the "dram .... of the intellect) : Circa ltTliam ~I Jt'xltlm dKtndu", fMgutri lin IhtH~1 ('(nhcdram
suom oJ dispt.llilndum (I qu.trU"' unom qwSl~m. C ui qutJrioni ,('spont"" ""US a,Ubltnllum r ose cujUJ ttspot"uiotvm ~jt.tT dttnminll' qwsriontm. t( quando wll n tkffnTt tl hnnortm
focert. nihil aliud dtltrmiMI quam quod diMTOI ftJf)ondtru . SIC ItCIi I-ajit ChnJflu i" cruet. uni
ruCrndil ad dispurondu,n; tf propontif unttm qutJlKmtm Oro Ptlm: EL. EL l1mmn Jlal ltlChrom. IJtUJ. ~UJ mtUJ. quid mtdc-rtliqwilfil EI Pdln" rtspmv.i.l : "0. F,li mi. '","a IMnuwn floll1TVm nt
di.\ptC'iru : non rnim PdltT ,tdtmit Rtnws #!urmnum sint !.t. EI ,Ilt Jt'Jptm.kru CUI: lin. Pall'1'. hrnt tkltrminrufi qut'llimlt'm mtom. Non dtttnniMho Il'IIm POS! JtJporutm\(m ult.m. Nrm sit"ul r.1I min. ",d sKur 1101 w. FiIll ooIu"kU 'WI. {Toward rht third CIt cht sixth hour. ,ht ma~ltTs lin thtolrlJrVl mount Iht: pulpit ' 0 dupUIt: and aslt a qutstton. ~ ()( ,hOSt al ltmlin!! .. nJWeu Ih iJ (,utJlion . Afttr that ft5pOnK. tht: mMltf conclud ts Iht qutstiun :mll wlltn I~ wbhts In ~51UW on
h im ,m honor. ht: dnts not condudt: in .. ny athtr way Ih"n hy ".,h", Iht rtsron<knl had 5a1J. This is whal Chrisl dtd on Iht uon ont day. whtn ht mnunlw 1m tht dLsrut :Utnn . H t ~d a (IUeslinn to God tht Falher : Eli. Eli. lamma sabfl(hldfll . GOO. my GO(I, why hayt
you (o uaken md And Ihe F .. lhtr answt,d : My Son . (10 nUl dt~ I 'i~t Iht' wnrks e,f ymll hand!'. lor ,ht Father could nn l (e,lum tht hum:m race without YIlU. And e h"'t f('~r(JOt ltd : My t:a, htr. you ha v( concludt:d my 411tstion wdl. I cClulJ not t"flllcl udt' it ntht'rwist: altt r your
rt:~ron~, tIC.)
(: , "
"
The Old Rhetoric: an aide-memoir. 41
itself: il sufficed to force an adversary to conlradic t himself to reduce him , e1ionin,ue him, cancel him out: Ca llides (in the G'''/(im ) refuscs to answer rather than to contradict himself. The syllogism
is the very weapon which permits this liquidation, it is Ihe invincihle
knife which delivers victory: the two disputants are Iwo executioners
who Iry to castra le each orher (whence the mylhic episode of
Ahclard, the caslra tor castrated). So inten.", did it hecome thaI the
neurotic explosion had to be codified, the narehsistic wound lim
ited: logic was turned to spml (as today Ihe a~onistic feclin~s of so many peoples, chiefly underdeveloped or oppressed, are turned "inlo
soccer" ): this is the eTistie. Pasca l saw this problem: he seeks to
avoid selling the other in radica l contradic tion with himself; he wants to u<:orrect" the other without wounding him to death. to
show hion thaI one need merely "complete" (and not deny) . The
dis/"'Wtio has disa ppeared, but Ihe problem of the (ludic, ceremonjal) rules of the verbal game remains: how do we dispute, nowa ~ Jays, in o llr writings, in our co lloquies. in our meetings, in our conversaliuns, and even in the "scenes" of private life! H"ve we
set rled our aecounts with the syllogism (even when it is disguised)!
On ly an analysis of our intellectual discourse will some day he ahle to answer with any degree or precision. 10
A.6.1 Z. Restructuration of the Trivium
We have seen that the three liberal arts fought a h"trle among
themselws for precedence (to Ihe final advantage of l..o/(ica) : it is
actually the system o( the Triviul1l in its fluc tuations which is
significant. It s contemporaries were aware o( this: some tried to
rest .. ,crure the whole of spoken cuhure. Hugh of SI. Victor
(1096- 1141) set in opposition to the theore lica l, prac tiG.I, anJ mechan ica l sc iences, the logica l sciences: wRiC"l1 took over the TritJ~ iurn in its enlirely : it is the whole scie nce o( language. Saint Bon#
Ii" ( ·h ;,,1t- ~ l't',dlll;'" :tlltl L O lh' l'd'I\ ·Ty" ·'·;' . Th.· Nrw Rhl ·",", A Trrtlfl\r fin 1\ 'R'umrn.
1111,/11 •. 11 .11 1' , 'ohn W.lkin.'o('" aUll rllu:dl W(,:I\lt"r. Noll(· 1);11111: : UniY(, I ~ ily II( Nul' t" /);""<' I'lr ~~. Il)fll} ,
42 ELEMENTS
aventure (1221 - 1274) trieJ to <I isc ipline "II forms of knowledge by
subjecting them to Theology; in particular, L"giC<!, or the sc ience of interpretation, comprehenJs Grammatica (ex pression), Dia/cctiw
(education), and Rhetorica (pcrs,",."ion); once ag"in, "s if to set the mental in opposition to nature anJ to ~racc. langu;1gc ilhsnrhs it entirely. But "bove all (for this heralds the future), sillee the twclhh century, something which we must certainly c" lI u lln> is separateJ
out from philosophy; for John of S"lishury, Dia/er tinl functions ill all the Jiseiplines where the result is abstrac t; Hllelurica Oil the
contrary cullccts what DialeclicCl rejects: it is the field of the hY/'OI/ICl i> (in ancie nt rhct()ric, the hYrx)tiles is is set in ('ppc.)sitilJn Il) tlll~ thesis,
like the contingent to the general Icf. infra, LI. I .2Si), that is to say, everything which implicalcs concrete circ1Imstances (who ! what!
why? ho w?); thus appears an opposition which will h"ve " gre:1I mythic succes.< (it still survives): that of the concrete "ml the ah· stract: Letters (deriving from Rheluri<a) will be concrete, Philosophy (deriving from Dialectica) will be abst ract.
A, 7, Death of rhetoric
A.7.1 . Aristotle's Ihird entrance: tl.c Poelics
We have seen that Aristotle haJ "ppe"ml twice in the West: once in the sixth century with Boct hius. once in the twelfth ce ntury
with the Arahs. He makes a thirJ cntmnce: through hi ~ PfJelics. This Poelics is very little known in the MiJdle Ages, except in the
form of some distorting "briJgments; hut in 14'18 the re "ppca" in Venice the f"st Latin trans"'tion made from the original; in 150 I, the first edi tion in Greek; in 1550, Aristotle's p""lics is t",ns"'ted with a commentary by a group of Itali"n scho"'" (C astcivetro , Sc" liger-of Italian urigin-"ml Bishop Veda). In Frallce, the te xt itself is little known; it is through 1t"lian innuence that it makes its impact in seventcenlh ~ccn'ury France; I he J,!cneral ion uf 16JO
included IlUIIlCHH IS devolees ()f Arist{ltle; the I'f 1t.'lio S\lPlllic!'i Fn: m:ll
C lassicism with its chi ef elem ent: a theory pf vc ri !'i il1liliwdc; it i.'\
the (ot1c of lit erary Hcn'at ion I " wh(l~c t "core t ician,..; arc :1 t11hurs .
TIlt! Old Rllftoric: an tlitle ~mim(}ire 43
critics. Rhetoric. whose chief o hject is "fine writing. 11 sty1e, is Iim ~
ited to instruction , where moreover it triumphs: this is the rea lm (lf the teachers (jesuits).
A.7.2. TriumplJant and moribund
Rhctorit.: is triumphant: it rules over instrllction . Rhetoric is )
morihund: limited to this sector, it falls gradually into great intd ~
lectllal disc rcJi!. This discredit is (lcc"sioned by the promotion of a ne w vaillc, cviJeucc (of facts. of ideas, of sentiments), whic h is
sc l f~ ~ ufflcic nt and does without l a ng\la~e (or imagines it does so ),
o r ;1t least claims no longer to uo;;e language except as an iU.'ifTUmcrll.
as a medi at ion , as an expressio n . This u('vidence" wkes. from the
sixteenth ce ntury on, three directions: a personal evidence (in
Pro testan tism), a rat ional evide nce (in Cartcsian ism). a se nsory
evidence (in empiricism) . Rhetoric, if it is tnler"tcd (in Jesllit in · struc tion), is no longer a logic at ;111. hilt o l .:y a coloT, an o rnamen t,
closely supervised in the name of the " n"tur" I. " No dOllnt there was in Pasc;:,1 some postulation of this n ew spirit , si nce it is to him
that we owe the Anti ~ Rhet()ric of mode rn humanism; what Pasca l
demands is a mentalist rhetoric (an "art of persuasion"), sensitive
"s thollgh by instinct to the complex ity of things (to "finesse ·'); eloquence cOllsisr s not in applying .tIl eX lern ~,1 c()lle tn discoursc .
h1lt in Ill'coming aw;' rc of the thought nascent within liS, so that
we ca n re producc this moveme nt '"", he n we speak to the other. thlls
sweeping him into truth, as if he himself, hy himself, were discov· ering it; the order of discourse has no intrinsic charac terist ie (clarity
or syltlll1t'try); it depends on the na ture of thollght, to whic h, in
ordcr to he "correct," language must conform .
A.7.J. je.<uil in<lruction in rhetoric AI tilt .. ' e nd (If the Middle A ges , as we hilve ~cc n, the tcac ltinJ.!
of rhclpric was losing ground ; it none theless suhsisted ill cc rl:lin
eollq . .:c!'i , ill EIlf.!land and in Gcrmilny. In the s ixtecnth n~nttlry.
th is h crit ;lgc Wil.'\ orJ.!ani zed , :I!'istll111'd ;1 st:,hle form, ilt fir!'i t in tll ('
UYl1lllilSC Sa illt ~J c n")fnc , located in Liege ,md rlln hy Jesuit s. This
44 EL E M EN TS
college was im itated in Strasbour~ ami in Nimes: the form of in struction in France for three centuries W OlS set. Ve ry qUickl y some
forty culleges fo llowed the jesuit mudel. The instruct ion given here was cod ified in 1586 by a group uf six j esuits: this is the lI",io
Swdi(Jrum, "dopted in 1600 b y the U niversi ty of Paris. T his limi"
sanctio ns the preponderance o f the lIhumanit ics·· fHl ll of Latin rlll' t·
uric; it invades all o f Europe , hut its ~rc" t l's l success is in France;
the power of this new Halio no doubt derives from the fa ct that
there is , in the ideo logy it legalizes, an identity o f an academic
discipli ne , of a discipline of thuught, anJ of a d isci pl ine of langua!!e.
In this humanist instruc tio n, Rheto ric itsel f is the Ilohle ~uhstancc,
it uo minates everything . The only academic prizes arc the pri zes
for Rhetoric, for translation. "no for memory. hut the prize for
Rheto ric . aw;mJeu at the conclusion of a special Ctlnt C!'iI , ,ksiglla lcs the fi rst pupi l, who is heneefmth ca lled (anJ the titl es ar<· sign ifi
cant) imlJeTawr or tribune {le t us not (orget thar speec h is a powcr-
l anJ eve n a pu litical power) . U ntil arounJ 1750, (lllt ,ide th e sci
ences, eloquence constitutes the unl y prestige; in th is pcri(K..1 o f
Jesuit decl ine, rhetoric receives a cert ain amuunt of new li fe (ro lB
Frccl1l;lsonry .
A_7.4. Trca/i.<c~ and mallua/s T he codes of rheto ric arc innumcrahle , a t lea' t IIn til the end (lf
the e iJlhteenth century. Man y ( in the sixteenth ami seventeen th
centuries) are written in Latin; these arc the academic 1I1 :1 IHlid s
wrill en hy j esuits, notably those of Fathers Nunez, S lIsiu" anJ SO;l rC!. T he "Institut io n" of F;l lhcr NUllul, fur exa mple, consists
of five hooks: preparatory exercises, I he three Inilin pa rt s of rheloric
(i nventio n . arrangement, anJ style) and an eth ical pari ("wis
..lorn"). Yet rhetorics in the vernacular proliferate (we shall c it e here only those in French) . At the end of tlte fi ftee nth cen .. "y,
rhetorics a TC primarily poet ics (art of making verse!'. , ( If ;Irt s ur the
scconJ Rhe to ric ) ; we must c ite : Pierre Fahri, (Jrmld 1.' 1 Vmi A rt Je
I'lcil1e Wu'wri<fllc (six ed itions fr" ", 152 1 to 1';44) "nd Anl o ine Foclin (I'ouquclin), llloCt lo" ri<llle /rdll \·"i,e (1 555 ), which includes a
45
clea r and c",nple te c1assificat ion of figures. In the sevent eenth and
eight eenth ce nturies , until ahout 1830 in fact, the Treatises of Rlu:lo ric prevail ; these trealises generall y o ffer: I. parriJigmatic
rhe lo ric ("figures") ; Z. syntagm tt tic rhe fo ric ("orato rical consfn lC·
tion") ; these two categories are fclt tu be necessary and comple
lIIent ary, so that a commerci al d igest of 1806 can combine the two
most (;HIlO US rhe to rici ans: the Figures , by Dunmrsa is. Clnd omto rica l
construction, by Ou Batt ell x. Let us ci te the hest known of thesc
trea t ises. I'or the eighteenth century , it is no doubt the HIo"l<Iri</llc
by Pcre BernarJ L""y (1 675): this is a complete treatise of speech, u,eful "no t onl y in schools, but a lso in all of life, ill bUJi1l1: ami
,dfinR"; it i, hased, obviously, on the principle of the ex teriority of langu;lge and o( tho ughf : one has a "piclUre" in the mind and o ne
seeks tn "render" it with words. Fo r the e i ~hteenth century, the most (a mous treatise (and mo reover fhe most intell igent) is that o(
Oumars"is (Traire des Tro/>es, 1730 ): Du rna"" is, a rxx" ",an, un successful in his lifetime , frequented O'Hnlbach's irrcli giou.; c ircle ri nd was an Encyclopedist; his wo rk. tntlre th;ln a rhe fo ric. is a
linguistics of the changes of meaning. At the end of the e ight eenth
ce ntury anJ at the beginning of the nineteen th, many classical
trealises were still publisheJ, absolutely indifferent to th e , hock of
the Revolution ;",..1 the changes which fo llowed (Blair, 1783; G ail
lard , 1807; /..ir llheroriquc des demoiselles; Fontan ier, 1827- recentl y
repllhlishcd anJ int roduced by GerarJ Genettc). In the n ineteenth
ccnlUry. rhe to ric survives only artificia lly . under the pn.lteCl lo n o (
o Oicial rcgul:nions; the very title of the manuals clOd trc:1tiscs changes
in a sign ifi ca nt fashion: 188 1, F. de Caus-,ade, Hhftflri<fuc <t Genres
lillenur<,s ; 1889, I'rat , Elb nenl' ele IIhCwri<luC ct de tilleraru,,: Lircraltlrc sli ll stands warmnt for rhetoric, hcfore ~mot hering it com·
I' I ~ tcl y; hut the 01..1 rhe to ric , in its death th roes, is ri va led hy
" I I · f t I " PSYC HI og les t! s y c.
A. 7_ S_ End of RlIe/oric Ilowever, to say in a cal egorica l way that Rhetoric is dcml wo tlld \
mean we could specify whal ha!l re placed it, fur. as we h;lve sufli · /
46 ELEMENTS
cicntly remarked in this diachronic journey, Rhetoric mtlst always
/
he ,e~J in the st,uctu,,,1 in:e,pl~y with its ne ighhors (G,al11l11a"
Logic. Poetics, Philusophy): it is the play o( Ihl' systel11, nol each
of its pari s in itself, which is Ilist(lrically siJ,:nilicant .. O n II,is IlHlhlc11l
I we sh .. 11 notc, to conclude , sc ycml orientations of ,he inquiry .
I . II would he ncccssClry to m .. kc a c(lntcl11po r;try Icxicnlogy {If the
wonl Where docs it still find acceptance! It still sOlllc ril1u .. 's receives original contents, personal intcrpn.'I;ltions , (rom wriH.' rs not (rpm
,hetors ([I"udel"i,e "nd "deep rheloric ," Valery, Pa"lhan); h"t alxlVe
all. we should have to reorganize the contemporary field of ir s
connotations: here pejorative," there analyt ic . U and in yet another
place revalidated, II so as to Jr:lw up an ideological G I St' history of
Ihe (lid rhetoric. 2. In educt! ion, the end of trl' :Hi ~es of rhetoric
is, as alw~ys in this case, diflicllh 10 date; in I\lZ6 , "Je,uil in Heirul
wrote another manual of rllcturic in Arahic; in I l)J8. a l-k i,..: ian,
M. J. Vllill~llmc. pllbli, hcJ still "not he,; and dIS,," in Rhc' loric
allJ in AJv"nceJ Rhetoric have only lah·ly vanished . 3. To what
degree and with what reservations has the science oflangu;lgc taken
ove' the field o( the old ,heUl,ic ! First o( all, Ihere' has heen a shi(1
to psyc ho#stylistics (or styli !5tics of cxpres.~ iviry'''); hut today , when
linJ~lIistic mentalism is hunted d()wn and harried! O ut (l ;111 rhchlric,
J:lkohson h:ls retained only two figures, melaphor and metllnymy,
making them into an cmhlem of the two axes of language; for SOftie,
Ihe formidable labor o( classificalion per(orllled by Ihe old rhe toric
11 (TIl(: ",y!l ie!!.· .snphist ie-u(-n e j,!:lIitln : " til he :.11 , m:lke VIIUI 'I·I( lIt'IIIIIlJ! . ") " Ity :111 (, :. ~ .Iy
expl:.iuctl P:U:klt ,X . ,hi5 de51111( l iw: IC'1:ie tic.' hdlls Ihe cun \o(' l v :It .\·c· ~ II " h:lllnll,.' ~s; :l1",I. \ lulIl!
till . .. ti i!l lulh5 nUIfllll": . W"h,"" dficx: i'y , it i!l IIl1im:" I· ly notlllllJ: 1 .. 11 ~ II K" IC 'UC. A ''''11
fakrll 1tl""' lIlls, <' f( w nl'(r <' tj.nn~ pt'rfnr~,1 un l:m .... . ;I .. '<'. ,hl\ I!I 1 1oI'l l!I'lIl~ ,,, c" :ml!t' ,ilt' ( IOIlIV
IIf ,h(' wur lJ" (Sarll( , Stunl U I"nt"I. 1\:'4" & Mu"" , If:ll' \ . h t·d u m:m. N('w YUlk : (;l·"' I.:('
""milt·" 19(0), p. 101). II Jul;<I Kri!ll(v<', Simi illfilti, "<llis: ~I , 1111 s.-lIiI , 1%9.
