Read an Excerpt
Sacred Rhetoric
The Christian Grand Style in the English Renaissance
By Debora K. Shuger PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1988 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-06736-0
CHAPTER 1
THE CHARACTERS OF STYLE FROM ANTIQUITY THROUGH THE MIDDLE AGES
The Hellenic Beginnings of the Characters of Style
The genera dicendi originate in fourth-century Athens. Although Athenian culture had made the transition from craft literacy to popular literacy in the previous century, oral discourse still dominated public life. Oratory flourished in the law courts, in public meetings, at the panhellenic gatherings, at funerals, at religious ceremonies, and at banquets. Different occasions called for different types of speeches; the style used when composing the legal defense of a private citizen would naturally differ from that appropriate at a state funeral. The multiple functions of oratory in Athenian culture gave rise to a sense of distinct styles suited to different types of speeches. Thus Aristotle divides oratory into a deliberative (political), forensic, and epideictic (ceremonial) branch and assigns each a distinctive style. But the genera dicendi reflect not only the different civic functions assigned to oratory but also competing ideals within Athenian culture. The heroic ethos of epic and Aeschylean tragedy — and of Demosthenes — Isocrates' civic humanism, Socratic dialectic, the eristics and ostentation of the sophists all possessed stylistic implications. Both the connection between style and social function and this tension among ideals helped determine the early evolution of the grand style, as well as that of the other genera dicendi. Of course, the terms "grand style" and "genera dicendi" appear only much later and are Roman not Greek, but even in this early period one sees an attempt to describe a style uniquely suited to the most important and serious subjects and to differentiate kinds of style. The association of the grand style with passionate oratory emerges out of this period, but in the fourth century that definition is still at issue; the grand style simply signifies the style appropriate to the most valuable subjects. Instead, during this period two alternative definitions of grandeur coexist. One, the Isocratic, identifies the style concerned with the most valuable subjects as the highly polished epideictic oratory of the humanist statesman; the other, which is at least implicit in Aristotle, describes it as rough (skiagraphic), passionate, and deliberative. It is agonistic or "fighting" oratory and hence the inheritor of the heroic rather than the humanist ideal. Although this passionate and agonistic definition prevailed apparently unanimously, the original competition between the Isocratic and Aristotelian conceptions of grandeur meant that the grand style would subsequently be defined in opposition to the Isocratic.
Isocrates' Against the Sophists, Antidosis, and Pangyricus contain the earliest extant discussions of the characters of style. Isocrates recognizes two styles: his own ornate, rhythmic, musical compositions on the great topics of panhellenic significance and an unpolished low style practiced by forensic pleaders and suited to their petty concerns. Passion is not a criterion for either genus, nor is Isocrates' own style, although lofty, oratorical. Isocrates was a writer, not an orator, concerned with creating a beautiful artistic prose of lasting value, not with arousing the momentary assent of the crowd. Isocrates' twofold classification influenced later theory largely through Theophrastus, who, although the student of Aristotle, apparently followed Isocrates in dividing prose into a type characterized by an ornate grandeur that fuses loftiness with sweetness, and one of inartistic factual clarity. Neither Isocrates nor Theophrastus differentiates elevation and polish into distinct genera or emphasizes passion as a stylistic criterion. But even during his lifetime, Isocrates' ideal of a polished, ornate, and meticulously wrought grandeur was challenged by another student of Gorgias — Alcidamas. Alcidamas praises the rougher ex tempore oral discourse of the practical orator over the written refinements introduced by Isocrates, because the latter lacks passion, spontaneity, and truth. Their artificiality arouses suspicion and, unable to alter the set words to the precise demands of the moment, they fail to persuade. Alcidamas does not refer to a grand style, but he does suggest the criteria — passion and persuasiveness — that come to form the basis of this genus in later rhetorical theory.
Traces of this disagreement between Isocrates and Alcidamas remain in Aristotle's Rhetoric. While Isocrates contrasted low forensic rhetoric with his own panhellenic oratory, which combined both epideictic and deliberative functions, Aristotle distinguishes three types of oratory: the forensic, deliberative, and epideictic (1.3.1–1.3.6). But in Aristotle, the last two are not virtually identical but opposite. Epideictic oratory is polished, written, and aims at displaying the artistic skill of the speaker; deliberative is rougher, oral, and passionate (3.12.1–3.12.6). The former resembles the Isocratic manner, the latter that of Alcidamas. Moreover, it is deliberative oratory, not epideictic, that deals with the most important subjects of general welfare (1.1.10) and that therefore appropriately uses a loftier, although less polished, style (3.12.5, 3.7.1). Here then we have the outline of a tripartite classification of styles, the first two — the deliberative and epideictic — respectively characterized by a rough, oral intensity and polished, written meticulousness. Thus, by the fourth century B.C., the agonistic, emotional rhetoric of the forum and popular assembly emerges as a possible alternative to the Isocratic ideal.
