The comparison of Cicero’s De Inventione and De Oratore
really struck home with me in something that has been on my mind quite a bit
recently. This time of the year here at BYU is the time where a lot of
companies are recruiting for internships in my field, and I hear so many of my
fellow students say that they “know” they want to pursue a certain type of work
in my field. In asking these fellow students of mine why they feel so strongly
about a certain discipline of our future field they rarely respond with a sensible
or logical answer, to provide any reason to their decision. I see this concept
mirrored in Cicero’s writing, as it is an easy comparison to make because Cicero
wrote De Inventione as a “graduating”
student himself.
In De Inventione Cicero
expresses much of what any student would express if asked about their studies:
basically a recitation of their text books, and the knowledge of what was
originally learned by professionals in that subject. Cicero more or less
repeats what we learn from Aristotle’s systemization of rhetoric with some of
his own thoughts and take always, which does show that he truly understands the
material. However, just because we understand something doesn’t mean that we
may be necessarily good at it or like the material we know so well. At this
point, Oratory has yet to be proven in Cicero’s own life. This is where De Oratre comes in.
Has Cicero changed or developed his ideas after 30 years of
legal & political experience? De
Oratre shows that the answer to this question is that Cicero has applied
his knowledge and developed not only a reinforced knowledge of oratory through
experience, but his own conclusions about oratory in practice. “Yet no
discipline yields greater rewards or has done more for civilization than
oratory” is one of the many clear statements that Cicero makes that shows he now
understands rhetoric at a level in which he is able to teach rhetorical theory
of his own. De Oratre is evidence
that even Cicero, a genius in the art of rhetoric, needed experience applying
his knowledge in order to come to a full understanding of it.