" li lllltp J.L , A VtlU'ftJ RIu-'II'fK. 11:1115, Ilundl :",d ::-II1,klll , Ibllll1l"' (' : J" IIII\ 11 1I1'k lll~ Univ(' I, ity I"l'(.' , 11100 .
•• "Tlu' di ~arl,\{,,:lf :UlC (, n( tr :kJilion,11 ,11l'!IIf1( h:l!l c rt'all,d a ':" 1' II. "I(' 1IIIIII,III.lIt·\ . :11,,1
V:lyl. \ I;n h~!> ~ll r, l\l v ~on(':1 Innl! w:.y 10 r.lllt.i ~ J! ;tp, In 1..\ I II wl."ld 11,,1 1'1.' :,1' " 1:1,'"''' ' WH 'nl!
III dl'M',il1(' ~ lyl ;~ ' iL, a~ .. ' , \\,w ,ilt'tt,r lt' ad:'I " I-d 1\, ,I", \ ' :11 11 1" " , :lrullt'q llllt' IIIt' III \ 1,1 1"11 '
't' IIIP' Ir :"y ,\I lu,b, \hip'll IIw IlrlJ.:uj ~ ti (.' a ~ \wll .. ~ rill' 1.11·lary hl' lI l" ( ~ 'I'f .ll("l l JIIIlI :III , ',1.1'1:14,.£" fllill !\,yk . Nt'w Ymk : ll:ulles & Nllhlt· . 111"'1 , 1'. 110 ).
."
, I
·i
The Old Rhetoric: an aide#mi moire 47
seems slill usable, especi.lly if applied tn the ",,,'ginal fields (l(
cornlllunic.ltion or signification. such as the advertising im:lge.I'i
where it is not yet worn OPt. In flny ca.se, these conH:1dic tory
evahl:1tions silow clearly the present mnhiguity of the rhetorical
phenomenon : glamorous ohjec t of int elligence and penetration.
grandiose system which a whol~ dviliz:ltion. in its extreme hrea(hh,
perfec ted in order to classify, i.e_, in order tn think it s langu:1gc ,
inslnm1('nt of power, loc lis of historical conflicts whose reading is
utterly ahso,bing p,ecisely if we 'estorc this object to the diverse
history in which it devcioped; but "Iso "n ideological objec t, (ailing
into ideology :1t the advance of th:lt uother thing" which has re#
placed it, :md today compelling LIS to take an indispcnsahle critical
distance.
B, THE NETWORK
B.a. ,. The demand (or clas .. i(ie;orion
All Ihe treatises o( Anliquity, e<pt:c ially Ihe pnst -A,i<lutelian ones, show an (',hsession with clas.c;ific 31 ion (the very term of parlilio
in nr:llory is an eX::lmple): rhetoric openl\ olTers it self as a c1:1ssi #
fi ciltion (of m:lteriais l of rules, of parts, of I ~cnrcs , of styles), C las#
sificalion itself is the objec t of a discolll sc ; announcement of the
pl:tn o( Ihe treatisc, discussio n o( the , .Ia ~' ifi c~lion proposed hy
predcces.,,,rs. The p"ssion (0' classification always seems ny,antine
to those who do not p.nicip",," in it: why discus., so billcrly Ihe
place of the /rro/)()Silio. sometimes put at ti l': end of the exordium,
sometimes at the beginning of the nllTTcltiu! Yet in most ( :lses, :lS
is natural, the taxonomic optior implies an ideological onc: there
is ~Iway, a ·.; I~lkc in ~he,e things arc pl"ced : teUme how JIlIt dil\si{y
(IIkl l 'Uldl you who you <lTe. Hence wr calillot adort- as we slwll
dll here, for didac tic pllrpo~es-a sin gle, canon ic:,1 classillcalilln
1\ ~t.'t' IIlIla"ly } :.c qllt'!I I ~1I : lIld . "Hltl:'"TiIIIlC rt illl ,lJ,tC pllhlici l:lirc ," C mnIllIl114(1 I1I111U. III ~ (1 11701. Pl'. 70-~ ~ ,
' .
.'
48 ELE MENTS
whic h wi ll ddihcratcly "(or!:et" Ihe 1lI 'llIy varia I iOlls "f wh k h Ihe
plan uf the rcdmc rl,,?wrikC ha~ lx'en the ohject , wi;huut fir:.;t saying
II worJ about these variation!"i.
B.O.2. Start;n~ points for cla ... ;fical;on T he accou nt o( Rhe loric has heen made. essl·nl ia lly. (rolll Ih ree
difTerenl Slarting flO inl s (10 simpli(y llIall ers ). I. For A,istotle. wh"t
comes first is rec/me ( sp(~cu lative institution of it power to product'
what ma y or may not exist); the redmc (l"'lcrorikc) cl1l-!c lldc rs (ollr
types o( opcralions. whic h are Ihe parts o( Ihe rhelm ica l errl (anJ
not the parts of discourse . of (lnuio) : (I. P,sfeiJ. csrflhli shmcnt of
"proofs" (iJ"Jcnrio) ; b. Taxi5, a rrange ment of rhest.· )1roo f.o;; tluoll~llOlIt
the discuurse, according to a (crt;1in orJcr ((Iisl,witifl ) ; f. '....eXIS,
vcrhal (ormublion (at the level of Ihc sentence ) of IIll' argumen ls
(cloc urio); d. 11 'YlmK:Tis i.~. staging of the tlltal disn l1lr~c hy "II o ra tor
whu mlls t hecume a performe r (actiu). Tlw~c {ou r o pl' rallOIlS arc
cxamineJ threc timcs (at leas t with regard 10 duo.' iUVt'wio) : rrom
the po int or vie w or the e mill e r or the l11e~saJ.!c, rrolH tilt, point o{
view of it s receiver, from the point o( view (lr tile IT1t'ssage itselr
(cr . . III/,ra. A.4.l.) . In "cco,,1 wilh Ihe no lio n o( Ird,,," (whic h is
(
:1 powcrL the Aristotelian st.lrting poilU f(lrcJ.!nHlI1d~ the ." f r uclur~
~UiOll o r discolI~sc (act i ve operation) :lI~d rc~ ~'ga t cs .tt ~ ti le h ; '.( kJ.!r~ IIUld. Its structu re (discourse as product). Z. '~or CICero, If IS Joc.: tr lfll I dlC('Iull which comes first. i. e. , no lo nger a ~pcc liiali ve tceJme, hilt a hndy
or knowled ge t;tllght ror practical ends; the doclri ,UI dire,uli, (rolH a
taxonomic point o( view, e ngcnJers: £1. an e ne rgy, a ro rCt , tJ i~
oTtltoris, on which depenJ the opera t ions call ed for hy Ari sto dc;
b. a proc.Juct, or one might say, a form, the OTtllio, to wh ich ;lrc
nltac hcJ the extended paris o( which it is COlllpo seti ; c. a slIhjt:n
or, one might say, :l cnntent (;1 type ur contl'nt) , tilt.' ( II/d .. ~ tio, on
(
whic h the gcnres of di~c(l\lrse Jepenti. Thus appl'ars ;1 certain ;JlI ~
tonoUlY or the work in rch1tillll to the lal)( lr wll icll ha!'oi prnduCl"l1
it. ) . A sYl1l hcsizer and pedagoglle, Q uintil i:m 4.: tl lllhirll's Arislolle
:llld C iceru; his starl ing po int is (l' rf ilin ly I cdllu.~ . h~1I if i!'oi it prac tical
:lnll pcd:lJ,.!t)gica lrcdlf"?, Ill )t speCi llafi v ... ·; it " Iiglls: (j . ,Il l' (lpl' ralhIlIS
,
J
49
(,/e <lT1e)- which arc Ihose o( Aristotle and C icero; h. Ihe npcmlor
(de "rlificc) ; c. Ihe work ilsel( (de o/lere) (Ihesc !"51 Iwo Ihernes arc Jisc lIs.<ijed hut not suhdivided) .
/J.0.3. The stake of the cI .... if;c.1/;on: tIle place of the plan
We call sittlate precisely the s take of these Iflxonomic variations
(even i( the y see rn minim"I): il is Ihe place o( place . o( di,/,,,,ilio.
of Ihe order of Ihe parIS o( Ihe discourse; 10 wh"1 is this disl,,,,i!io
10 he co nnected ! Two choices arc possihlc : e ither we regard the
IIplan" as an lIo rde ring" (and not just as an order), (1s ;:t c reative
Ol ct or the distrihutio n of the materia ls , in a word a la huf, a strtlC ~
tur:Hion, :lnd then we con nect it to the preparation or Jis~()lI rse; or else we take the plan a~ a proJuc t, as a fixed structure. ;lnd W('
then conncc l it to the work. tu ()TlIliu; either it is a l.lisp.,~ c hing or
materials. ;1 distrihution, or elsc it is a grid, a stereot yped rorm. In
short, is order ;Ictive and creativc, or passive ;Hld created ! Eac h
option has h ;ld its represent:ttives, who h ave t:.!cen it to its limit :
SOlnC connect c.ii5Ix)silio to />whmio (discOVl·ry or proof'\ ); o thers con ~
neet it ttl eiocwio: it is a si mple verhal furm. We '< now the hrc;1lhh
this prohlell1 assumed on the thresho ld .l Ilh.J ' rn times: in the
sixteent h cc nillry, Ramus, violently anti ~ Aristotclhlll (rednu! is a
sophistication contrary to nature ), radicall y separates cli .~ 1 1o.~ilio rrom
i"tlcutio: order is independent or the discovery or arglllTlent s: [ir . .-. I
Ihe sea rc h for arguments, then their grou ping. c .. lln l HU.'tllOc.I . In the
sevenleenth cent ury, the decisive hlows aga inst a decadent rheto ric
\
1 wc~e struck ~reC i scly against the ~ e ifi cation of the plan of Ji~IJ()~ i tio,
as If h;ltl IIltllnately heen conceived hy a rhetoric or the produ('i
(and not of produc tion) : Descartes di scovers the coinc idel1ce or
in vt' llt ion ;1nd or t~rder, no longer wi th the rhetors hllt widl the
mat he matic ians; ,lOd ror Pasca l, o rder has :l c reative va illc , it SU Oi t.TS
til (ound till' new (it COlnnot he a readY#lT1 adt· grid , e xtn nal and
prior) : "Let it not he sa id that I ha ve said mu hing new: the :lr#
rilllgeflH'llt (('i ~ ' I( J~ ir ion) (Ir the materia ls is new ." T he relilthm hl'~
(wet'Tl th e order of im lt.'wion (Ji,~ ' )flsilio) and Ihe on ler uf prl'~l' nt :l t ion
(urdu ), ;",..1 Il tl tahly thc gap in the oric nt a tion (contradiction, in -
50 ELEMENTS
version) of the two parallel orJers. always has a theoretical bearing: it is a whole conception of lituaturc which is at stake each time,
as is evidcnccJ by Poe's exemplary analysis of his own pocm "The Raven" : startin~ . in order to writ e the work. (rom the Idst Llling
aPI)lIrenrly received by the reader (received as "ornament" ). i.e . . the melanc holy effect of the word nevennure (elo). Ihen Iracing back from this to the invention of the story and of th~ met rica l (urm.
8.0.4 The rltelorical R1a€t.ine
If. forgetting this stake or " t least resolulely opling for the Ar· istotelian starting point, we manage to slIpcrimrosc the s llh~
classifica tions of Classica l Rhecoric . we get a canoni ca l diSirilllllion
of the Jifferent parts of the Lechno. a nelwork . a Iree . or ralher a great liana dcsccnJing (rom stflgC to stage , 5C.lIHClimcs splitting a
generic clement, sometimes olliccting sc;tttcrcd pari s. This nctwl)rk.
is a m()nla~. O ne thinks of DiJerot and his machine (()r making
slocking;-" h can be seen as a single and unittllc reasoning whose conclusion is the fabrication of the ohject ... " In Oideml's Ill'"
chine, textile m"terial is fcJ in at the bcginning. and at the end, it is stockings which emerge. In the rhetorica l machine. what one
puts in at the beginning, b:ucly emerging (rolll a native aphasia,
arc the raw materials of reasoning. fac ts. a "suhjec t"; what (omes
lout at the end is a complete. st ruc turl,d di .scDur.sc , (ully ;,rmcd for
1 persuasion.
8.0.5. Tile five parIS of I/.c Icc/mc rilclorikc Our point of departure will therefore he consliluled hy the dif·
ferent mother·operations of [cchllo (it will be understood fmm Ihe
preceding that we shan connect the order of Ihe paris. Ihe disl").<iri,,, lu Ihe Lech.,,; and not to (mlli,,: this is what Arislotle did) . In ils
greatest extension, the reclIne r/u:wrikc include.s flvc princi pal "/)~
cralion.s; we must insist on tile active, transirivl', In·ol..'l'WfIlJl(H ic. (1) #
crarimwl natufe of these divisions: it is not a questioll of the c!e tT1l'nt s
o( a structufc, hut of the act ions o( a t.!radual strtlcttlrali(lfl, as is
clearly shown hy the verhal (orm (verhs) (If Ihese definilions:
, . . '
The Old Rheloric: an aitk·mimoire 51
I. INVEN1·'0
Emesis inwniT~ quid dicru finding what to say
2. m~POSITIO
Taxis inwnta dispontTt orduing what is found J. tlOCUTIO
Lexis Qrnllrl': tJfTbu addinR the om~mcnt of words,
of figures
4. ACTIO
H ypocri sis agere et fn'onunrian~ IXrfonning the discQUT!'C like
an actor: gestures and dictio n
5. M EM O RIA
Mneme rnemoriac m;mdar~ committing to memory
The first three operations are the most important (InvenLio. Dis/)O,i rio. Elocurio); each supports a broad and subtle network of no· tinns. and all three have fed rhetoric beyond Antiquity (above all Elocurio). The last two (Acrio and Memoria) were rapidly sacri ficed. as soon as rhetoric no longer conc~med the spoken (declaimed) discourses of lawyers or statesmen, or of "lecturers" (epideictic genre),
but also. and Ihen almost exclusively. (written) "works." No doubt. though. that these two parts are of great interest: the first (Acrio) because it refers to 2_~r~maturgy of speech (i.e .• to a hysteria and to a ritual); Ihe second because it postulates a level of stereotypes. a fixed intertextuality. transmitted mechanically. But. since these two last operations are absent from the WI. k (as opposed to orlllio). and since. even among the Ancients. they have given rise to no cla,sification (but only to brief commentaries). we shall eliminale Ihem here from the rhetorical machine. Our tree will therefore include on ly three branches: I. Inventio; 2. Di'(xJ,irio; 3. Elocurio. Yet we may note that between the concept of Lechne and these Ihree starting points there is interposed one more level: that of the "suhstantial" malerials of disco.ulse: Res and Verba .. I do not think Ihis is to be translai~d ;"erely as Things and Words. Res. Quintilian says, are quae signi!icantuT, and Verba: qlwe significant; in short, on
the level of the discourse. the signifieds and the signifiers. Res is
52 ELEMENTS
what is already promised tn meaning, constituted frolll the outset
as the raw material of significltion; Verhum is the (orm which already
seeks out meaning to (ulfill it. It is the p"radiglll resltlCr"" wh ic h counts, the relation of complementarity, the cxchallJ..!c. nol the
definition o( each term. -Since /)is(xlSitili bears at once on the
materials (res) and on the discursive forms (verh,,), tilt' first starling point of Ollr tree . the first wo rking-drawing of our machine, will
look like this:
B.1. Inventio
8.1.1. Dbtcovcry and not invention hltJcn.io refers less to (In invention (of arglllllcnt~) Ih;1I1 to a
discuvery: everything already exists, one mll:;1 Itlcrl'ly recognize it :
this is more an "extractive" notion than a "creative" one . T his is
corroborated by the designati"n o( a "place" (the Topic), (rom
which the arguments ca n he extmcted and (rolll which they Illust be brought: irlllcntiu is a progress (via (ITRuHlCnlonun) . T h is not ion of inveruio implies two sentiments: on une hand, a complete con~
fidcnce in the power or a me lhod, o( a (lath : ir the net of argumentative forms is cast over the raw material with a good tec hnique,
one is certain tu draw up the content of an exce llent discolJrSC i on
the other, the conviction that the spOnf<ln<!OllS, the unmethodical
brings nothing in return: to t he power of fin,,1 speec h correspo nds
a nothingncss of origina l speech; man cannot speak without having
given binh to his sflCech , and (or this delivery therl· is a special
ledme, invenlio.
B.I.2. To convince/to nrovc
/ Two wide paths start from imlcnl;o, one logica l, the other rsy ~
/ chologkal: W cOJlvifice and (0 move. To ( O)1vill((' (fidrJf1 fuccre) dc ~
"
} "
, 1.
.'
The Old Rheroric: an aide ~ mem(Jire 53
man"s a logical or pseudo-logical apparatus which is called, by and la,ge . I'ro/uni" (domain o("Pl(lo['·): by reasoning, we must do actual vioicilce to the rninJ of the hearer,-wh~~~e -character and whose
psyc hologica l dispositions do not the n conrern us: the p"xls have the ir own power . To move (animos intpellere) consists, on the con~ trary. in thinking the prnhative message not in itself bllt according Yc.l its Jest inati<m, the mood o f its 3mlicncc, in m()hilizing suhjec tivC',
ethica l "IlX'(S. We shall first proceed down the long palh o( ("."hat;" (to convince ). and then return to the second term o( the initial dichotolllY (to IIIlIve).