Aristotle, however, shows no marked preference for one or the other, nor does he arrange them in hierarchical genera. Not until the following century does consideration of Demosthenes' achievement lead to a complete reversal of the Isocratic paradigm. In post-Aristotelian rhetoric the passionate oratory of the practical speaker becomes the grand style; the ornate, harmoniously balanced Isocratic manner is relegated to some inferior position. Kleochares, a third-century rhetorician, thus recognizes two characters, one embracing grandeur and power, the other sweetness and plainness. These two characters differ sharply from the Isocratic, in which grandeur and sweetness together formed one style, plainness and forensic power the other. Terminological changes during this period also mark a trend away from Isocratic formulations. Beginning with Aristotle, the original term for the grand style, hadros, which refers to verbal fullness and copia, is gradually replaced by ethically nuanced terms suggesting height or size, such as megaloprepes and hypselos. This verbal change suggests a shift in the criteria for the grand style, from surface richness and verbal copia to more inward qualities like emotional intensity or grandeur of conception.
The question of terminology for the grand style brings us back to Aristotle and the Classical period once more. Two of the terms Aristotle uses to describe that style which rises above the ordinary and clear are striking. In the beginning of Book in of the Rhetoric he notes that "departure from the ordinary makes it [language] appear more dignified ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII])" (3.2.2). Dignity is not only a regular attribute of the genus grande in Demetrius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Hermogenes, but it is also Aristotle's own term for the language of tragedy in the Poetics. Similarly, in the Rhetoric, Aristotle offers rules for creating loftiness of style (3.6.1), where the Greek word translated as "loftiness" is actually ogkos or "massiveness"— a term Aristotle associates with the bulk and richness of epic." Aristotle thus borrows his own terms for tragic and epic language from the Poetics and applies them to those qualities of prose that lift it above the ordinary and clear. Although he does not develop the association, he at least suggests that poetry and poetic criticism may lie behind the development of the rhetorical grand style. If we move back again in time to the late fifth century, this is precisely what we find.
One of the most valuable early documents on the meaning of the genera dicendi is not concerned with rhetoric at all but is instead an analysis of Aeschylean and Euripidean tragedy — The Frogs (405 B.C.) of Aristophanes. The issues involved in this debate over dramatic poetry, however, are identical to those treated throughout ancient rhetoric: the contrasting philosophical and aesthetic implications of the genus grande and the Isocratic or sophistic style. Wesley Trimpi writes, "The stylistic differences between Euripides and Aeschylus correspond to Aristotle's distinctions between the style of written speeches which are [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (tenuis), highly finished and narrow in scope, and the 'larger, freer, bolder tone required by the loftier and more comprehensive subjects' of deliberative oratory." Even a brief analysis of the debate should prove useful for understanding the values and ideals lying behind varying stylistic allegiances.
Aristophanes criticizes Aeschylus's fondness for lengthy, high-flown diction. He is "the thunder-voiced monarch" (815), "uncurbed, unfettered, uncontrolled of speech, / ... bombastiloquent" (837ff). But Aeschylean tragedy involves more than "plume waving words" (816); like the genus grande it possesses a fiery, passionate, and difficult style, the product of a heroic and lofty mind. The chorus thus praises Aeschylus's "fiery soul," his "noble heart," and "high loftily-towering verse" (995ff). For Aristophanes, the basic defect of Euripides lies in his rejection of the heroic virtues of the Homeric statesman-warrior (995ff.). The loss of the heroic ideal destroys the splendid, passionate eloquence of archaic epic and tragedy. To Euripides' remark that dramatic characters should speak like men not demigods, Aeschylus replies, "for mighty thoughts and heroic aims,/ the words themselves must appropriate be" (1056).
The qualities of Aeschylean tragedy — its verbal splendor, passion, noble themes, and soldierlike strength — closely resemble those of the grand style, suggesting that the origin of this rhetorical genus cannot be restricted to the poetic style of Isocrates or even the psychagogic vehemence of the great Attic orators. The light of heroic sublimity and noble endeavor that illuminates later descriptions of the grand style derives from the legacy of epic and tragedy. From these the purely pragmatic elements of persuasive rhetoric acquire a new moral and spiritual elevation. Not inappropriately, then, did Cicero term the "grandis" speaker a "tragicus orator" (Brutus 203).
