Tuesday, January 20, 2015

The Difference in Rhetorical Discourse



“Brutus was an honorable man” – Antony, “Julius Caesar”

As I was reading the Erasmus and Luther arguments, that line from Antony kept coming into my head. Here were two men, each trying to undermine the other, yet treating each other with respect that was, in some places, over the top. Eventually, readers of “Julius Caesar” come to see the honorable line in an ironic light, and I also came to see Erasmus and Luther’s praise for each other as ironic. They used phrases like “literary prowess and intellectuality” to build the other up while in the same breath they tore the others argument apart.

Although they each had different ideals, they both attempted to persuade—one of the pillars of rhetoric. However, in their modes of persuasion they highlight a difference between rhetorical theory of the Renaissance and current rhetorical theory.

Aristotle

Both Erasmus and Luther discussed Aristotle at some point in their argument. As an ancient discusser of rhetoric, Aristotle said that rhetoric is “the faculty of discovering in any particular case all of the available means of persuasion” (Rhetoric, book 1 chapter 2). Erasmus primarily used scriptural proofs as the mean to persuade his audience, while Luther redacted those proofs and attacked Erasmus’ way of thinking to prove his point. Both men were successful at proving their point, but only to those people who already were apologetic to their way of thinking.

Rhetorical theory today might argue a different approach than persuasion: identification. For instance, rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke, in his article “Rhetoric, Old and New,” described an idea called the Upward Way which promotes common understanding before attempting to persuade. LDS missionaries use this strategy all the time. They focus on common themes between religions and then add the new ideas of the Restoration onto those common themes. I wonder what the discourse between Erasmus and Luther would have been like had they known about identification rather than persuasion.

2 comments:

  1. I think in a way this idea of "upward way" works in a very similar way to the style of the renaissance essay. You start with common ground and then you expand on that based on your perspective and belief on the issue.

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  2. I hadn't noticed that connection to Antony's speech. However, Erasmus seemed a bit more sincere in his respectfulness to Luther, whereas Luther was very biting and sarcastic in his comments. I'm sure each appealed differently to different audiences, although Luther probably had more freedom to say whatever he wanted.

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