8.1.3. Pr()(}f.. within-techn" and proofs ollt.<ide-technc Pis/cis. the ""x,(,! We sh,,11 keep the word out o( hahit . but (or
tiS it has a scie ntific connotation whose very ~lbsencc Jcfincs the
rhctorical,Jis(cis . It woulJ be he tter to say : convincing re .. sons, ways
of persuasion, means of c redit, mrJiators of confidence (fidrs). The hinary division of ,Jisteis is famous: there are the rC;lsons wh ic h arc
o lltside (('chne (f,is fej.~ alechnoi) and the reasons which hclong to
redlne (/,i.li reis enlcchnni), in Lat in: proiJariones inarli[iciales I (lrrifici("c.~; in French (B. Lamy): eX frinsequeslintrinseques. This opposition is
not di(ficult to understand i( we recall what a tedul<! is: " speculative - ---.- - - ._---- . -- ",
i.n:li titlltion of tile means of producing what may o r may not ex ist,
i. f . , which is ncithc~ scicntific(~~~cs~~ ry) n O T' natural. Pf(~ls ( 'HIt ~ side-tech",; are therefore those which escape tn the rreedo lll o( ereruing the conlingcnt.ohject.; .. chey arc tn he found o;,tsije the~;r;tnr (the operalo r of the lechne); they arc reasons inherent in the nattlre
o( the object. Pnx)(s within-techn' depend. on the contrary. on the orator's reasoning power.
1J. 1.4. Proofs our.ide-techne
Whal can the orator do with (ln~'(s outside-tec/",e! li e cannot nmdut'f them (induce nor deduce ); he can only, hecause the y arc
"ine rt " ill thern~dv('s , ;1rmngc thein, show the m to advanta,!c hy
a rncthodic d disposition. What arc they? They are fragm e nt s of
'oJ' reality wh ich pa ~1:j direc tly into thc di.'i/msirio , hy a simple s/lotliinK
54 ELEMENTS
and not hy transformation; or again: they are ciements of the "dos
sier" which one cannot invent (Jeduce) anJ which are furnisheJ
by the case itself, by the client (for the muonent we arc in the purely judicial realm). These pistei, alechlllli arc cla<sificd in the
following way: I. fJraejudicia, the earlier decrees, jurisp",dence
(the problem is to destroy them without attacking them Jirectiy);
2. rumores, public testimony. the CUll'icns US of an entire ci ty;
3. confessions obtained under torture (tunllelllll, '/II(IC,il<l) : no ethical
sentiment. but a social sentiment with regard to torture : Antiquity
recognized the right to torture slaves, but not free men ; 4. evidence
(wlmlae) : coni racts, agreements, transact ions het ween iudi v iduals,
even forced relations (theft, murJer, armed rubbery , assault);
5. oath (jusjurandum): this is the element of a tactic and of a
language: one G ill agree ur rcfuse to swear, nne accepts o r rejects
another's oath. ctc.; 6. testi mony (lfsrimonill): this is cs.",cnlially. at
least fo r Aristotle. noble testimony, ei ther from the ;;ncicnt poets
(Solon citing Homer to support the claims of Alhens against Sal
amis) . or proverbs, or famous contempuraries; hcnce they ;lrc more
like "citations. II
B.I.5. McaninK of tile atc:chnoi The uextrinsic" proofs are acceptahlc to the judicial (rurnores and
tesrimclllia can serve for the del ibe rative and the epideictic); hut we
can imagine .hal they serve in private life to judge an action, to
discern when tn praise, etc. This is what Lamy has done . lienee
these extrinsic proofs can sustain fi c tional represcntations (nuvel,
play); yet we must rea lize thaI they are not ilUlices , which belong
to reasoning; they arc simply tIle elements of a dossier which comes
fmm t h e outside world, from ''" already inst illl!io"aliled reality ; in
lite rature such proofs would serve to compose dlJ,'i .. ~icr~n"vels (there
arc such), which woulJ abanJon any attempt at cOllsistent writ ing.
:lny organizeJ represenlarion, and would prc:;ent only fmgments of
rea lity already constituted as language by socit' ty . This is the real
vme~lning of the c.llcdmoi: OJHslilUtcd t.:!ellu,'nt s of the sociallallgu:lgc,
"
The O ld Rhewtic: an aidc-mbnuire 55
which pass directly into the discourse, without bein~ tnllufomted '"
by allY technical operation on the part of th, orator, of the author.
B.l.6 Proofs witl,in-teehne
Set in opposition to these fragments of the socia ll:lnguage given
directly, in a raw state (except for the advantage o( ;","ngement),
,ue the Tl'( I.'im li,,#!~ which depenu entirely nn the powcr o( the or~tor (/, i~ fcis L' llfl'dlflOi). ErllcchllUS really mcans here: dcriving from CI
Imleficc Df Ihc orator, f<!!. thc material is fTtlns[cmnea into persuasive
(~)rce hy a lu~ical operation. This operation, strictly sr eaking, is ~ lhulhle (me: illlhic t i(m anJ JeJuct i<'Il . The I,isfeis ('u(ech,u,i are there ~ (ore divided into two types: I. the exclIl/,11I1Il (inductio n); Z. the
Ctlflt)tnCme (deduc tiu n) ; these are o hviutls ly a non -scie ntific induc
tion and deduction, simply "puhlic" (for the puhlic). These two
paths art.' ohligatory: all OT<1tllrs. in order to produce pnslIClsion.
demonstrate hy examples or by cnt hymc l1lcs; ,herc arc no other
means (Aristotle) . Ve t a kind of quasi-est hetic dilTerence, a dif
feren ce "f style, h"s heen int"xluccd betwern the example amI the
cnthymclIle: the eXl'rnlMUm pnx.iuces a gentlel IlCTSUasillll . more highly
pri zt.'d hy (01111110n people; it is a lun,inous (or, 'c that charms throuJ.:h
the pleasu re inheTcnt in any comparison; thc enthymcl1le, more
,,(,\Ver(III, more vigorous. produces a violent, di stllrbin~ force. it
enjoys lilt.' l'ncrgy of the sy llogism; it performs a veritahle seizure,
it is proof in all the force of its purity. o( its esscnce.
D.I. 7. Exemplum
EXl'ttl l,luHI (/)(!TdJciJ"FJllll) is rhetor ica l inducfion: we proccl'J from :
one partic ular 10 another hy the implicit link of thc gencral: from ,:
an nh;l'r t we infer the class. then (rom this cbs.liO. :l new ohjcCt. lh
The rxcml,lwn can have any dimension. it em he it woru, a fact.
a group (If bct~ . :1nd the account of these (ac ls, It is a persuasivc
'o. 1\11 •· • • lII tl' l.· .. 1 "\1·"",111111 Clv("n hv {.)lIinllllOl" : "Some Illlll' ."I .• \·.·" wit., h.td Id, H"'II("
"" \ ' It ' It·, ,.11", 1 loy : • .I". 11'1' .. f IltI' s.,' n:'h· ; "".,It :.11 ,Iw tttOll' 'l' :I"" 11 ""1:1" Wl" In,tll l!H':tI
• II ",'" , wi." h .•• 1 , /"""1111'11 ",·.,11 ,11 II", Rq ... hl" :",d wit" ... h: .. I'''llt'~ hat! /"Hl'.! i'lln ,"'C ,lf " ;
d •• , 1:1'111'1 .• 1 !tllk "llh~' m.tmliv,' d' , lIn ~ rill' ,I:" ,. "/,, .. 1'11.1''''''1'1.,. dU III'\1 :.w:ty :llld In :.II.,d,
56 ELEMENTS
similitude, an ~1rgumcnt hy analogy: one finds good cxrmllkl if one
has the gift of seeing ana lugies-.md also. of course, cOIl'rarics;11
as its Greek name indicates, it is in the realm of the paradigmilti c .
of Ihe melaphorical. Since Ariswtie, Ihe eX'III/,/",,, has heen sl1h.
divided into real and ficlive; Ihe fictive sulxlivided into I"'ft,hk and
fable; the real covers historical, hut also mythological examples, in
opposition not to the imaginary hut to what nile invent s oneself;
the I](""ble is " short compari son," the fid,le (II/~"") a ~roup of
actions. This indic<ltcs the narr~ltivc nature of the cxcmlllutJI, which
will Oourish .
8.1.8. T"e exemplary figure: ima~o At the hcginning of the hr:;t century n.c_ . a new ()fill (If (.·xern/,luHl
arpears: the exemplary character (cikf;I1, imtl,l.!o) dl'signatcs the in ~
carnation of a virtlle in a figure : C ar" ilia tJirfUlurII ,Iit/(I iJl1(1I!,(I (C ic
em). An imag,,· repertoire is estahlisheJ fur usc hy the ,hetorical
schools (Valerius Maximus. undcr Tihcrius: Fct("(orllnt (Ie dicrflTwll
mrrnm'abiliunI libn novem). (ollowed l:tlcr hy a versified version . This
collection of fi~ures enjoys vnSl populari ty in the Middle Ages; a
learned poetry pro(Xlses the dehnilivc canon of Illcse characters. a
veritable O lympus of archetypes whom God has placed in the ("(.urse
of hislory~ the iUUI,f!" virrwis sometimes apprehends quile scctmda ry
ch"acrers, who will enjoy a great celehrity , sllch as Amyclas, the
hoatman who c"ried "C nesar nnJ his fortune" from Epirus to Brin ·
disi Juring a storm ( = poverty anJ sobriety); there are III :IIIY such
in Dante. The very fac t that a repertoire of cxcll1/'~' wuld he con ·
stituted emphasizes what might be called the sIrtlc flIral vocatiun o(
the exern/,I"",: it is a detachnble fragment, whidl specifically in ·
vulves a meaning (heroic portrClit, hagiographic 11.lrrativc); it is easy
to understand that it can he traced in writing. hoth discontinuous
and allegorical, down to the popular press of our own day: C hllrchill,
1/ Eu,",,'um a CH"Irllfirt: "Tlu K(" " inU It's ;UlJ ~ 1 !l 1u('.s wlmh t-,I ,Hu· IIIIS H'\ '"lr J III h., tn('l11' ('~' V(' "e~ look ("'0\ hi~ :111.(·(. " ( : in 'm)
I ~ EK ;unple o( :1 p:u:,hll' ('"111 :1 .' 1"""\ h , ,I So. O(' rall'~ : UI,I,~ I ' '' : lIcS 11111 \ 1 II '" 1'0(' ( In "l' l1 hv I"" any Illille 11.:111 ;1I"le lt·~ :md I'il"u.
The O ld Rhcmric: an aide~memoirt 57
John XXIII arc each an imag(), examples intended to persuoJe us
that we must he courageous, that we must be good.
8. I. 9. Ar~umenta
Parallel to the exeml)I"III , a mode Ihat is pe/Suasive hy induc tion,
there is the group of modes of deduction, tlwargurnenra . The am
biguity of the word argumenlUm is significant here. The usual sense
in ancient times is: ohjecl of a stage fahle (the argumenr of a comedy
by PI""t"'), or again: articulated action (as opposed to IIIwl", .. , a
group of actions). For Cicero, this is hoth a "fictive thing which
lIIight have happeneJ" (the plausible) and "a probahle idea uscd
to convince," whose logica l hearing Quinti lian clarifies: "manner
of proving one thing hy another, of confirming what is dubious by
what is not ," Thus appears an imlXlTtant duplicity: th;!t ,,( ;1 "re:l~ soning" {"any (orm uf public rC:lsuning" says one rhetnr) which is
impure. easily dram:lliz'lble. which particip~tcs both in the intel
lec tual and in the fic tional, in the bgical and in the narrative (do
we not find this same ambiguity in many modern "cssays"!) . The
apraratus of the arRumCllIa which begins herc and which will nOI
end until the end of the probatin starts with a powerful device, a
tahcrnflclc u( Jecilic tive proof, the enthymeme. which is sometimes
ca lled CflJllHlcuturJI, cmnmentlltio, a literal translation of the Greek
c'lI /l1wl(' IIItI (any reflection nne h"1s in the mind), hut most often .
hy a significanf synecdoche: lIr,f!wnenru.m.
8.1.10 The elll"ymeme Ti,e entl,ymeme has received two successive significations (which
are not contradictory). 1, For Aristotelians, it is a syllogi~m hased
Oil proh;lhility or signs, and not un rhe true flnti Ihe immediate (:lS
is the c;,se (or the scientific syllogism)~ the enlhymcmc is a riJewrical ,y ll"~i' III. dcvelnped solely "" the level I1f (he I",hlic (as we s"y: tn put ollr:-;dvcs on someone's level), slarting frum the 11TOf,Clh'c, i,c. , s filrt ~ in}! (rom what the puhlic thinks ; it is a deduc tion whose v"luc i~ concrCIC, plls itcd in view of a IlTt:scrucuion (a sort o( accepfahle
spcc lac lc:). as opposed (ll an ahstrac t deduction made uniqllely for
58 ElEMENTS
analysis; it is a rublic reasonin~, easily emrloycd hy ignorant men.
By virtue of this origin, the cnthymcf11c :'IfTorJ~ persuasion. not
demonstrafionj for Aristotle. tllc cnthyrnclTlc is slI(ficicndy defined
hy the I,mba"'c character of ils rremises (the probahle admits of
cuntraries); whence the necessity of defining and classifying the
premises of the enthYllleme (d. inl"" B. I.I3,14 , 1 S,16). Z. Afler
Quintilian, and triumphing en lirely in Ihe Middle Ages (since
Boethius), a new definition prevails: the enlhymeme is defined not
by the cont ent of its premises, hut by the elliplical charac ler (If its
articulation: it is an incomplete sy lloj.!isl1l. an ahhrevia ted sy llogism:
it has "neither as many parts nor as distinct parts as the phihlstlpl.ical
sy llogism": One of the two pr(:miscs Of the conclusion can he S llr ~
pressed: hence it is a syl logism truncated hy the suppression (in
utterance ) of a propositiun WllOSC reality seems inClmtcst .. hlc and
which is, for this reason, simply "kept in Illiml" (en 1/'""'") . If we
apply this definition to that n,aSler syllogism of our cuhure (wilh
its odd insislcncc on our mortalily)- and though its premise is nol
simply probable, which keeps it from being an enthymellle in the
first sense- we arrive at Ihe following cnl h yrncmcs: mcHI is morral,
lienee SOCTLItes is morflll ; S()Cwres is nwrwllxctlu.se mer! (Ire; SO<:T£I [l'S
is a nI(ln, /'COICC mortal, etc. We may prefer III tlois fllnereal m(Klci
the more cu rrent o ne proposeu by Port-Royal: "Any h .. ly reflecling
light (rom all sides is uneven; the Il1 lKHl n·neet s light from all sides;
hence the moon is an uneven lxKly," ilnd all the cnthymcmalic
forms which can be derived from it (Ihe 1I100n is uncvt.' n hecause
it reOects light from all sides, etc.). This second definililln of the
enthymeme is in fact chiefly that of the L"Ric of Port -Royal, and
we see clearly why (or how) : man in the cl:05,,iG,1 peri(KI helieves
that the syllogism is entirely made wilhin d,e mind ("the nllmhcr
of three propositions is quite propoTiinnal widl the extent of our
, mind"); if thc enthYl11cme is an imperfect sy llogism. this can (ln ly I he on tlor level 01 lan~llIge (wl'ich is not d,e leve l IIf the "mind") :
\
it is a perfec t sy llogism in the mind. hilt imperfl'c t in expression;
in short, it is all accident of language, a deviatilln o
59
B,I,II, Metamorphoses of the enthymemc
Here arc sollie varieties of rhetorical sylloRisms: J. the /,."sylloginn, a chain of sy llogisms in which the conclusion of one hecnmes
the premise of the next; Z. the surites (SOTCJ.5, a heap). an aecu~ Illulation of premises or a sequence of truncated syllugisms; 3. the
el,ie/orire",a (often discussed in Anti4uity), or developed syllogism,
each prcmise heilll! accompanied by ils proof; the epicheirel11(1.tic
structure can he extended to an ent ire discourse in five parts: prop~ osition, reasoll for the major premise. assumption or minor premise.
proof of the minor, complexion or conclusion: A 0 • 0 heca use 0 0 0
Now, B . .. hecause ... Therefore C; " 4 . the al,/xlTcnt enlh:,!",erne, or reasoning hased on a trick or play on words; 50 the maxim (glHlme.