Aristophanes' description of Euripides evokes a surprisingly complex picture of the sophistic style, one which links this style to a variety of tendencies operating within the Greek Enlightenment. On the one hand, Euripides' poetry has much in common with the dialectical plain style. Thus the chorus notes his clarity, logical subtlety, and radical questioning (900, 975). These, of course, are the attributes of pre-Socratic sophists like Protagoras. Also, the Euripidean manner seems to have something in common with the low forensic style scorned by Isocrates. Aeschylus complains that Euripides badgered the inmates of Hell with "his twists/And turns, and pleas and counterpleas" (773–74). The association of sophistic and plain style appears again when Euripides boasts how he made ancient tragedy "slim down ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII])" (941) and when the chorus describes him as "dissecting, detracting, maligning / ... and with subtle analysis paring / The lung's large labor away" (825–29). The realism of Euripidean tragedy (961, 1056) also links it with the drive toward verisimilar accuracy characteristic of the plain style genres of satire and comedy. On the other hand, this style betrays the softness and polish characteristic of the genus medium. The chorus speaks of Euripides' poetry as "splinters,/ And phrases smoothed down with the plane" (917–18); he wields "with artistic skill, / Clearcut phrases, and wit refined" (901). Aeschylus accuses him of introducing effeminate melodies and harlotry into his verses (849, 1043).
That the sophistic style displays both the polish of the genus medium and the dialectical subtleties native to the genus tenue gains particular significance from the fact that Hendrickson implied just the opposite: that while the origins of the grand style lay in the artistic prose of the sophists, the plain style evolved from philosophy, in particular Stoic extensions of Aristotelian dialectic. The description of Euripides' language in The Frogs, however, suggests that both the plain and middle styles share a common ancestry in sophistic, the one developing its logical acumen, clarity, and realism, the other its lascivious refinement. Aristophanes' implied division of style into a tragic genus grande over and against the sophistic attributes of subtlety and polish better corresponds to the distinctions felt by antiquity than does Hendrickson's division into oratory, embracing both power and refinement, versus dialectic. Alongside the psychagogic power of the practical orator, the grand style preserves the connotations of heroic strength and noble idealism that link it to the values of epic and tragedy, while the plain and middle styles often seem by contrast scholastic and umbratilis — the marks of the sophist's logical sharpness and verbal ostentation.
The Triple Tradition of the Grand Style
The central traditions of the genera dicendi emerge from this early period. These systems of classification, which we may call the anti-Isocratic, the Theophrastean, and the poetic, blend and intertwine in later rhetorics, giving each of the genera considerable latitude — a latitude that has given rise to some confusion. For example, in the Theophrastean tradition, which conjoins power and ornate beauty, Cicero becomes the preeminent model for the grand style; but the anti-Isocratic, which separates the two, treats Thucydides as the exemplar of the loftiest type of discourse.
From the first century B.C. to the second century A.D., the central period of Classical rhetoric, the anti-Isocratic opposition of polish and power pervades all treatments of the genera dicendi. In this tradition, passion and agonistic force replace artistic refinement as criteria for the grand style. This shift has its roots in Aristotle, who, unlike Isocrates, treats the emotional aspects of rhetoric extensively and explicitly distinguishes passionate from polished discourse, the one being rough and oral, the other highly wrought and written. The inversion of Isocratic standards appears vividly in the contrasting images of the athlete and soldier frequently associated with the characters of style. This imagery probably derives from the terms for the original Isocratic genera, the full (hadros) and the thin (ischnos), which are based on contrasting bodily types. The Isocratic grand style resembles the fleshy, well-developed, and harmoniously proportioned figure of the athlete, while the low forensic style has a soldierlike tautness and lean muscularity. By the third century B.C., however, the evaluation implied by these body types has begun to shift, so that soldierly strength and power come to seem "grander" than full-fleshed, conspicuous symmetry. Kleochares thus compares Isocrates' style to the body of an athlete, Demosthenes' to that of a soldier. Yet for him the latter's agonistic strength and emotional power do not seem "low," but instead constitute true elevation. In subsequent centuries, the contrast between the athlete and soldier, the gymnasium and the battlefield, invariably distinguishes the balanced sweetness of Isocratic prose from the new Demosthenean grand style with its fierce and passionate grandeur. This contrast appears throughout Classical rhetoric, from the first century B.C. onward. So Cicero, speaking of Demetrius of Phaleron, remarks that "his training was less for the field than for the parade-ground (palaestra). He entertained rather than stirred his countrymen; for he came forth into the heat and dust (sol etpulvis) of action, not from a soldier's tent, but from the shady retreat (umbraculum) of the great philosopher Theophrastus" (Brutus 36–37). Quintilian likewise notes, "in those portions of our speech which deal with the actual question at issue we require not the swelling thews of the athlete, but the wiry sinews of the soldier" (10.1.33). He later adds, "[Isocrates] is neat and polished and better suited to the fencing-school (palaestra) than to the battlefield" (10.1.79). Tacitus echoes the same antithesis: "And I maintain that the only orator is, and ever has been one who, like a soldier equipped at all points going to the battle-field, enters the forum armed with every learned accomplishment" (32.2).
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Sacred Rhetoric by Debora K. Shuger. Copyright © 1988 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
