All students will be reading the Declaration of Independence, in which we can identify many of the traits of this genre of discourse. Then, each student (as assigned) will be responsible to do a rhetorical analysis of a specific writing from our text. They will take notes on their individual speeches, which they will discuss in small groups early next week (March 9th), and then they will formalize this into a blog post, a more polished rhetorical analysis.
I'd like to draw attention to several traits of this kind of discourse, so that these can be analytical categories to assist them.
Context
Revolutionary writings are always intimately tied to the historical setting and circumstances that give rise to the felt need to act and to speak. (See the rhetorical concept of kairos or the rhetorical situation). What are the larger or more proximate occasions that gave rise to this particular speech or writing?
Such writings, at least since the Enlightenment, also seem to have an international or global context to them. Revolutionaries look beyond national boundaries, often, just as they look beyond class divisions -- both for trends that justify their current actions and for including those of the same economic status despite differing political affiliations.
Epideictic Oratory
Revolutionary rhetoric is typically epideictic in nature -- more oriented to the present moment, and often employing two common modes of epideictic speech, encomium and especially vituperation (speeches of praise and of blame). It is often filled with complaint and blame. Who or what are the people or factors that are blamed?
Pathos
Revolutionary writing may be expository or explanatory in parts, but its main mode is inspirational and provocative. In short, such discourse is emotionally charged; it appeals through pathos. The question becomes, how and when does the writer move from communicating ideas (logos) to urging action or change through an emotional appeal (pathos)?
Ethos
A strong group identification pervades revolutionary writings, which are often written in the first person plural. This is tied in with the class consciousness that is so common in such writings. The appeal by character, or ethos, is an appeal made at least in part through identification and by suggesting or promoting a solidarity or common cause.
Narrative
Revolutionary writings almost always involve some kind of narratio, a recounting of history leading up to the need for action or change in the present. How is such storytelling structured? What concepts of history are present? Who are the characters in play within the stories told in these writings?
Style
Revolutionary rhetoric typically is not quiet. Ideas are delivered usually within an elevated or grand style. And even when written, there is a very strong sense of revolutionary rhetoric being oral, as though the writer was actually in a public gathering, a crowd. There is an oral style. At the same time, the style is accessible, not erudite. Revolutionaries are not talking to scholars, but to the people at large.
Figures of Speech
It is common in the rhetoric of revolution for there to be uses of exclamatio or apostrophe, as well as various kinds of verbal repetition. Specific places, occasions, or people are described or sometimes made into caricatures. This draws upon the ability to paint vivid word pictures (ecphrasis) or any of the other figures of description. Above, pathos was mentioned as a principal mode of appeal in this kind of discourse. There are accompanying figures of pathos that manifest this emotional quality. Among these, the rhetorical question often happens, as when one uses a question to chide or complain (epiplexis).
Topics of Invention
Revolutionary writings draw broadly upon the various topics of invention or commonplaces of speech, but may dwell on some of these more strongly than others. For example, arguments about history or that look to the future involve appeals to past fact / future fact or to antecedent / consequence. The ideological and moral valence of revolutionary rhetoric often involves judicial topics of invention such as justice / injustice.
Students should pay attention to other special topics of invention that seem to recur in revolutionary writing. What are the common types of proof offered in arguments for radical change and revolution?
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