serucrtria) : a very elliptical. monoJic form. it is a fragment of an
cnlhymcl11e whose remainder is virtu~ll: "Never overeducate your
children (for they reap the envy of their fellow c itizens). " .0 A
signi ficanl devcloplncnt. the senrcnria shifts frurn invenrio (of rea
soning, of synl;lgmatic rhetoric) lu elocurilJ, to style (figures o(
amplifica tion or diminution) ; in the Middle Age<, it nourishes,
contrihuting to a thesaurus of cit;:Hions on a ll suhjects of wisdom:
sentences. gnomic verses learned by hcart, r ollecled :md classifieJ in '1lphahet ica l ordero
/J,I.I2. I'lm.mre .• of the cntt.ymeme
S ince tI,e rhelorica l sy llogism is made for tI,e pllhlic (a"d not
under the ;:llIspiccs of science), psychological considerations arc
, .. An ("lIlto'MInIl"rHo1lt ll (""':': Cke-ro'~ ,1", Mil""r: I. if i~ rc:,"lI\~ihl(" 10 Itlll II ..... f" willi
\t° l ""ol'!t,,IIt""'1I1 m. l o r"''''(~ \lI .. ""," (,"m n :ll ul:l1 bw ;uli.l,h(" l ij! lu lI( rClll'l("~ , flllll1 f'lf"ru,"'I ;
~ o no w. ( :I''1 li ll~ ";:I~ M." I :tmhu'l.llt~ fur Mllun; 04 . proo(s ti,:,,,,,," (wIn (:.<:15; So h ("ll((" " is l'I("IIlII ~~ ,"llo (" 1 Mllon ,,, ~III Ctr..liIKo
"~, Iluo III:Utlln 1.c.""; lIIro \(" I1If'"I" •• i .. a f" 'lnulol ("lI r'(" ..... in~ ~rn(" failly , l'!tll nnly:t ,-'<"nna lily
wllO~ "h,n ' 1.\ ;K III '1,,'1. (111:11 c<'" 1"0(" £lu~11 '" :lvl,idcd); (I" A,i"" 'IIt". Ihr h;r ~ i .. Itf ,II(" I{t"imi
1.\ :II ""':IY" lilt" ,0,1",1 . :1\ c"hl,nj! II, hi~ drfi nili,.n ,.( 111(" ("nIIlYIIl("mc hy Ihe ,", "11'111 I" II .. I'ltO"II.\(",";
1"'1 , I, ., .lltO t 1." "ll o,'llwI, ' IICI:III.\ wlwi tldine- ,t.(" r.nlhyn'c m(" hy i l ~ " 111,nC:II IIIII," 11,(" ''''''1111
i, 10",0", j" ll v :I "t ' ' 111 , : , ~ I in" " : .. il :.1.0;(1 I' ;lrl"t""~ I >ec, .. i, 1II:Il1y 11,;11 IWI' r't 'I'II,~i l it III .. :111: elll Ie , .. ,0,1 in ;0 \ tIIl!I,O 1 "" I ~,,"i,," : rile ("lIIhyrm: mar ic .srllr("1l11f1 (("x :1I1I1'11:: " MIIII :'!. tI\I nn! 1.:111'11 " :m tl llln" " oll 1""" o, r O)o
60 ELEMENT S
pertinent, and Arislotic insists upon thclIl . The cnthyrncmc l.li1s
the plCflSlITCS of a progress , of :-1 journey: (lne se fs out (rulll a 1"01111
which has no need to he proved and (rom thefl' olle proceeds toward
another point which docs need to he proved; Olll' has the "J.!rccahlc
feeling (even if under duress) of discove ring something new hy a
kiml of natural contagion. of capillarity whi ch e'trm!' the known (the opinahle) towarJ the unlmown. However, 10 produce all it s
pleasure. this progress mllst he superviseJ: the n.:asoning IIIl1st nut
he carried too far, and nne ffil lst not P:lSS through all the stages in
order to reach a conclusion: that would he tircsollu .. ' (the cpicitci
rema must he lIsed only on grand occasions); fllr one must cuntcnd
with thc ignorance of the listeners (ignorance i ~ rf\:( i ~cly that
incapacity to infer by many Mep~ and to follnw a n:;lsoning at
length); or rather: stich ignor;tnce must he l'xpll1itcd hy ~:iving the
listener the feeling tltat he has hrought it to an md himself, hy his
own mental power: the enthymemc is not a syllogism trtlncated hy dc(ec t or corruption, but hcGltIsc thc listener Illtlst he grillllcd the
pleasure of cOlltrihuting to the construc tion of the argulllent; it .is
something like the pleasure o f comple tillg a giv('n pattern or grid
(c ryptograms. crossword puzzles). Port-Royal, though always re
garding language a~ Jefec liv(' in relation tn t"~ mind- and the
/ enthymcl1lc is a syllogism of language- recognizes this pleasure of
\. incolnpletc reasoning: "S uch suppression lo~ a p:lrt (~f the sy llogi ~ml nallers thc vanity of those to whom one IS spcaklllg, hy leavll1g
something to their intelligence; and hy shortening the discourse,
it makes it stronger and livclier";ll yet we sec the ethical change
(in rela'hm ttl Aristotle) : the pleasure (l the ellthynlcme is assigned
less to .. crentive autonomy ( Ill the part o( the listtncr tilan to an
excellence o( conci.<iion, trilllnphantiy given as the siJ.,(1l o( a .<i url,lus
of thought ovcr bngu:lge (tllOtlght trillI1lphs hy Icngt h OVl'r 1;111 -
guagc) : "onc of the chicI' hemtics o( a disl.:lHlrse is to he (till o(
/I Au C'l(;lIllI' I,. or f(' lit..iIPII ~ I'un frac t ,o n : ;l Vl' f\ I' fr"l11 l }v id' \ M,·.!,·/I " whu II \ "" .. "n ~:1
t t ". "', ••••• , /,,,rw /Wfll"rl' 1111 /1f1l\1I/, ,,,,'/U' I ..... I~ : I"I ~· I" ' .IV(· \" ' '' . 11"'11 v"ry t' t'J!:1I1I ('II' 'vlllt'me .. • . ~ :m 1 n l" dt .. ~ ltnv YIIHI 0 It' wit" C llt sa ve c m dl·~lf"V. III'W. 11t :IYI' "1'1' 11 : IJ,I ~~ ,,, .' : I V ~· Y"". Itt'nc(' I cllu ltl tlt'SII IlY VIlli . )
61
Il1c;tninJ.,( and to give occasion to the mind to form a thought of KTClltCT
ex lent Ih<ln iu cxlm!ssiun . . . "
B.l.l), TIle enlhymematic premises
The place we start from in order to follow the pleasant path of
the cnlhymcme is its premises. This is a known place, and certain,
hut not with scientific certainty: with our humfln certninly . And
what is it we regarJ as certain! 1. what falls within the realm of
the senscs, what we sce and hear: the sure indices , tckmeria; Z. what
fall s within the realm of meaning. that on which men have generally
reached agreement, what is esta!,lisheJ hy laws. what has passed into usage (",he goJs exist," "honor thy raren,s," etc.): these arc
tlte pmh"hilities. eikflta, or. generically. the pmh"hle (eikosl; J. hetween thesc two types of humtln "certainty," Aristotle posits
a morc fluid category : the semeia, the signs (3 rhing whic h serves
to make allolher understooJ, IJcr ..;wx1 lilias res intdligilur) .
8.1.14. TIle tekmerion, the wre ina .. The tekmer;on is the sure index. the necessa ry sign, or cven Uthe
indestructihle sign," thc one whi ch is what it is and cannot he
otherwise . A woman Ilns given hirth: this is the slIre index (trk
merion) that she has had intercourse with a man , This premise is
closely re lalcd to ',he one which innllgllnltes the scie ntific syllogism.
,hough it is b:lscd only nn universa lity o( experience . As alw;)ys
when we exhullle this olJ logical (or rhetorica l) material, Iv> are
struck hy see in~ it func tion so renJily among ti,e works of so-ca lled
mass c ulturc-'-to the point where we may wonder i( Aristotle is not
the philosopher of that culture and consequently does not est"hlish
the criticism which Gill have sotne grasp of it; thcse work~. in fact,
mohilizc c urrent examples uf physical "cvidence" whic h mOlY serve
as point s (If departure (or implicit reasoning, for n ce rtain rational
pl'Tccpfion (If the unfolding of the anecdote, In Golt.lfill$!CT, ,here is
all l,ll'UroCUlioll hy water: this is ol known phcl1omenon, has no
llccd ttl he proved, it is a "natural" prc mise , II rckHl('riol1; clsewllcre
(ill til e sallle film) a Wtl111;)11 dies I.H.'C ItISC her hody h~ls heen J.!()ld ~
62 ELEMENTS
p\;lIed; here, wc have to know that hcing painted with gold keeps
the skin from hrca thill~ and therefore provokes flsph yx ia : this, )'t.' illg
rare, needs to hc estahlished (hy all explanation); IH'- fKe it is nut
a lekmerioll. or fit least it is " suspended" until an antcn:dcllt cert ainty
is es tahlish cd (asphyxia causes tlcath) . It (ollows that the ccklllrritl
do not have , historically, the fine stahility whic h Aristot Ie attrihu.es
to them : wklt i!'i public "ccrt "linty" depenJs on pllhlic "knowlnh.:c" and this varics with periods and societies; to reliliTI to Quilllili;I1l 's
example (and belie it), I am told th ;lt certain PUPUI :lIiolls mak e no
connection between giving hirth and the sexual rl·latiun (II\!: c hild
s lceps in Ihe mocher, God wakens i.) .
B. 1. 15. Eikus. the probable
The second tyre of (human, not scientific ) "certain l Y" which
call serve as a premise (or the cnthymc111c is Ihe proh;lhlc, ;t cr tlc ial
notion in Ari~totlc's eyc~. Thi s is a gennal notioll hasl'll on Ille
judgment which men have m"Jc hy imperfec t ex pnimcllt s ;md
induc tions (Perelman proposes c a II ing it I h e I"c[cmhlc) . III A ris
tolelian prohahility , there me two nuclei: I. the no tion of ~cncfCIl, ;'IS distinc t frolll the notion of I.mj\lcndl: tilt, IInivers;1 1 is ne(.{'sS<lry
(it is the attrihu te of science ), the general is nor ; it is a human
"generality," ultimately determined statist ically hy Ihe opinion (If the grca lcst number; 2. the possihility pf the conlr;1rY; of COllrs~
the cnthymcmc is received hy the Pllhlic as a slIre syllogism, il see llls
to start (rom an opinion helieved to he "as hard as roc k" : hut in
relation to science, the prohahle .. dmit s o( its contrary : within the
limit s of human experience anll of e th ical lifc, which an.' those of
cikos. the contrary is ncver impossible : (lile G1T1Tlot (orest'(.· with ; IIlY
(scientific ) certainty the reso lu tions of a (ree heing: "a man in gllod
hea lth will sec the sun tomorrow ," "a f"t1H..' r l(l vc~ Ili ~ ( hildn'n,"
"" theft cOlllmitt ed withollt breaking in rl1w;t II;l ve hn'n ;111 in~ idc joh," e tc. ~ very likely, hut the Ctlntr;uy is still pOSSlhll'; lilt, ana lyst.
the rhetoric ian pern: ivcs the force of t111~se opinions, hut in all
honesly he keeps them :11 a disf;lIl ce hy intrnducil1J.! them wit h an
The Old H.IIClfJTic: eln (Jitfe~ lIIemfJiTe 6)
esl" (>II I", ic), which de;1fs him in Ihe eyes of science, where the contrary is nevt.'r possihle ,
11.1.16. Semcion. ,lie .<ign
The .'icIIIl'ion, third p05~ ihle point of departure (ur the enthymemc,
is;1 l1lur(' ;1I11hi).!uous index, less cenain than the l ekmerirnl , Traces
o( hl()( )4.1 suggest a Ilnmler, hut Ihis is not a ce rrainty: stich hlood
can result frllln :1 nosehleed or a sac rifice. For the sign to he con~ villc ing, there must he o thcr concomitant signs; or :1).!ain : .-(Ir the
s igl1 (0 (('asc to he polysc mic (the semcion is in fa c t the polysemic
sign), a context must he H.'sorted to. Atabnta was not a virgin,
..s ince she wo uld Ttlll through the woods with hoys: for Qtlinli lbn,
tltis remains Itl ht' proved; the proposition is in fac t so unce rtain
that he re jec ls Ihe ~t'rn('iun outside the Orfltor's Icclme: the Cl rator
cannot apprd lt'nd the semcion in order to transform it, hy :111 en . thymcl11atic conclusion, into ;1 certainty .
0.1.1 7. I'r.",i"" of rile en//lymcmc
Inspfar as the c,." nthYl1lcme is tl "puhlic" rea"ioning, it was lic it hl
exte nd its pr;lCtice outside the judicia l, and ,t is possihlc (n meet
wich ic (llllsidc rhelmic (and olltside Anli4Ili'y) . Arislotle himself
:-; ttldicd I he /mlLlicaI sylioRi.wl, or enthymemc, wh ISC c(lnclusion is
a decision;11 :lCt; the major prcmise is occupied by a current ma xim
(cikos); in the minor rremise, the agent (myself, fo r instance) not es
th;lt lu.: find s hil11 sc l!~ in the situMion covered hy the major premise;
he concllldes hy a dec; ision of conduc t. 11,)w docs il happen, tht' l1,
that the cOllclllSiull so often contmdi ·ts the 1ll11jllr premise, and
that the ;1C tioll n'sists knowledge? It i ~ hecause , v" ry oftt' n, there
is a d.: vi:llinll (ruin the major to the minor prcmise: the minor
premise stlrrqllitiously implies another major prt'mise: "drinking
alcohol is ha r11lflll to man; now, I am a man; h (" llCC i 1111IS' nol
drillk" and ye l, dl'spile Ihis Ilne enlhYIllt.:rlle, I drink ; thi.'i is h('clIIse
I "secre tl y" rei n l"tI .mo ther major prem ise: the spilr~linJ.! and thl'
it:c·cp ld (jllt' llell Ill y thirst, qU4.." H: hing Illy thi rs t is a J.!ood thing (;1 major prl' lIIi se fallliliar ttl advertising :lIld I tl harroom CtlllVersa ~
64 ELEMENTS
tions). Anot her possihlc extension of the cnt h ym clI1c : into the ucolJ" and ra tio nal languages , ;11 once Jistant and puhlic, suc h ; IS
institutiona l hmguages (puhlic diplomac y, (tlr (' )(;1I11P 14.: ) : C hinese
st udents h aving staged a (lclllonsu ;Hion in (mnt of the Al1ll'rican
e l1lha"y in MosCllw (March 1965), Ihe J e lllonslral ion having heen
suppresseJ by the Russi;"!n pol ice, and the C ldnl'sc gU Vl ' rTll11l: nt
hflving protested aga inst this S\lppression, .. Soviet noll' ;lIlswt: rs the
C hinese pmlcsi by a sl'lemliJ cpichcircllla , worthy pf C ice ro (cf.
sulrra, B. I. II) : I . maj(l r prclnisc: eikos. general ~ I p inil lll : rll('rc l'xi.H
dilJlorna.ic norms, rfs lJCcled I>y (I ll cmHllrics; Z. proof of liH.: m ajor
pre mise: 'he C /linese r11f mselves resIICe' , in tlleiT UWJI ( tJWHry . 1/1('~c nonns of reCelJlion; J, minur premise: now, rIll' C /l i llf ,'it: SWdl' Jl lS, in
MosCOUJ, luwe tJiokuecl f/lese Jl onn.~; 4, proof of tlu,' m inor pre mise :
the nccount of the de mo nstration (in5uhs, sfn,'t.' f fi~/lI ifl~, ml(l olhn actions fl1cfltinned in rile nimi1utl (odd; 5, the conclusion is 110 1 IIt1ered
(it is <1n e nthYl1leme). hut it is cle.u: it is the IllHe it self ;IS a rl' jectioll
of the C hinese protest : the adversa ry h as 1lC..'t'1l slul\YIl ill (ontr i1 ~
Jic tion with thc eikfls :mJ wil h himself.
8.1.18. Place. lopos. locus T he classes of enthYl11cmat ic premises have h('c il ;ITt icula tl'd . hut
we must still fill these cI<1sscs, find premiscs: we ha ve Ille m ain
forms, hut how (0 invent th e contents ! This is the ;IJ.!un iz ing 4"l'S
lion always roseJ hy Rhetoric "nJ which it st'e ks t tl answer: \IIlulf
is to be said! Whence the importance of rhe answer, attcstt'd to hy
thc brcodth :mJ Ihc success of thai part of the /Ilvellri" which is
respon sible for supplying rc~soning with its cuntl'nts and which
hegins here: the TnlJics , Ind~ed the premises com he derived from
certain IILtces . Whal is 0 pla ce! It is, says Arist o tle, th :1I in wh ic h
a plurality uf ortttorica l rC:lsollings coinc ide, Places. S'lYS p(lrt ~ Royal. arc "ce rtain general hcads II I which can he altached a ll the I'rt K,fS
lIsed in the va rious mailers treated"; Of tlJ,!:lin (LllllY) : " gl'lInal
opini o ns which remind those who conSilII dl l' lll uf ;111 dH.~ sides hy
The O ld Rhcroric: an dide-," ~moirc 65
which a ' ''''jec i (;111 be considcrcJ ." Yel Ihe mctophoric app",oc h
to place is 1110re significant ,han its ahstmct defi!lition , Ma ny nH.~ t # aph"rs have heen "scJ In identify placc . First nf all, why IILrce! l3ec:lusc , says Aristotle, in ordc r to remember things, it sullices fo
recognize the place whcre they happen tn he (p,"ce is Ihcrcfore Ihc \
Clel1ll' Ilt o( :-In asso c iation of idc<1s, of a condit ioning, of a tr:lin in~, of a mnemo n ics ); places then arc not the arguments themselves hut
the comp;Irt me nts in which they arc <lrmngcd , Hence every im;tgc
conjuininJ.! the (lotion of a space with th <1' of storage, of it loc al ..
iza t ion wit h an l'x trac tion : a rcgioll (whe re one G ill find arguments),
a vein of some miueTlJ/ , a drde. a ~ ' J/u' re , a ,~ /",i'lR. :l wf ll , an ane'llI/ . :I fremll,), :Ind · evcn 0 IIiRCOII . /1I 1/e (W. D. Ross) ; "PI:lccs," S:lys
l1umarsais, "arc the ce lls where everyone COl n find, so to speak, the
suJ1stance of a discourse and argU:'len ts o n all sorts of suhjec ts. " A
seh;)I;!!;ti c logician, ex ploiting rhe domestic nature of place , C(lm ~ pares it to a i:lhd which indicaies the content of :l r(·c t.'llf acle
(/lyxiJwlI jtldir('~) : for C icero, the nrJ.:lImc nts . de. iving (rom places,
will prc"' ''t themselves for th c case to be orgueJ " lik e the Ic tters
for the word to he written"; hence pl:1Cl':' form that very special
sture house cOllstitllt ed by the alphahc t : a ccrrl'd,~ of forms withollt )
IIIcanil1 J.: ill themselves, hut determining mea ning hy sc:iec tiun,
arr;lIlgelllt.'llt, ac tualization, In rel ation to place, what is the TOI,ic.~r
h ;Ippcars that we ca n distinguish th ree Succcs.o;; ive definitions, or
:I( k';1SI ,hrl'c ori entations of the word , The Topics is--or has htx 'n:
I . a mc thl ~l ; Z. a griJ of emply form s; J. 0 storchouse of Ii lied furms,
1l.1.1 1J. TI,l' Topic..: a method <..)rig in ;dl y ( fu llowi ng Aristodc's TII/,ica, '1ntcrio r to his Rhetoric)'
rhe Tnpks W;IS a collection of cr mHllunplaccs of dialec lic. i.e. of
till' syl lngisl11 hased o n prohahil ity (int{' rmC't.iiary hl' lwec,,' 11 (Trlain
:l lld l' flll,ah l .. : kIHl\vll,dge), then Arisre ltl c Inakl's a 111('1111 )(.1 el ir,
ilion' prac tical I";m dialec tic , a 1nt't1H lll wh ic h "cnahll'S liS , nil ilny
slIhjl'ct prtlpnsc,,'d, to suppl y con4.:ills inns drawn {rorn prnhahle rl'a -
66 ELEMENT S
sons. n This meaning- of the Topics as a m el hoJ - was ahle to persist or at Icast 10 TCappe;]r at intervals throughout rhetor ic's
history: in lime the mcthoJ hccOlItH.., the flrI (an OTJ,.!;ll1i2l'd knuwll·dgc
wi til a v iew to instruct ion: discilJliHlI) ()( finding arJ.!lIllu: nts (Isidt lrc).
or further: a gro1lp ofllhricf anJ cClsy 111l';1nS (or finding the suhsl;mcc
of di~()ursillg even on suhjects wl lich arc cnlircly IlIlkIHIWI'" (Lam y)
we can understand philosophy's sllspicions wilh reg. lTd to such a
onc th"J .
B. 1.20. The Topic", • grid The second meaning is that o f a network of (tmus , (If a qtl;t s i ~
cybcnletic process to which we suhjec t tilt' 1I1;II t' fl tl l we want 10
transform into OJ persuasive di scourse . M;lttc rs Illust he rcpR'st.',u ed
thus: a subjccr (CJlwcsri(}) is given to the orator; in urder to find
argumc nts. the orator "passes" his suhjec t nvl'T a grid pf c mpty
forms: (rom thc contac t bctween thc suhjec t il nd eac h ctunpa rtm c.:nt
(cach "placc") of the grid (of thc Torics) arpl"a" a pll" i!.le idea ,
an cnthymcmatic premise . There existed in AnTiquit y a pedagt'J,! ic
ve rsion of this proceJure : the rhrcill or "useful " cxerc ise was it Test
of virtuosity given to students which consisTed in "p:lssing" a themc
through a series of places: {luis! quid! "hi! IJllihm (lIfxi / ii~! CUT! ""llm ~
oJo! cllwru.lo! Taking his inspiration from anciellt Tnpi cs. Lamy, in
the seventeenth century , proposes the followin g grid : J!l'nre , di(~
feren ce, definition, enume ration uf parts, e tYl11oluJ!Y, conjuJ,!illiolls
(this is the associative field u f the verhal rOtH). (t 'ITl(larisol1, re #
pugna n cc , cRects. causcs, e tc. Le t us suppose that we must prodllce
a discourse on literature; we "dry up" (with good reason), hilt
fortun3tcly we possess Lamy's Topics: we can d,l' n, at least , ask
o urselvcs questions and try to answer thcm: ttl what '.'genre" will
we :lttach lit e rature r ;lTt! discoursd c ult ur;ll product iun! If it is all
" ;l rt I" how does it differ fnHn the other art :-.! Ilow ma n y part s afe
we to ;lssign to it, and whicl, ones! What docs the l' IYl1IlIluJ.!y (If the word suggest ttl us! it s relalion to it s Illorphological rH.." i.L:hhors
(fircmT), lilem/, lcItCT.~, et c. ) ! With what docs literature s ll~ tain a
..
The O ld Rhelmic: an aide#memoirt 67
relation of re pugnance! Money! T r1lth! e rc. n The conjunction of
the grid "nJ the </11<,",51;0 resembles that of the themc "ml its preJ.
icates, the suhject and its attrihutes: the ""ttrihutive Torics' achieves
its "I"'gee in the tahlcs o( the Lullists (ars ilrev;.I) : the gcneral
attributes arc kinds of places. - W e sec thc range o( thc topical
grid : the metaphors which aim at place (rol>os ) slIggeM it 4 uite clearly : the arguments are It;,/'Ien, they lurk in rl"gions, ,kpths (rom
whi ch Ih ey lIIust he J",wn, wakeneJ, etc . : thc Topics is the midwife
of the LucHI : it is a form whic h art iculfttcs contents and therehy
product,s fragm e nt s of meaning, intelligiblc units .
B.I .2 1. TIle Topics: a .<lorcllOu.<e Til" l'l..ccs arc in princ iplc cmpty forms; hilt thesc (orms quickly
tended to he fil leJ, always in the samc way, to re411irc cert~l in conlent s, at first contingent. then repc.lt ed , re ificd . Thc Topics
hccaml' a 5torchollse o( ste reotypes, of con seCT:1ted themes. of full
"pieces" wh ic h arc almost ohligatoriiy e mployed in the treallncnt
of :lny suhject. Whence the historical amhiguity of the expres..o;; ion
Ctmlmurl/) /(-'Cc.~ (ro/>oi koinoi, loci cflJ rmumi) : I . thl'y arc empty forms
common til all arguments (the emrtier they are , the more COlnmon,
cf. infra B. 1. 21); 2. they arc stereotypes, hackneyed rropositions.
The Topic5, a (ull Morehouse: this mC:lning i ~ not Ari~totle '5 , hut
it is a lre"dy that of the Sophists who had (c it the necessi ty o (having
a t"hle (If fhings commonly spoke n of :lnJ \,n whic h one must not
he HCtlrn('feJ . " This rcifi CCl tion of the Topics has hel'n regularly
ex(endcd, lx-yond Aristotle, thro ugh the u Uin authors; it has
triumphed in neo· rhc toric and was "hsolulcly general in the Mid,l\e
Ages. C llrtius ha~ given a list of these o hlig<ttory t"erne~ , a C C(lm ~ r " n icd hy tlll'ir lixcd trcatmcnt. Hcre are somc o f these rei fl ed places
(in the Middle Ages): I. to/'"S of alTected moJcsty : evcry orator
II Ti ll·"'· 'UI'" :,1 c,,"~ :lI t ' " 'fUr;'!." ,I !t·y II;o \,<, nil I(" b""f! III ·' 1.((" , ,. " II 11th. " :11111 h :Wl.
,.d"lv I'C· I·" h.",.d,l'tl h, 'III 1II, ... lnn in.\lfl lt"illll . (' 1(" .; 1111 d, II.hl : yt· ' lilt" ·'.\ul-jcc,.\" (.,/ ,lu . lJl c~, .. I d'~'l· II . I" "II \ IIllIl ' 1 \ ldll .. lI .. w ri d, III ie' 1II, ,,,,·mt·lIl . F\lt' II ;'1 ' I "'''It', IlIlId("I " :II1.1 tI, :" '"l!" "I ,III' "\1 ,1 ,11" I ~· · " I !II'· 1.", h;t ("("; ,I ,IIm·:lIt· I·X;II " 10..;1\ " "nt·,hi"f.: I, h · ·' M"~ I "'c .\1111 H'~ I'\(' C I ti l(' ,·Idl·ll y'·· h":t MIII'I" ,- ,I' ll' rI. :1I1 1I1d' ~rcn~. lhl t· " 'rin .
66 ELEMENTS
must declare that he is crushed hy his subject, that he is incompetent, th~t it is ccn a inly no coquetry to say as mllc h, etc. (el.cILmrio
propter infinnilatem);" 2. ta,..os of the puer seni/is: this is the Illogical theme of the youth endowed with perfect wisdom or of the old man
endowed with the grace and beauty of youth; J. 'o/>os of the locus amocn",: the ideal landscape, Elysium or raraJise (trees, groves,
spring, and meadows) has furnished a good num be r of literary "descriptions" (cf. ekphrasis, A.S .2 l , but its origin is judicial: any demonstrative relation of a case made necessa ry til : QTRHnu:' fItwn a loco: one had to establish proofs on the nature of the place where the action occurred; topography then invaded literature (from Virgil to Barres) ; once reified , the tapas has a fixed content, inderendent of context: olive trees and lions are set in northcnl regions: lanclsclIlJc
is detached from place, for its function is to constitu'e a universal sign, that of Nature: landscape is the cuhural sign of Natu re; 4. the ad)ruIla (impossibi/ ia): this tol"" descri bes :IS sudJen/y compatible contrary phenomena, ohjects , and beings, a paradoxical conversion functioning as the disturbing sign of a world "upside down": 'he wolf flees before ,he ,nee/> (Virgil); this luI"" fl oudshes in the Middle Ages, when it pemlitled a criticism uf the times: it is
the theme of the grumbler, of the old man who says "now I've see n everything" or " this is really too much. ""All the .. tul>ui, and even before the Middle Ages, are detachable pieces (a prnof of their powerful reifica tion) that can be mobilized , translxlfted: they arc the elements of a syntagmatic combine; their placement was subject
11 Tht: uC\U(Jlio prnpfn infirmilLllt m Slill Jl rtvaib quit t: (ummunly In (1111 Wfi l ill~ . Cnrul{lr , this humumU5 u cwotio by Michd COo.lnlnt (lL NII'''''t'' ObW"O~It'ur, M;u ch .. , IQM): " I am
nut J,!oinJ,! In I :\u~h Ihis ... t:de, th~ Gospr:1 IS my 5ubjt:ct, ;mJ wily nUl ~"Y SoU fI~111 ufl, I ",m
nu l up In it , t: tc." H Twu ('x;1mpl('s o ( atl,ndlil: Ddillt' : "~lIln t o Iht: hbck CtoW tll(' 5\\1 ::. lIow shall ~ ioi ll('d : 'IoIlIln 1\1 hi~ 10\1(' ,11(' failh l ('~!'>
tiI'Yt, far lmm tht cnniu~,, 1 n('st , sh all ft.lf l('M btal 10 tht sayaJ!(' ~U l: 1m \'tarl alltl all 1m
luyc ." Thi-llphilc .Ic Viall : "TI,ls 51,e:l m Onw~ h:lckw:luJ III il~ !>I IU l e-C, rm "II ;I!>("cnd~ Iht: ~ I {'c l'lt: ,
bloud 0"W5 rUl'" Ihis rock , .. \lipt:r cClupl rs wilh .. I"o('a, . At .. p :m am· ie- nt Iowrr, a ~(' rl)(· 111
'(' ;u s aJ';ut a yuhur t: ; rut: bums wilhlll II IC ice, lil t: sun II;IS fUrncd hbdt, I M"t: th t: moun
",,",.ut 10 (:.11 , ,hal ut: r: has It:(' ilS plact . "
.,
T/u.' Old I~hcltn'ic : t ill t l j{lt' ~mbn llirl' 69
tn a sinj.!lc rcserv;llion: they cou lJ nnt he put in /JeToTario (perora
lion), which is enl irciy contingcnt, (or it m wit SlIllllnm izc the orario,
Ilowever, eve r since and even toJay , how lU.my stcreotyped COIl
c ltlsitms!
B. 1.22. Some Torics
Ll" tiS refurn 10 our Topic~-grid, (or that is wh;lt will a llo w liS tn
(ulluw the "d.:!'iccllt" o( our rhe lori c;d trec , o( whi ch it is rhe grear
di strihllfive place . Antiquity and classicism have proJuced se vnal
Topics ddined ei ther hy the allinitive grollPing of places, or hy that of slIhjcc ts. In the fi rs t case, we ca n c ite the genera l Topics of Port Royal, inspired hy the German logician C lallherg (16S4); the Topics of Lamy, already ci ted, affords some not io n of it : there arc places o( grammar (ctynH,I(, j.!y, conjugafa), places (.( logic (genus, pn'pert y,
accidl'nt, speci('~, diffcrencc, definition, di vision), the placcs o(
metaph ysics (fina l cause, efficient calise , effec t, whole, parts, op~ pos ing terllls): this i ~ evidently an Aristo tcii an Topics. In thc second
ca.'e , which is thaI of Topics hy suhjects, we can cite the fo llOWing Topics: I . tilt., oraturical Topics proper, which includes three topics:
a topics of rcasoning, a topics o( mores (elhc: practical int e lli ~ ge rlCC , virtue, aO t'erion , Jcvotion) and a topics o( passions (pCJl/l(f:
ange r, Ipvc, (ca r, shame, and thei r contrari 's) ; 2. a 10/';0 of ./le ~IIIR/1CJ1)le, part o( a possible rhetoric o( rhc cOlllic; C icero and Q uin
tikon liSl ed several places of the lallghahlc : hodily defects , mental defects , incidents, ex tcriors, c tc. ; 3. a tlrcolo~icfJl roIJ;n: this includes
Ihe variowi sOllrces (roln which the theologi ans can draw their
arj.!lIlIIl' ut S: Sc riptllre , Fathers, C utlnc:i ls, etc . i 4. a ro/Jin of se Jl ~;hili r y or lol )io of inIl.IRilidliflJ1 ; we find Ihis sket ched in Vico: "The (ollnd .. .' r!C;
o( civi li zafi llll l"lIl1sion tn the ;mt criority of r oetryl turned to a lo/Jic .~ of ~l'millillf y, in which thcy IInited (he properties , fhc qualiti es, or
ti, l' re lal ieli lS t,( indi viJlIals (lr \,( r;lCt.'S anJ e ll1plllyed I ht.~m (lln c re te ly
I n (Prill their poctic /.!cnre"; Vico speaks elsewhere o( the " rmit/cnal."
of til(' IlrIlIR;'lCIr if 111" ; in this topics o( s('n~ ihility we lIlily sec an 'UH.TSI! Ir
u( our dlt.'II1:1lic c rilici.'i lll, wh ic h prllct.'ed.c; hy ca lq.!orirs and not hy
authors: Ib chd .. rd's in short : the ascc nsional. Ihe cavt.'rnnus, the
70 ELEMENTS
torrential, the mirroring, the slumbering, etc. <lrc so many "places"
to which the poets' images may be referred.
B.l.23. Commonplaces The Topics. strictly speaking (the oratorical. Aristotelian topics).
the one which depends on I,isteis enl£chnoi. as npposcd to t he topics
of characters and the topics of passions, includes two parts, two subtopics: 1. a general topics. that of commonplaces; Z. an applied
topics. that of special places. For Aristotle. COllnnonlJ/accs (1Olmi minoi, loci communissimi) have a meaning quite different (rom the
one we attribute to the expression (under the influence of the third
meaning of the word ToPics. cf. sulJfa. B. I. Z I) . Commonplaces arc out~and-out stereotypes, but on the contrary form<11 places: being
gener.1 (the gener.1 is appropriate to the probabld. they arc com
mon to all subjects. For Aristotle. these commonplaces arc of three sorts: \. the possible/impossible; confronted by time (past. future).
these terms afford a topic question: can the thing have been dOIll' or not. cou ld it be done or notr This place can be applied to relat ions
of contrariety: if it was possibl~ for a thing to begin . it is possible for it to end. etc.; 2. existent/non-existent (or reol/unreal); like the
precedin!;. this place can be confronted by time: if a thing unlikely to occur has nonetheless occurred, what is morc likely has certa inly occurred (happened); there are building materials here: it is likely
that a house will be built (future); 3. morel/e,,: this is the place of
the great and the small; its mainspring is "with all the more reason"
(a fortiori): there is a strong ch.nce that X has attacked his neigh
bors. since he has attacked his own father. - Although common
places. by definition. are unspecialized, each is better suited to one
of the three oratorical genres: the pOSlible/iml)()"ible Inatches the
deliberative (is it possible to do this?). the real/unreal matches the judicial (diu the crime take place?). the more/l"s matches the
epiueictic (praise or blame).
71
B.1.l4. Sredal p/acc~
Special place' (cide. idi,,) are places (ropoi) appropriate t(1 'pecific
suhjects; t"e~e arc generally accept~d particu' Ir truths, special pnlp,
(lsifiuns; they are the experimenta l truths attached to politics, law,
finances. to W;lr, naval actions, etc. However. since these pl<-lcCS
(lol,oi) ;nc inc..'xtricahly linked to the praclice of disciplines. o( genres, (I( particular suhjec ts, they cannot he enutncmteJ. The thcorct iGl l
prohlem must ht' posed nevertheless, The extension of our "tree"
will ,hilS dl'pend on confronting ItIvcnlio, such ,IS we have known
it to this po int, wilh the spec ial n"ture of the content. This con , frontal ion is the quaf.Hio.
13.l.l5. Tflcsi .• and flypo/flc .• i . ., causa
The (IIUIC.Hio is the form of ,he special nature o( discollrse. In all the operations idt'a lly posed hy the rhetorical "machine," a new
variahlc is introduced (which is. actllally, when it is a tn:1tter of
(TcmiJl1.! the discourse, ,he variahle of the point of departure): the confent, the point at dehate, in short. the referential. This refer;
entia l. hy contingent definition, can nonetheless he cla~sified into two major forms, which constitute the two chief types of (,lwe.Hio:
I. The I,".silio" or Ihesis (1/u~sis, /rroIJOsiwm): this is a general ques, tion- "ahstr'lCf." we wOlIlJ say today- hut specified, referred (ot" , crwisc it wou ld not ca ll (or nny specia l places), though without (;lIlJ this is its mark) :"Iny par;(lncter of pl'lee or of time (for examp le:
11111 .<1 olle "'''TTy!); 2. The hYI>rIlhesi.1 (hYI)()rhe.li.I): this is a rmriclliar qllestion rhat specifics facts. cirClltnst:"lnCes , persons, in short :l time
and a place (f(lr instance: should X marry?~ - it is ev ident that in
rhetoric the words fl1esis :"Inc..! Ily,)o~hesis ha ve an entirely difkrcllt
meaning from that we arc aCcllst\HlleJ to. Now, the hypnthesis,
that tClllporalized ilnJ localized point at del1iltc. has another, prestigillll.s n;lIl1e: (l1U.<;(1. Cdl4.<;(l is a nC,l!lIlium. ;111 afbir, a deal. II C0111 '
hin;lI ion of various cl;nlingcncies; a pruhlematic point in whi ch
cOlltingency is engaged, cspecia lly tcmpora l cOrHi n gellcy . S ince
there arc three tenses (pa.~t, present, future)' we sh~ 1I ha ve three
types (If li lll .Sil, and each type will correspond to 011(' of the three
I
n ELEM ENTS
oratorical genres that we alrcaJy know: here. then. they arc~fructllrally cstahlishcd. locatcJ (ltl our rhcrorical tree . We c;ln
assign them their attributes:
G cme A UflirltCt End S,.f,}Ccr Tillie Ut'/u lm - ( :""11""11-illl! «(I) ,.Lttn
HF.I.IIl f. R- I1lcrnhcr ... of to rer- 1lStfuil ptI!-.",hl,·' slIOldcl future c)tt' I1lj11a
AT IVE an ;lsscmlliv Jis.o;uadt.· harmful illll'l l~!.lh l l'
jud,::cs tn ;lCC IISC! jm tl (' Ill 11\,- fl' a 11
JUUl(.' lAl defend un just P ;IS(
IIWIHl' \IIHc;,1
s pcc t <1 It)fS, 10 rraisel h..~auti(uU :1l1ll'lifv inl!
f. rIIlE1CTIC puhlic hlOlmc ugly
prescnt I.t \lllparl~ ln 1U11tt'/ lcs'c;
(h)
(:.) l1H~ llominanl mC1hoJ of Tf':l fwC minl.! (11) A varie ty o f imluCl io n. ;m ('x(,IIII,lum n ricnlw tow;uJ the c ~ ah:l'illn (If the
pt' rsun pra iscJ (by implici t compari sons)
8 .1.26. Status causae Of these three genres, it is the judicial which rect.'i veti the 1110s1
thoruugh commcntary in AntiquitYi the rhch)riGlllrec cXl e rHls it
beyon<J its neighhors. The specia l places of the judicial arc called stLUus C(lll..~aeo A status causae is the heart o f the "ull(~J lio. the point
to be judged; this is the moment where the first shock hetween adversaries , parties, occurSi :lnticipating this confl ic t. the orator
must seck out the lJearinK of the quaestio (whence the words: .HLl~i .~. v'
sfatu .. ~) . The .HaWs c((mae greatly excited the taxonomic passion (If Anti4l1ity. The simplest classifiGltion lists Ihree Jlallls ftlU.~IIC (we
arc dealing with the forTlls the contingent can take} : I . foujeclUrc :
did this occur or not (an sit)! is the first place heca"se it is the imflleJi;lh: result of a first conflic t o( assertions: fC(l sfi / flflU {cd: (Ill
fcccri l! (did you do it! no, it wtlsn't me, is it he!); Z. definilion
("uid sit!): what is the legal qua lification of the fact. IInder what (jllridica l) namc is it 10 be classified! is it a c rimd a s;H. .. rilcJ.!t,~
J. quality ("lillIe sit !): is the deed permitted . IIseflil. e x( ,",ahle ' This is the orde r o( att enuating ci rcllmstances. To these duc t..' places i ~
~(Ime timcs added" (ourth. tlf a procedura l orde r: this is Ihe ~ tale
( S l(lru~~) of d iscla iming competence (rea lm o( C as:o;alio n) . - ( )uce
Tlu' O kl '~hctOTic: an tliJe ~minlCJiTe 73
th e ~fl.ltus nllt~lIe arc posited. l)m/)(Jtio is exhausted; we proceed (rom
th e tlu.'pretical t' bhpr:Jtion o( Jiscourse (rhetoric is;) fccllll e, ~ spec#
Illative prac ti cd 1o di scourse it self; we come to the point wht' rc the
"machine" o( Ihl' or;ltor, of the ej!o, must h,.. arliculated arollnd
tilt, mac h inc o( the adversary, who on his side will have covered
Ihc salin' J.:rollnd, performed the s;"me t;lsks. This artic illation, this
IlIcslli rlJ.:. is ()hvitllisly ag(mistic : it is the ai.'ift1 1fcl!io, (l"icli(HI p(linl
hctwccn the two parties.
n. 1.27. S"hjcctivc or ctlJical proof..
TIll" l'Illire IITIII, "ill (the body of logical p".,r., wh :>se end is ttl I~nu"tld havillg hcell passed through, we must return to the initia l
d ir ho t"rn y that " pened the field "f h"'Clltill allli g" hack lip to the suhjc(1 ivt., ur l' t hit-al proofs. those that depend nn mot.JiJlR rhe IIC..'tlren.
This is I he d t.' ranlnenl (If psychologic;l l Rhe toric. Two nalnes pre ;
vail h en': Plalo (t ypes of discourse must he found that .u c aLi:lpl ed
to types of ~ollls ) and Pascal (the inner rno"cl11ent o( the (II he r's
IhuliglH mu~ t he di scovered) . As (or Aristotle, he ac know ledges :I
psychul(l j..! ical rhl'loric, hut si nce he continues In make it d epe nd
(In a fer/me, it is ;J "projec ted" psycho logy : psychology ;15 e ve ryone
imagines if : no l "what is in the mind" o( the puhli c . hut what thc
puhlic helil'v('s othe rs "h:lv(' in mind" : this is ;In enaoxon . a "proh.
ahlt ... " psyc!lolllJ.!Y, as opposed to "trllc" psyc1" llogy. as the t.·nthy #
111l'II\e is opposed to the "trlle" (demo nstrative ) sylltlgisrn . Befon.·
Ar is lotle . tec hl1oJ.!raphcrs recommended ttlking into i1 ccounf sHc h
psyc holt 1j..!ical slales as pity; hut Aristutle W;lS innovative in can.'(ull y
dassi fyinJ.! die passions not according to what Ihe y arc, hut :Il>
cording to wll ;lt they arc helieved to he : he docs 1101 dcsc rihc thc lII
sc il-l1lilicall y, hut ~ecks out the arguments wh ic h can he used willi
rl' sl'tT I 10 tilt' Jlllhlit.: \ ideas ahout passilm. The pas''' i(lns arc Sl't.'#
c ilicall y prtOnliSl's , places: Arislotle's rht·tor ica l "psycholtll-:Y" is :1
dl's(' riptioll (II the cikfJ~ . (If pass ional rrohahiliry . The psyc ilo lugica l
proofs are di vided info two major grollps: ('tlu: (charilc tlors. tOIH: S.
qtl:dities ) ;llId I'lflill.; (I'; .. ",s ions, senlilllt' I1I S. "H ee lS).
74 ELEMENTS
B. l.28. Ethe. characters. tones Ethe are the attributes of the orator (and not til",e of the puhlic,
pathe): these are the character traits which the orator must show
the public (his sincerity is of little account) in order to make a good impression: these are his "airs," his qualities. his expressions.
Hence there is no question here of an expressive psychology; it is a psydiology of the imaginary (in the psychoanalytic sense: of the imaginary as an image·repertoire): I must signify what I want to he far the other. This is why- in the perspective of this theat rica l psychology- it is better to speak of tones than of characters: tone in the musical ana -~thical sense which the word had in Greek music. Ethos is, strictly speaking, a connotation: the orator gives a
piece of information and at (he same lime says: I am this, I ;1m not
that. For Aristotle. there are three "airs" which as a group constitute
the orator's personal authority: I . 1,',ronesi5: the quality of one who deliberates carefully, who weighs the pro and the COil : this is an objective wisdom, a paraded good sense; Z. arete: the showing of a
frankness which does not fear tI.c consequences and expresses itself by means of direct remarks, stamped with a theatri ca l straightfnrwardness; J. cunoia: a matter of not shocking, of not being pro
vocative, of being sympathetic (and perhaps even Invable), of entering into a pleasing complicity with the public. In short, while he speaks and unfolds the protocol of logical pnx)fs, the orator must also keep saying: follow me (phronesil), esteem me (arete) and love
me (wnoia).
8.1.29. Pat/,e, sentiments Path" are affects of the listener (and 110 Innger of the speaker) ,
at least what he imagines them to be. Aristotle docs not deal with them except from the perspective of a teelme, that is to ,aI', as prutascs of the argumentative links: a distance he m:uks by the cslO
(/Vanted that) which precedes the description of each passio" a"d which, as we have seen . is the operator of the ··probable ." Each I'pass ion" is identified in its habitus (the gcncT<l1 Jispositions which
favor it). according to its ohject (for whom it is felt!, and according
,.
••
Tlu! Old Hhcrnric: "n aiJe-mcrno;re 75
to the circumst;lnccs whi ch provoke IIcrystallization" (anRcr/CCllm.
luurnUfrir,"h',i/', ("",ttTll\!, emrytem,,~ui,"', in/V(I[itwldhdl,{"lne,.<, etc.). The point Il1l1st he insisted on, (or this Im1r~ s Ari stotle's profound \
modernity and makes him ,he ideal patron o( a society of "m;,ss
clliture": all these passions "re delihera tely taken in their l"u",/ity: anJ,:cr is what evcrY(lnC thinks aholH anger, passion is never anything
hilt what people say it is : pUTe intcrtcx tuality, "C it~lfion" (this is
how Paolu and h ;mccsca unde rstood it. who loved eac h other only
hecallse Ihey had read ahollt Lancclol's love) . Rhelorical psych,,"'gy is thcrc: (orc qllite the opposite o( a rcductivc psychlliogy which
would try to .scc whal is he/lina what people S;l y and whic h would
<lllempr to red lice .mger. for instai lCe . to ~ometilillR el~('. som ething
hiddcn . For Aristotle, puhlic opinion is the first .md last datum;
he has IHI he rmencutic notion (of dec ipherment); for him. the
passitJlls arc rC;I\JY ~ I1l;ldc picces of lan~tI;1J.!e whic h the orator mllst
si mply he (amiliar with; whcncc the notion (a 1!Yid of "tl .'i ~iOIl .'i, not as a collec liun of essences hut as a collection of opinions. For the
rcduc livc psyc hology (prevailing today) Aristotle SlIhslitul·CS (in
ad vance ) ;1 clas." ilicatory psycho!ogy which distinguishes "I;ln ~
guagcs." It may see m quite hanal (;-md no douht wrong) to S~ly ,hat
yotlng 111(.' 0 arc more et1si ly t1ngercd than old men; hut this pbtitllde
(;lnd this mi stake ) hecomes inte resting i( we rea li ze that such a
prt1pnsirioll is II1crely an clement o f that ,l!('nnc.d "Iflj!lwge of (/1l~ Oril{'T
wllic h Aristodc reconstitutes. aCCl.\rding perhaps to the :UCIIlIlIl1 of
Ari ."lolclifln philo:mphy: "what everyone he lieves to he trill' is ' K ~
tll;,lIy true" (Etll. Nic. , X.2. 117Jal) .
11. 1.30. Semina probationum Thlls cltlSCS the lielJ or the network of hltlCH[io. rhe- hcuristic
pfrp'lraliotl of Ihe matcria ls of di sc(lurse. Now we must .Ipproach
(heltio if !'df: tll C order o( it.<; P:lrts (lJisI1w. ir;o) ,lIld it s re di zat ion in
words (J :· 'ocwin) . What arc the "programrn;lric" relations pI" lm.lc llfio
and ()nHin! iJUilllili;lIl put s it in a word (;111 image) : hc rcculIllllcnd:-;
tI :-; ing CVt.'1l in lIt1JT(uio (i .e., heflin' the argIlIlH:ntaliv(' rart pnlpcr)
n'rlaill ":-;cl'll .<; ttf prtHtf.<;" ( ~l' lIIiflc.l Illf(l('{it.U1I Im,lxllifHlIHlI ~/ 'tlr).!l'l"(,).
76 ELEMEN TS
Thus hctwt.'~n IJlve ralio and O nuio ,hefe is ;1 rd ati tlll of cli~ l .en(ll :
o ne Intlst suggest, the n he sile n t. rc introJ llcc , star t lip lal e r ti ll . In
other words, the materials of I "Cfcrllio ;u c a ln: :ldy pic(cs of 1;1Il J,! llagc ,
<posited in ;1 stat e ur rcvcn ihi/ily, which nnw 1l1wil he illsc: rt cd info
a n inevitahle and irre versihle order. wh ic h is Ihat o f ,Ill' dI SCOUI'Sl ' .
Whence the seco nd majo r ope ration of (cd mc: I)jsl}u~lI ifJ , or U t',H -
Illent of the constraints o f SlIcccs.c; ioll .
B.2. Dispositio
We have see n tha t rite situ ;ltion of l)i~IHI.~ irill (TClxi.~ ) in h'dUl~
con stituted a n important s t:lk c. Without H..'tlirninJ,.! to litis prtlhl{'Il1,
we shall defin e dislJosiliu as the a rrangclI1e nt ((.' itil l' r in ,he aCli vc,
ope rational sense , or in the ras~ivc , rcHic"! se nse ) of the m;Ijnr part s
of the discollrse. The hCl"i t trclll l"i latioll is perhaps: coml,,,sifioll , re
calling that in L:.lin CfnJlI'Wii'iu is sOIHc thinJ,! l·lsl' : it re rn s so le ly to
the arra ngemcnt of words withi n the SCll fl.' ncc; COH10f flCio desiJ,! nal cs
the Jistr ihulio tl o( l11 ilte rials within l' flCh part. ACl"tl rd il1g to a ll
:ll1gmenfat ive sy ntagmat ics , theil, we ha ve: t Ilc Il'vl'I" r t I\c Sl' III l' IlCl'
(comIHJSifio), the level of fhe part (n mlo<.:c.llio), ti ll' le vel IIf d iscourse
(dislmsifio ). T he mai n pmts ~ )f the discourse were posih'd very ca rl y
hy Cor~ x (cr .. I"/'Ta A . 1. 2. ) and Iheir dislrih"li,," has ""I varied muc h subsequently: Q uintili ;l n art iclilal l'S fi vl' part s (he dOllhlcs rhe
thirJ parr intu c07lfinHafio anJ reflllllfio), Aristo lic fO llr: it is the
latler divisi"n Ihat will he adopled here.
8.2. 1. E~rcssio
Befo re c nulIle rating thesc fi xed parts, we fIltiSt indica te the Pp
ti lln~ 1 ex istence of a movahle part : c,,'cssjo o r Ji"rrc:s .~ jo : th is is II
ce remo nia l piece , o~c;ide Ihe suhjec t o r attac hed to it hy a vny
loose link, a nd whose ftlnc tion is to show the or;Hor at his hest; it
is Inosl oft en a ctlloJ,!y o f places o r pe rson!' (fo r l' Xal11 plt: , til l' Pf;l isc
of S ic il y in C icero 's Vcrres ). T his mov;'lhle lIll i l , tll ii sidc classili
c lti tlfl , a nd (lite miJ,.!llt sa y, slIpcrrlllll1e rll ry Iri J,.! in ~l l\ ct l - lll l' l tI J ic 's
d <I'/ml.'i is- is all 0rc r;lIor o( .... p l' L" I<lt:iC. a so rt of S(;lIl1p. ;r siJ,.! n;IIIHC
of the "SOVl'fl'igll langua J,.!c " ( ("lrJ,! i<ls's ku nj.~ ; .~ , Jakuhson 's l'l/t' lie) .
• I ,.
T he O ld Hheloric: l in (ljJc ~nl(~m(/in.· 77
Y ct just as a paint ing is ;llwa ys signed in the S;lllle place, so diKTcssio
has ended "I' hy hei ng pbceJ more or less regularly nelween 'WITal;" and ( oJlfinmuio.
B.2.2. l'aradigmatic .• trllc/Ure o ( tile (our part .. VislJ(J.~i !io start s (rom .. d icho tomy which was fl lre .. dy, in o rhl' r
te rms, that or ll1tlC Htio: iml,cllere animos {to move )/rem dOCffr (to
inform, to convince). The first te rm ( appe;ll to the sentime nt s)
cove rs the exordium and the el,iloRlle, i.e. , the two ex tre mities o (
the disco urse . T he second te rm (appea l to (acts, to rcason) cove rs
narrario (rel i~tion o( (ac ts o r deeds) fl nd con[innlltio (cstahlishment
of pruofs o r means of persuasion). i.e. , the two median p;ut s of the
JiscolJrse. The synlag",atic order Ihcrcfore does no t fo llow Ihe
paradigmatic order, ;lnd we arc faced wi t h a chia smlls;con~rrtlc tion :
two slices of "passio nal" ma te rial frame a demon strative "'oc: d c mo m tr:1ti vc
4 ~ l'XIJl llil llll Ctm/irnklflo c l, ilt 'j.l: IIC
\,- --------'\ emo ti ve
W e sh a ll He;" the four part s acco rding to the p;l rad igma tic order:
ex(mJitlln/cpi I(lgllc , nanat io n/confirl1la t i l lO.
11. 2.3. TI.e heginning and II.e end T he fo rma li za tio n of hcginnings and e nds, of openi ngs a nd clos;
inJ,.! ... , il"i a prohlem which e xceeds rhe to ric (rit es, pro toco ls, lirur
~ i es ) . T he opposition of the e xordium a nd the e pilogue , in clea rly
coma itllt l'd fonns, has doubtless something archaiz;ng ahout it ; he ,Ke.
in de ve loping and secularizing itself, the rheto ri c;l l codc h;ls come
to IOlerat(' discollrses without cXl'rdiul11 (in the dcl ihcrative genre ),
accord ill J,.! to rhe rule of in mcclilu Tes, and even to rCCOll1lllCluJ
ahrupt l'nds ( )soc ratcs, fo r ex ample ). In its canon ical f(lrm, ,he
oppusilitm 'k'~i'lJ1il1J!le"d in vol ves a diO'c rc n t iation : in thc exordiul11 ,
thc o rat o r mllst C0 l11111enCe wilh prudcnce, rese rve , propo rtion; in
78 ELEMENTS
the epilogue he need no longer contain hilllsd(' he cOllImit s himself
deeply, brings forlh "II the reso urces of the Imochi"ery of ""lIlOs.
B.2.4. The proem In archaic poetry, that of the h""ls, the 1",'ii"IO" (procIII) is wh"t
comes hefore the song (uime): it is the prelude of the lyre players
who. before the contest, limhcr their fingers and rake adv:mtal!l' of
the occflsion to win over the jury in advance (traCl'S of tllis pl'rsist
in Wagncr's Die Mcislcrsilll('T) . Thc lIillle is "n "Id ('pic h" lI"d : Ihe reciter hegan to tell the sto ry at a Ino rc o r less .uhitrary 1I1011\('.' n( :
he could have "taken it up" c;lflicr or lal er (the story is " infinit e");
the first worJs cut Ihe virtual thrcfld of a narrative widHllH origin .
This arbitrariness of the heginning was I1Imkcd hy the words c.'X ou
(starting from whic h): I am hc~il1llillg start in!.! rro lll here; the hard
(I( thc Otly~scy ;Isks the Muse to sing the re turn of Ulys:"es " 5ItlTriu/.!
witeTe11cT .dle ,)lcases. " The func tillil llf tl,c pft It' 'n is, II,e ll, tt ) CXl lff is.:
the a rhitrarincss of any hcginning. Why begi n herc rat her d,;tn
the re! For what reason does speech cut intn what ('unge (author
uf I'me mes ) calls the raw UlIlI/"J!Tm/llltlJ:llltl ! This errt of the k"ifc
mwif he lIladc less harsh, this anarchy rC4uircs a protocul of decision:
this is thc IJToijirnon . Its evident role is to 1(l1IIe. as if heginninJ,! tu
speak. encm,ntcring language werc 10 risk w"king the unknllwn .
thc sca ndalous. the monstrous. In eac h of liS , thnc' is a te rrifying
v (ormality ahout "breaking" silence (o r the mlu.'r languagc). exce pt
for thme habblers who /ling tilelllscives he"dlong illto speech ""d "take" it by forcc, anywhere ami everywhere : this is wh:rt is ":r iled
"spontaneity." Such, perhaps, is the hasis (rom which Iht' rheturical
exordium . the regula ted inauguration o( dis('ollrse , pruCt': l'tb .
8.2.5. TIIC e,~ordium
Thc exordi um c .. nonica lly includes two mOlllel"S: I . dlC ff l/ ' l t llill
IJCJ1ctJoknlial', or ent c rprise o( seductiun with regard to tI,,: puhlk,
wh ich must immediatel y 11C conciliated hy an assay (I( c(lmpl ici ty.
The ca/'l,uio has heen lIlll' of tlu..' llIoM SI :lhl l.' de l1l(,'''t ~ of 'he rhe
torical system (it n" ",i, hcd well intll tire Middle Ages, :rnd is st ill
The Old Rhetoric' an aide-mi mnire 79
found today) ; it ('"lIows a highly elaborate model , codificd according
to the clas~i (lc"ti(ln of causes: the means uf seduc tion varies 'lCcorJing to Ihe relation uf the catlse to thc dux(I, to current, nurmal
{lPinion ; ( I. if the cause is identified with the doxa , if it i ~ a "no;,mal"
cause, in good repute, Ihere is no use suhjec ting the judge 10 ;lny
~edllclion, to any pressure; this is the genre known as endnxoJl,
honcsunn; h. if the cause is more or less neutral in relation In the
dOX£I, a positive "ction is required in order to conquer the judge's
inertia , to waken his curiosity. to make him attentive (auenlum) :
this is the gen re kno wn as c.u1oxun, humile; c. if rhe cause is ambig
IIOllS, i( (or instance two doxai " re in conflict, the judge's f~vor must
he won. the judge must he rendered bcnevoluYn, 11C madc to sidc
witlr the speakcr; this is the genre known as am/,hid,>x<"., duhium;
if the c"usc is confused, obscurc, the judgc must he made to follow
YIlU ;IS his J,.!uidc, ;IS an enlighteller. he must he rendered clocilcm, receptive, ",alleahle; this is the genre known as dY' /",,,,ko/()Ul/,cIOn, UhscuTum; fin a lly, if the cause i ~ cxtr~lordinmy, provokes ;1stllnish
lIlent hy its location very far from the dllm (for inst"nce: to plead
against" father. an old man, a child, I blind man, 10 procced
counter to thc "human touch"), a vague ac t inn (a connotation)
IIpon the judge no longer suffices. a tn.I': rcmeuy is required. hilt
thi~ re l1ln ly must nonetheless he indirec t. (t ·r the judge mllst not
he openl y affronted or shocked : this is iminu.uio, an aut llnOl1l(lllS
(r"gment (and no lo nger a simple tonc) which is placed .. (ter the
heginninJ,.!: for example. tn pretend to he overwhelmed hy rhe ad ·
versary. S tich "re the modcs of the ca/>!(lIi() /'clle"o/cnfiQ£, Z. Thc
IKITtilio. second mome nt o( thc ex" rJiuln, .mnounces th e divisions
tI,at will he "d .. pt cd, the rlan that will he f .. II,)wed (th" ,)drfili""e.'
G ill he Illultiplied . one can he pl ncc..'d at the h{'ginnin~ of each part) ;
Ihe adv;lI1tagc , Q lIintilian says , is tLat we never find lo ng something
whose end is announced in adv;~nt:c .
13.2.6. Ti,e cpi/oKue Illlw arc we ,t) know if a discourse i:-: hnhdu.·d! This is quite as
arhitrary as the Ix·ginning. li enee there IIlIlSt I"'e .t sign for the CIH..l.
80 ELEMENT S
a sign of closure (as in ccrt;lIn manuscripts: lOci {air la RelIc CflU?
Tumid" .• declinct"). This sign has heen rationa lized II"der the alihi
of pleasure (which would prove how consc ioll.o;; till" Ancients were
of tile I'tcdium" oftheirspcccht.·s!). Aristtltic has I11cnthll1cd if. mit
apropos of the epilogue. but apropos of the period: the pcrint! is 'lIl
"agreeable" sentence because it is the contrary of dll" olle which
docs not come to an end; on the contr;uy is it dis;lgrccahlc not to
he able to anticipate what is clIming, 10 have no ending in s ight.
The epilogue (peroTario, ccmdusio, (ufllulm. crowning touch) in ·
eludes two levels: I. the level "f"things" (/",silll ill rei",, ): a question
of continuing and summarizing (enumcratio, refilm rel}Cliljo); Z. the
levcl of "sentiments" <I""ilit in ",/eeti/",,): this pathetic , even tearful
conclusion was little IIsed hy the Greeks, where an u, her would
impose silence upon the orator who tugged the hc,Jrt~trings too hard
:lnd «Xl long; but in Rome the epilogue was the occasion for fl great
piece of theatef, (or thc advocate's gestures; to reveal the accused
surrounded by his relatives anti children, to exhihit a hloody dagger,
fragments of bone taken from the wound: Quilltilian lists all these
devices .
B.2.7. Narratio N(ITT(Hiu (Jic,I!esis) is inJeed thc account of Ihl" facts invulvcd in
thc cause (since caU$a is the (,wles,;o imhued with cuntingency),
hut this account is conceived solely from the po int of view of Ihe
11r(IOf, if. is "the perstlasive exposition of a thing done, or c1;limcd
to have hccn done." The narr,ltion is therefore not a Tt!fi(al (in the
disinterested sense of the word) hut an argu11lcrHativc protasis. It has
l consequently, two ohligatory charactcri~lics: I. ils nakcdf)c~s:
no digrcssions, no rrosop()pc i~l, no direc t argIlIlH.: ntaliol\ ; Ihere i~
no fcrlme proper to lIQTTcuip; it must he merely ell'clT, "roht,/JIc, l1fil'/;
Z. its (lIllctioll;llity: it is a prl'par;Hion for arguIHt:nt:llion; Ihe hl'si
preparation is the (lnc whose l11eaning is concealed. whose proofs
nrc di sse minated as imperceptih lc seeds (semillll "rolJaliflllltll l) . N((r ~
ratio involves two types of dCl11cnl s: facts and dcscripl ions.
, "
The Old Rheroric: an aic.le ~lIliltl()iTe 81
B.2.B, Orelo naturalis/ordo artificiali.
In ancient rhetoric, the exposition o( (ac ts is slIhjcct to a single
structural rtlle : that the connections he prohahle. nut la ter. in the
Middle A/:es, when Rheto ric was completely de tached from the
judicial. nlJJTlllio hccarne an autonomous genre anti the arri .ngcmcnt
of it s parr s (ordo) heca me a thenre .ica l prohlem: this is the 01'1''''
sition of onlo flLlfliTtdis and ordo arfi/iciCilis. "Every order," says a
contemporary of Alcuin, "is eith er natuml or artificial. The order
is natural if Ihe fa cts arc told in the wry order in which they
occu rred; the order is artificial if one sets oul, not frolll the heginninJ,.!
of what has happened, but from the middle. " This is the prohkm
of the na, hhack . Ord" arti/icialis requires a segmentation of the
sequ('nce o( f~cts, since it is a question o( ohtaining movahle, rc ~
vcrsihlr units; it implies or pr(ltluces a speci:11 intclligihility, (lnc
deliherately shown, since it destroys the (mythic) "nature" of linea,
timc . The opposition of the two "orders" may hea r not on the fac ts
hut on the very parts of Ihe discourse: thcn OTJO 'Ul(uwlj.~ is whal
respects the traditional norm (c)CorditllTl, IIc.1TTatill, con/inlll.1(io. cpi ~
loglle). and onlo lITrififialis is wh:lt disrupts Ihis order accon.ling to
ci rcumstances; paradoxic:l lly (.md this p:,Tadox is no douht a (rc ~
quell t onc) F1c.Huf(lli.~ t hen means t:ulwTtlI, and (lTrificiolis means spon ~
tant.'otlS, contingent. natum!'
B.Z.9. 11tc de .• cription .• Along."idc the strictly chronolngic;l l---{lr diachronic. or di e
getic~a xis. narratio admits o( an ilspcctual, dllra tive axis formed
hy it hnvering sequence o( stasC's: descril'lion5. These have ht't'n
powerfu ll y enwded. There have heen chiefly: w/"'I(TCI/.',ies, ,'r de ·
scriptions of places; dlTOJlOgral,/lies. or descriptions of time. of pc ~
rinds , of ages ; 1,~u.wl)(''''{( ''/lies, or portr;lIt s. We know the (ortunc of thc :-;e "piecl's" in ' Oll r literature, outside the judicial. - Lastly we
IIIl1S t indicate, to fini sh with tldTTClliu . th;1t the discourse ca n SOl11l'
lillles indudr iI second narmtion; the flrst having h('cn very short ,
il i ~ rl'slll11cd slIhseqllcnlly in deta il ("Ilerc in dC(flil is how Ihe
82 ELEMENTS
thing I h~ve just spoken of transpire..!"): this is the "I,i.lieRc,i" the
relJe(ita tllJTTtuio.
8.1,10. Confirmotio
Narratio, or the account of the fa cts, is follow ed hy co"fimuuio,
or the account of the arguments : it is he re that Ihe "proof.<" e lah·
orate"! in the course of inlJenlio me uttered . C o"fin""lio (a"oJcixis )
can inclu..!e three elements: I. Im'I,,,,ilio (/'TIIllte, i, ): a conce ntra led
definition o f the cause. of the J'<,int in deh"te ; it ca n he simple or
multiple . depending on the headings ("Socrates was accuseJ of
corrupting the young and of introducing ne w ~lIpc rs titions"); liT·
gumenlluio, which is the account of convincing reasons; no part ic·
ular struc turation is reco mmcndlfd, except th is: 011(.' I1H1S1 begin hy the stro ng reasons, continue hy the weak proofs, and cnJ hy some
very strong proofs; J. occasiona lly, at the e nd of th e Cl lllfiTlIIlIlio,
the cont inuous discourse (oraliv conriruw) is interrtlpt ed hy a v{'ry
lively di .. loguc with the adversary l<1wycr or a witness: another voke
breaks into Ihe monologue: this is airercalio. This ofalOric :l1 episode
was unknown to the G reeks; it is attac heJ to the genre HORatill "r
accusatory inte rrogation ("QUOUS<lue land" m, Ceui/in" . .. " ).
B.2.11. Other segmentation. of di.<cour.<e The J'<lwerful e ncoding of the Di.'/><lSilill (of whic h a deer "ace
rema ins in our pedagogy of the "plan") atlests to Ihe fa ct thaI
humanism, in its conception of language , was dl'cply concerned
with the prohlem o( syntagmflt ic units. DiJilm.~ iliCl is o ne sq.,:men·
tat ion anumg others. Here arc several o( these scgl1lenlafions, start·
ing (rOl1t the largest units: I. the discourse as a whule can (o rm a
unit, if we set it in opposition to other discourses; this is the case
of classifica tion hy genres or hy styles; it is ;l lso the e lse of fi~ IllTJi
of suhjccu, .1 fourth type of figure after tropes, figures o( words. and
figures of thought : the figure or ,uf,jeCl emhraces Ihe wh,,1e of the
orcHio; Dionysius o( Halic lfnassus distinguislll'd thrct': cl. thc Jirect (saying what one mea ns); h. the oh/itJllc (indin'ci discourse: Bossllc t
threa tening the kings, Imder (he color uf rcli},!iou); c. the contrary
BJ
(antiphrasis, irony); 2. the parts of the Diposilio \whi ch we know);
3. the piece, the fragment, ck/,hflds or deseri/>ti" (which we also
know); 4. in the Middle Ages, arliculu .. o; is a unit o( development :
in a collec tive work, an anthology of Dislmlllliones or a Summa , a
su mmary is given of the dispute..! questio n ( introduced hy UtrUIIl);
5. ,JCriod is a sentence struc tured act.:urding to ;m organ ic model
(with heginning and enu); it h as :I t least two mcrnhcrs (elevation
anJ lowering, las is and alJOlasis) and at most four . Relow this (an,1
in (ruth. starting from the period or pt 'rioJic sent ence ), hegins the
sent ence, ohjec t of (omlKJsilio, a tec hnica l operation ueriving from
Elocuric).
B.3. Eloeutio
The argument s found anJ hroadly distrihuted in the parts o f the
discourse remain to he I1Pllt intn words" : this is the (unCI ion o( this
Ihird part of the techne rhelorike known as /exi, or e/ocUlio, to which
we arc acc lIslmllcd to pejoratively reducing rhetoric beGIllSC of the
interest the Mode rns have taken in the fi gures of rhetoric , a part
(hut only a part) of EloCUlio.
B.3. 1. Development of Elocutio
S ince th e origin nf Rhetoric, Elocurio has in fact considerahly
evolved . Missi ng (rom Corax's classification, it arrears whe n Gor·
gias wants to "rrly esthetic c rite ria (drawn .ro m poetry) to rro~e ;
Aris totle treats it less abun..!antly than the rest of rhe toric; it de·
vel" ps chiefly with the Latins (C i~ero. Quintilian), fl uwers spiri ·
tuall y wilh Dinnysius of Halicarnasslls anJ the ano nymous a uthor
of Ihe Peri HYI'.II>s, ami ends hy ah:;orbing all Rhetoric, idenlir,ed
sulely as " liJ..:IITes. " However, in its ca nonical stat e, Elocurio defines
a fidd whic h hears on all language: it includes hoth O UT grmntn~r
(until the h(,art of the MidJle Ages) ami what is called dirtio" , Ihe
thl~ atl'r o( rhe voice . The heSf tr<lnslarion of eiocHtio is perhaps not
docutiClfI (h K) lilllil ctl) hut eJIIHtCial;Oll or even lo( ulirlTl (ioclitory
activiIY)·
ELEMENTS
B.3.1. Ti,e network The internal c!ossifications of fluwli" Ole m:my. d""hllt·" for
two reasons: first . because this tcchnc had to pass Ihftlligh differenf
idioms (Greek . Latin. Rmnance languages) . each of which co"ld inllcc t the nature of thc "figures"; second. hCGUlse the growin~
promotion of this pent of rhetoric compelled terminological rl'in ~
vent ions (a patent fact in the hewildering naming of ligures). We
shall simplify this network here. The mOlher'''PI'"silioll is that of the paradigm anJ the syntagm: I . to chm.,e the words (deeli", <,~I,,~<'); Z. to assemble them (synlhesis. co'"l)(lsili,,) .
B.3.3. "Colors" Elecfio implies that in langll;lgc we can suhstitute one 'crill for
another: cleclio is possible hccallsc synonymy is parI of the system
of language (Quintilian); Ihe speaker Gill suhstittll"l' one s ignifit'r
for another, he can even, in this suhstitution. prodtlce a sl'COnd;ITY
meaning (connotatiun). All the kinds of slIhstilUtiu"s, wh:Ht'vcr their scope anti fashion, are TTClI)cs ("conversions") , hut ,he mean ~
ing of the word is ordinmily rt.'c..iucec..i in order to he :lhle to set it in opposilion to "Figures." The truly general terms, which (over
equally all the classes of substitlltiuns, arc ""nulluCIlB" and "colon."
These two words clearly show, by their very connotations, how the
Ancients conceived language: I. there is it naked hase, a proper
level. a normal state of communication, slartinl! (rom which we
can c1aborale a more complicatcJ expressiun. Onl(lIllcHteJ, endowt.'d
with a greater or lesser disfance in relation to the original grollnd.
This postulate is decisive, for it seems that even today it Jctcrlllines
all the nttempts at reinvigo rati on of rhctoric: to recover rhetoric is
inevitably to believe in the existence of a Rill) helwecn two sl'ltcs
, of langu;lge; conversely, rhetoric is always conJelllneo in the name
! of a rej ec tion of the hierarchy of languages. hetween which only a
) UOuctliating" and not a fixed hi~rarchy hased ~'" n :""fe is '1~lI1itt l'd; 1. the ~econdary layer (rhctoT1 c) has an :mll11armg func tlun: the
"proper" slale of language i~ inert. lhe scctmtbry st ale is "living":
colors. light s, flowers (colon's, I"minu, [loTes ); the ornamcnts ar(' on
The Old Rhe,oric: an aid.-m"moire 85
the side of passion. of the body; they render speech desirable; there is a "ellustll' of language (Cicero); 3. the colors are sometimes used "to sp;ue 11u.,ucsty the emharrassment of too naked an exposition" (Quintilian); in o ther words. as a possible eurhemism. color indexes a tahoo. that of lan~uage's "nudity": like the blush which reddens a fa ce . culllr exposes desire by hiding its object: it is the very dialectic of the garment (schemll means costume. Figura appearance).
8.3.4. Taxonomic frenzy What we ca ll generically figures of rhetoric. but which with
historical rigor and to avoid the ambiguity between Tropes and Figures it would be better to call "ornaments." have been for cen
turies and a~ain today are the object of a veritable frenzy of classification. indifferent to the mockery which nonetheless sprang up very early. It appears that these figures of rhetoric can be invented merely by naming and classifying them: hundreds of terms. either very banal in form (epilhet. relicence) or very barbaric (analllll/JO
duroll. epaIlMi/,I"sis, llIpinosis, etc.). dozens uf groupings. Why this r .. ge for segmenwtio n. for denominatio n, this sort of delirious ac· 'v "
tivity of language upon languagd No doubt (at least this is one ). (, .. I
structural explanation ) because rhe:oric tries 10 code s/,eech I/Jarolel and no longer language llanguel. i.e . • the very space where. in principle. Ihe cude ceases. This problem was seen by Sallssure: what to do with the stable amalgams of words. of fixeJ syntagms. which partic ipate both in language and in speech. in structure and in combinat ion! It is to the degree that Rhetoric has pref,gured a \ linguistics of speech (other than statistical}. which is a contradic- .' tion in terms. that it has exhausted itself trying to huld within a ', necessa.rily morc and more discriminating network the "mtlnners of ;
spc;lking," i.e. , trying to master the unmastemblc: a true mirage . .
B.3.5. C/a<sification of ornaments
All these ornaments (hundreJs of th em) have been Jistrihuted down through history according to ce rtain binary oppos itiuns:
86 ELEMENTS
tropes/figures, grammatical tro/Jes /rhetorical tro/>es, figures uf grammar /figures of r/"'toric, figures of words/figures of dwught, tno/Jes/fiR'(res of diction. From one author to the: next, the classifications are con ..
tradictory: the tropes arc here set in oppositiun to the figures, and there are said to belong to them; for Lamy hyperbole is a trope, for C icero a figure of thought, etc. A word concemin~ the three most frequent oppositions: I. Tropes/Figures: this is the oldest of the distinctions, that of Antiquity; in the Trope, the conversion of meaning bears on one unit, Oil a word (for example. catachrcsis: the arm of a windmill, the leg of a table); in the Figure, the conversion requires several words. a whole little syntagm (for instance ,
the periphrasis: the decent ob.,curily of a learned language) . This opposition would correspond by and large to that of the system ami the snytagm. 2. Grammar/Rheroric: the tropes of gml1lmar are conversions of meaning which have passed into current usage . to {he
p()int where we no longer "sense" the ornament: sfelJ on du~ j!tl.'i
(metonymy for acceleralor) , primrose palh (trivialized metaphor), whereas the tropes of rhetoric are still felt to be an unusual usage: Nature's laundry for the Flood (Tertullian). Ihe ice floe "fthe k.C)/~lard, etc. This opposition would correspond by and large Iu Ihat of denotation and connotation. J. Words/Thought: the opposition of figures of words and of figures of thought is the most banal: figur.s of words exist where the figure would disappear if we changed Ihe words (i.e. , the anacoluthon, which depends entirely on the order of the words: Cleopatra', nose, had it been ,horler, the face of the world . . . ); the figures of thought remain whatever words are cho,en (i.e. , the antithesis: I am the wound a!ul tile k.nife, etc.); this third opposition is a mental one, it brings into play signifieds ami signifiers, the fomler able to exist without the latt er. - II is slill possible to conceive of new classifications of f'gures, and indeed one can suggest that no onc concerned with rhetoric fails to be
tempted to classify the figures in his turn and in his way. Yet we st ill lack (but perhapssuch a thing is impossible to produce) a purely operational classification of Ihe principal figures : di c. tionaries of rhe toric. inueed. permit us lu discover what a cllleullSftlus is,
.' The OIJ Wlefuric (III clide·mcmoirc 87
Of .. n t'l)(Ilwl""I,sis. or a /><Jralel)sis. to proceed from the often quife
her",el ic na"'e to t he example; hut no hook allows us to Illake the converse- trajec tury, to proceed from the senfence (found in a text)
10 tllt~ name of the figure; if I read: so mucu mllThlc trcmhiinl! ot/CT
'" much , /uklow, what h .. ,k will tell me this is a Ily'){II~,ge , if I do not already know thi'! We lack 'Ill induc tive instrument, useful if we want to Olnalyzc the classical texts according tll thei r "ctuell mctfllangwlgc . .
8.J.6. Ucv;cw of some fif:Ures
Tlll.'re can of course he no question of giving a list of the "or~ naments" acknowledJ.!ed fly the ancient rhetoric under the general
fl ,tlne of "flgures": dictionaries of rhetoric exist. Yct I hclicve it is
useful to rcvic..'w lhe de finition of ten or so figures, t:lken :It n1llJom,
so as to give it concrete perspective to these remarks ~Ihout dcccio.
I . Alliccrt.aioH is a close repetition of conson .. nts in a hrief sy ntagm
(d,e ~cal flf /..l,~anl'); when it is the timhres that "re repe"l~d, we
hav~ "lx,/,/IfI"1 (i/ "Ieure "nIlS mon cOCllr emnme il/I/cut sur I"~ ville). It has heen suggested that alliteration is frc · lIently less inte ntional
Ihan the crilics and stylisticians tend to heli~ve; 13. F. Skinner has shown that in S hakespeare's sonnets Ihe allikrations do not exceed
what ont' might expect from Ihe normal frequency of le t te rs and
groups of letters . 2. Anacoluthon is a hre;1k in (sometimes dcfecrivt")
comitruction (RarllcT ,JT'oclaim ie, WcshJUJT'clilrul, C/lTOllRh nI :Y hosf, I dUll lie wl,id, IUllh no .'Imnach to tllis fight,lIet him deparl .. . ) . J. C(l(lu.:ltn' .~is occurs where the language lac ks rhe "proper" tl'fm
and it is necessary In usc a "figure" (legs of a lahle) . 4 . Elli/"is consists in suppressing syntactic clement s lu the point whe re in ~
rl'lligihility may he affect cd ()c r'etirrkli.~ j'1(.-onscwH, llu'e" .ue~j(' {elit fidrlc!); dlip.o;is h;,s offen heen sa iJ to represent a "natural" stall' (If
,he bngu:lg(:: ,he "normal" mode of speech. in pronuncia tion, in
syntax , in dreams, in children's languflgc. 5. J I:Y/lcrhole consists in
cxaJ.!J.!eraring: either' hy ;mgmcnling (uuxcs is : Co ride {rurl'T clulH r/l(' wind), {lr hy diminishing (IlII,infJsis: slotvCT (heln (I torroise ) . 6. Irony
or ilfllil,itrmis consists in say ing (lilt' t liing t hat is mea nt to he lInder ~
88 ELEMENTS
SI<KxI as something else (conn.'tatinn); as 1'. d< Neufchalcau says:
"S/If! dlooscs her words : (hey all seem ((1ressill~. but (he (one s/lc WiCS
Kivcs 1/1(~m (/uite anolher mCl.IninR. " 7. PL"Ti/,/IfUSis is ar its origin ...
detuur of langu~gc made to avoid a tahlO l"Iot:ltion. If rl'rirhra~ is
is deprecatory, it is called />eTissuloj!ia. 8 . UCficcracc or u/)osiu/)CsiJ marks an interruption in discourse due to a sudden change in fcding
(as in Ihe Virgilian Quus e/(o). 9 . Su.st,cmiull delays Ihc Ullcrallce,
by addition of interpolaled clauses, h.,(orc reso lving il: 011 Ihe level
of I he senlence this is SllStlense.
B.3.7. Proper and Figured
As we have seen, every structure of UfigUTCSIO is hascJ on thc
notion that there exist two lan,::uagcs, nne proper ;md olle figured,
and that consequently Rhetoric, in its c1octllionary p:ut, is a lahlc
of J evillt;orLS of language. Since Antiqllity, rhe lIlela #riletorica l
expressions which attest to this belief arc cuuntless: in clu(wio (field
of figures), words are Ii 'W1tC;/X"tcJ," "sfTlryed," "dctliLw:d" from their
normal, familiar habit~t. Arislotle sees ill it a I:lSle for alienation :
one Itlllst Udistance oncselrrrultl ordinary locutiuns ... : we (ccl
in this respect the same impressions llS in the prese nce of slrllngers
or foreigners : style is to be given a foreign air, (or what COlnCS (rom
far llway excites admiration ... I-Ience there is II rei;\( it m (l .HraJl,l!enCss
between thc ucommonplace words" each of us uses (hut who is Ihis
UWC"!), ,UlJ thc "unaccustomed words," words alien to everyday
usc: "b;uh;uisms" (words of foreign pcoplcs), neologisms, meta,
phors. etc. For Aristotle there lIlust he a mixture of the two h.: r#
minologies, (or if only ordinary words .ue tI~J, the result is ~ low
discourse. and if only unaccuc;tomeJ words arc used, the result is
an e'ligmaric disc(lurse. Frum fltHionalllfJfciK" and ll"n",dlsrTlln,!.!t', tl,e
opposition has gradually shiftet! to {Jr"t>crf{i~"rml. What is Ihe proper
Illc;t ning l "It is thc first signification o( the word" (1)1I1n;trsa is):
"When the word signifies that (or which it was originally c::; tah,
IisIH.'d ." Yet the proper mc,ming cannot hl' Ih l" earliest lIIeaning
(archaism is alienating), hut the mc:minJ..: iJIIlflcdiordy tJlIfCfiuT III rlu!
lTClllieHi "I rllc fi~lfeJ : the pHlpcr, l i lc trlle is, ()ll((' :I).!ain, 111C le'fl'~fli l l~
! I
, ,i
The Old Rlu!luric: an aitl.e-mcmuirl!' R9
(Ihe Falher). In classical Rhetonc, the (,neRoin/( has hcen MlUral
izd. Whel1ce Ihe paradox: how r an the propcr meaning he Ihe
"n ... tur.d" meaning :md the fi~ured meaning be the "original" meaning!
D.3.8. Function and origin of the figures
We may here distinguish two groups of ,·xplanalioI1S. I . Ext'/lIfuuicHlS 11) /Imcliou: a. the secondary langll<ll:e derives from Ihe nc,
cessity It I cuphclIlize, to evade the tahoos; h. the scCtmdary lan~lIage is a lechni4ue of iIIusir", (in Ihe sense of painting: I",rspeclive,
sh"dl)ws, fTfHlll1e ,I'oeil); it redistributes things, makes them secm
other than they are, ur as they .ue but in an impressive manner;
c. Ihere is a p leasure inherent in the association of ideas (we shoold s:.y: a tudi,",) . 2. Ext,raMli()ns Iry orip,in: Ihese explanatim" slart from
the postuhllc .that the figures exist "in nature." i.e., in the "people" (Racine ; "One 1ll.·CO merely listen to ;l di~pllte hctweelt WOf11t' n (I(
Ihe lowes I condition: what ahundance in Ihe figures! They lavish
metonymy, ca,"chresis, hyperhole . etc. "); and F. de Neufchale"u :
\/In town, at the court, in the fields, ;It markel, the eloquence of
the he:ut breathes forth in tr{)pe~ . " How ,hen <Ire we to fl'c{)f1 c ile
the "n:uura'" orif.:in of the figurf' r. and their secondary, posterior
r;'lnk in the structurc of language? The cI;lssic answt'r is Ihat art
chooses the figures (with regard to a just eva l" ;'1tion of their distance,
which I1HISt he measured), it docs not create them; in s hort the
figured is all artificial combination uf natur I clemenls.
B.3.9. Vico and poetry
Slarling from this last hypothesis (Ihe figures I",ve a "nalur"I" tlrigin), we may further distinguish two kinds o( explanati(lils . The
first is lIIy,hie, romantic, in thc very hrofld sense of the tcrrn : rhe
"proper" I;II1}.!uflJ.!e is poor, it docs not suffice (or all needs, hilI il
is supplemented hy Ihe explosion of anotht'r language, "Ihose divinc
hlo"omings of Ih .. spirit which the Greeks e,lIed Trot'c.," (I lug,,);
{lr agail1 (Vi<.:o, dted hy Mit.:hl'lt-r), Poe try IX' ill1-! the oril.!il1al lal1 #
gllage, rhe (Illir }.!rcal archely!'a l fi;":lIfl's were invenled ill Oldef, not
90 ELEMENTS
by write" hut hy humanity in its poetic a~c: Mew/'/lIIr, Ihen MeWll)m), then S)necdlKhe, then /WfI); (lri~inally, Ihey were employed ,ulIurall). Then how coulJ they have !rewllle "figure, of rheloric"!
Vico gives a very structural answer: wh~n ahslrilct ion was horn,
i.e . • when the "figure" WftS apprehended in a paradigl1latic tippO'
sitiun with another language ,
B.3.1O. The langua!:c 01 the pa, .• ;on .• The «conJ explan"lion is psychological: il is ""'1 p( LalllY and
the classical writers: the Figures arc the language of passion . Passi( lIl
distorts the perspective of things and compels specia l words: "If
men conceived all the things which pr«cnt thelllselves to Iheir
minds. simply. as they arc in themselves. Ihey wpuld all speak of
them in the same manner : geometers aimusl always employ the
sa me language" (Lamy) . Thisisan intcrcMing view, f(lr iflhc figures
arc the "morphemes" of ras.~ion. hy the lig\ln.: s we ca lt know the
classical taxonomy of the passions. ;md Illitilhly th;u (If the pas." itm
l)f love, fnun R'1Cinc t() Proust. J-=(lr cx<tll,ple : CXdllrJldlifnt Cllrrl'sl"lt II1ds
to the ahrupt seizure of speech. to an el110tive :lphasia; doul, •. tlu;
iJiuuion (n;nue of a figure) to the uncerta inties of heh;lvillr (What to do! this! that!). to the difficult reading o( Ihe "signs" emilled
hy the other; elli/Jsis. to Ihe censoring o( everylhing which hampers
passion ; Iwralc/Jsis (saying tI' ~H OIlC is not goillg to say what one
finally will say ). to the renewal o( Ihe "scene, " III Ihe demlln of
wOllnllin~; rel>elilion, to the ohsessional rehear sing of "onc's duc";
IIYIHJI"x}sis, to the scene which nne im;tj.!illcs vividly I II ullesdf, 10
the inner fantasy, to the rnent~ll scenario (Jl'~ ire. jt';l lollSY). etc.
Whereby we understand better how the tigurcJ call he a langu:lgt'
at once JWlural and sccmll.wry: it is n;Hurall1l'ClIISl' the passiulls arc
in naturei il is second,lfY hecause morality rcqlli rcs Ihal rlll'se samc
passions, though "natural. " he distanced. pbn'J in !I,l' region of Sin; it is hecausc, fur a c1:usical writer, "n:tlllrc" is cvi l, that the
flj.!lIrcs o( rhetoric are at once hasic and sllspec t .
, .
The Old IUlet(Jric: an dide-mcmoire 91
8.3.11. Compositio
Now WC' must return to the first opposition, the one which serves
as the p<,int of deparrure for the nClwork of Elocwio: to ei.eclio, t he
suhSCitulive licld o( the ornaments, is opposed coml>osifiu, the associa live fidJ o( the words within the sentence. We shall not t"ke
sides he re as to the lingui stic definition o( the "sentence": it is
merciy. for us, th.'It unit of discourse intermediary hetwcen IHOITS
""Hilmi.1 (major " art o( ""arin) anJ fi~>ura (small group of words). The ancient Rheloric cod ified twu lyres of "construelions": I . a "geometric" construc tion : that of the I)eriod (Aristotle) "" sentence
having in itself a hcginning. an end. anti an cxlenl which c;tn he readily encompassed"; the struct ur e o( the period Jepcnds on an
interna l syslem of wmmru (strokes) anJ of colons (memhers); their
nu",he r is varia hie and disputed; in general, three or four colons
arc required. suhjeci to o""osition (Ill or f- 2I3- 4); the rc(erence of Ihis sy<lem is vilalized (the oscillalion o( ,he hre"th) or sporlive
(Ihe peri"d reproduces the e llipsis of the stadium: "course. " turn . a return) ; 2. a "dynamic" const ruct ion (Dionysills o( llal ica rntlssus) :
the sente nce is then concci ved as a sublimated. vitalizcd pe riod
transcended hy "movement"; no longer n qllcstion of a coursc and
a reHlro, hut of a rise anJ a des(cnt; this kind o( Itswin~" is morc
importanl tI",n the choice of words: it JepcnJs on a kind o( innate
sense on the part o( the writer. This " movemc nl " has litree mnd<..'::; :
1I. wild. jolting (Pindar, Thucydidcs); b. l(e" I1". enc"scd. s"".>lh nnwin~ (Sappho, Isoc r(ltes , C icero) ; c. mixed, a storehouse o( these hovering cases.
T"u.. umd"dcs Ihe rhet()rical nCfUI(>Tk- ,ince ."" /llwe decided I() fc,,,,,, miclc .11(' 1HIT.S of die tec hnc rhctoriic c (luI.( are s(ric! ty (l1ctHrical, II Ys{erical, linkrd 10 ,"c vnice: act io and memoria. ArI'Y 'listuricdl con
du~iufl w/l<ltCtJCf (aside frum {he le,let r/lilf (/lerc i ... (I ~'ertaiH iroll"Y in
emncitlCS clloKliul-! f/lC secfJJlll metakUlRIU1gc we #Ulve jU.H wicd I;y (J
p<: rt lrat it 1 "nit/c(IITtlnl tllc fint) would exceed rite Imrciy c1itklt"ric illfCrtlieHl
of III i .... .... iml"e HllIHIWf. Yct, Il/)(Irl ktWillJ{ lll e (mcienf Wu!(oric. I slloHId
like ro .... (ly what n'JJ!j lin." far me l)er.wl1afly of IIlis mcmoTll/,le jourHey «(I
92 ELEMENTS
descent dlmuRI, time, a descent rhrouR/1 r/lt' f1cltuflrk, ill clown CI dcmhlc river), "What remains for me" means: tile llllC.HiollS whiclt n'rn:/I lilt'
from "lis ancient em/,ire in m)' present enlerlJrise and wltidt I fllrl flO
~",ger aolf)id, having come Ihis c£,se 10 Hhewric.
First of all, rhe conviclion lhar HUm) fC'(lwre.'i of OUT lircnlluTc, of (JUT
imfrucfiufl, of uur institwions 0/ lanj.!lulRc «(lfId is "Ierc (j si ll,l!lc ill5lilwion wi,lu",' IlIn~"UI~e!) would be il/l4Jni'Ulled !IT wlller.Hood diffaenlly if we
knew tlu/T(JI,~I,'y (i.e. , if we did nol censor) lile rl'Cloricul Ct.le ",I,id,
Iu.ts Riven its language to our CUhltTC; neither (I (cdmielw!. nOT WI eSI/Il~ (ic,
nor an ell,ic of Hheloric lire now I,msible, bUI CI hislory! Ye.l. " l,i"oT) of HhelOric (as research, as book, a.< le",:hing) is ",d"y lIecess"T), l>To,"'elled /ry it new way of Ihinking (/illgui.<lics, sel1l""o~y, hisroriw l ,Kiellce,
psyc/,oo'Ullysis, Marxism) . Next, this noliun (hat ,here i1 a kind of sluhlxlnl (J~1ft'cmCJ11 l>ehvcrJl
ArislOlle ([min whom rhewnc I,mceeded) all,1 our ""''' cu/r"re, 'IS if Ariswtelianism, detul since the RC'UJi_~stlncc as (I "hilmol"IY (uul m III~ic, Je(ul as an estheric since RmnanticisJn, surviucd in II (orrUIH, djffrued, iuarliculure SIdle in rlU! culfund "metice uf Weslenl .soeicfics-t'l fmu:rice
l~l\Cd, II"ougl, democracy, on <In ideoloK) of ,"e "1(l"ClIICSI IIUlIII,cr, " of
I/le nLCIjoriIY ~ll'Hlorm. of eu.rrent ''/Jinion: every"ling ~u~c~'s tlull " kind
uf Ari.IIf>lcliclll vulgare srill ,lefilles " 'YI,e of Irans-I,i"oric,,1 Occide,", a
civilizalion (our own) w"ich i" 111lJ1 of rI,e cndllxa : IIOW If> avoid ,"i.<
realizaliun Ihal ArislOrle (/ry hi, /Hlelies, Iry "is logic, by his rl,ell/ric)
furnishes fcrr die entire IanRulIgc-n.cl1TlUive. dis(ursitJc. dnd dr,l!urnenfativc-ilf "mass cmnmunicQr;(}lIs, .. a eumlJle.te ClfwlYlictJl ",'Tid (sttrrtiu,l!
frolll Il,e noliun of "Ihe l>Tuhable") a,'" lhal I,e rel>resen" rI~1I o/lIill1(l1
I,omugencily of a m<",language and of it "'"l(Ila~e-Cl.I -o"jecl wI,icl, «III
define an al'I,lied science! In a demc)C1'lItic system, Aristofc1icllIism would rI,en be Il,e besr of cu/rural s(KioloRie,.
Laslly, Il,is observalion, dislurbing as il is ill irs furcshorrclleJ f,mn, IIUlI all our lileralure, formed /ry R"el(Jric alld s,,"'imalel" ', 1lIllIlllllisll1,
has emerged from a I>olirico-jl(diciaf ,n(~ti<"e (Ull'('~~ Ule llenis' ill the error whiclr limits Rhetoric fO r'u~ "Fi,1!ures") : in r/ lllse tlH'(l~ WliC.'ll' till.!
most brutal con/licu-t'Jf money, of "m/JCTty. of l'Ll~S In' ((Iken ""cr, contained. Jomcslirared, alld Sl(sfLliJlcd Iry state I,ower. where stale in ~
, r ' .'. ~ .. ', . ..
" .~ :
<'
>.
~ .. .: .
..
93
"illlli"IIS rCR,,!'''e feigned sl>etch and wdifies all remurse III Ihe sigllifier: Il,ere is where IIlIr lilcmlure i, "'JTfI. This is why reJllrillg HhCl,mr 10
lire rrrr,k of a merely hisICnical objecl; seeking, ill Il,t "a"'e of lext, ur
writing. I I fleUlIJTClCrice of langl(lI,l!C; arul ne"er separating uurselves from revolutionary Kienee-rhese are one and (he smne llLSk
C()mll1uni(atiml~, 1970