Helen: the in-depth perspective

Considering that few people in our class seem to have enjoyed Gorgias' "Encomium of Helen", I decided to give it another chance, now that I have a better understanding of rhetoric in general.

Recognizing first that Gorgias is a sophist - skilled in the ways of persuasion, I recognized that he used several of the skills that Aristotle pointed out. He defends Helen using judicial oratory as the story of her fate occurred centuries before him. He sets it up like a court case, and makes an interesting point in that it is needed to visit this subject, as we humans seldom learn from the past and thereby repeat our mistakes.

"For if all people possessed memory concerning all things past, and awareness of all things present, and foreknowledge of all things to come, discourse would not be similarly similar; hence it is not now easy to remember the past or consider the present or foretell the future;"

Gorgias use of hyperbole to magnify her tragic life may be
impressive, but it doesn't convince many.

Gorgias then uses a common but classic combination in his argument. He uses amplification for each of his points to Helen's alleged innocence, but adds hyperbole with them, exaggerating Helen with finesse to convince for his cause. He describes her as a goddess on earth, who could woo all men with the same skill as Aphrodite. He dramatizes the event of her betrayal and victimizes her, each time elaborating on another use of rhetoric that Courtney described in her post: Cause and effect.

From this, I conclude that the man was indeed skilled in understanding the many underlying powers that rhetoric possesses - even before a time when they were catagorized, which does add a bit of credibility in my eyes. Sadly, his work fails to bring up any kairos and there is also a significant lack of ethos which fail once again to convince me of her innocence.

The Master of Disguise

Was Pericles’ funeral oration really an epideictic masterpiece?  The first time I read the piece I thought it odd for a funeral speech; although there was praise I found it more to be praise of Athens rather than praise of the soldiers.  While reading Aristotle’s Rhetoric I found some interesting insights to help categorize the type of rhetoric Pericles used in his funeral oration.

Aristotle, when speaking of advisory rhetoric or deliberative, states that the orator needs to give advice on what is advantageous and good.  He goes into further detail by describing what makes something considered “good”.  He includes courage and honor in the definition.  He states that “if be cowards is the most advantageous thing for one’s enemies, it is evident that courage is the most beneficial thing for the citizens” (Aristotle Rhetoric, page 152).  Pericles goes into great detail to emphasize the importance of courage in the citizens of Athens.  We may consider this praise but with Aristotle’s insight we can view it in the light that Pericles was exhorting them to continue to be courageous in war. 

Was Pericles a master of disguise?

When speaking of deliberative rhetoric Aristotle quotes Pericles’ funeral oration (Aristotle Rhetoric, page 158).  He then goes on to the importance of one who is advising or warning to “grasp all forms of government” so that one may know the things that are advantageous to them in order to preserve the form of government (Aristotle Rhetoric, page 159).  Pericles goes into great deal praising the democracy in Athens.  As a political leader this was important to him and he wanted to preserve it.  I feel that instead of praising the soldiers who had died, Pericles used the opportunity to encourage the people to continue to fight for the form of government that they had established which was superior in his viewpoint.  He even encouraged the women to have more children which could eventually become soldiers and protect the magnificent Athens. 

In my understanding from Aristotle’s Rhetoric, I would classify Pericles’ Funeral Oration as a deliberative piece although the setting seemed appropriate for an epideictic speech.  

Reaching Pleasant Conclusions

While I was reading the Aristotle text, a section that really stood out to me was his theology regarding pleasantness of activities. Aristotle said, “there are many things that are not pleasant by nature that people do with pleasure because they are so accustomed to them” (170). True to sophist style, he truly noted the dualism of experiences. I was especially intrigued when he noted how bad events could have good memories thus making the experience pleasant because it is no longer being endured. “It is truly pleasant to remember troubles after one is saved from them” (172).  

This was extremely prevalent in The Funeral Oration of Pericles. The timing of this speech is evidence of the accuracy of Aristotle’s words aforementioned. The speech was given several days after the conclusion of the first battles of the Peloponnesian War. In a sense, the peoples’ “troubles” were momentarily over; thus, making it easy for Pericles to be so optimistic in his manner of presentation. In hindsight, it was easy to say that those who had fallen fell because they had a true understanding of patriotism and wanted to die for their country. However, I personally don’t believe this. I think it is much more likely that those fallen soldiers were not entirely sure what is was they were dying for. They didn’t know their last battles would actually be the first of many in a war. Maybe they showed up because of their understanding of gender roles, maybe all those in their immediate circle supported the war efforts, or maybe in fact they had an understanding of glory and honor if they died and they excitedly sought such an end. Whatever the true intentions were, Pericles at the conclusion of those troubles was able to paint a picture of good, pleasant, and noble causes which motivated them to die.

We are guilty of this today. We do it when we write in journals, retell stories, and give talks in church. Even if our initial motives are not noble at all, we often seek to connect and claim righteous motives and outlooks so that even bad events have an empowering spiritual context. Contemplation of events and time to ponder them lead to such conclusions.

Helen Revisited

After rereading Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen with the new outlook of someone who has read Aristotle, I was able to pick up on things that I had missed before. For example, the Encomium is actually the perfect example of how to practice telling the difference between Antecedent/Consequence and Cause/Effect, both under the Relationship Topic of Invention, simply because there are so many examples of each.

Cause/Effect

              Helen was born of noble parentage SO she had godlike beauty

              Helen was young SO she could easily be overpowered or persuaded

              The above sayings are true SO I, Gorgias, have proven my point

Antecedent/Consequence

              IF the gods made her do it THEN she is innocent

              IF she was taken by force THEN she is the victim

              IF she was persuasively deceived THEN she should be acquitted

Testimony?

Under scrutiny, the Encomium becomes less of a concrete argument and more of an artistic proof because Gorgias rhetorically created the speech himself. He does not have any witnesses, authorities, or documents proving him correct. He does reference the gods, but only in attempt to expound on one of his antecedents. Some of his information is based on rumors, but since he addresses all of the stories people have said concerning Helen instead of using rumors as proof, I do not think that is enough of a testimony to take away from the artistic nature of his proof.

Katie also talked about the apparent lack of testimony in her blog and I think that this topic lends itself to a discussion on kairos. Since Gorgias wasn’t actually trying to defend Helen, who had long since died, the question becomes what was his intended audience and purpose? If he is truly just trying to show off his rhetorical skills as a form of personal advertisement, maybe his lack of testimony was calculated. His audience didn’t want a lecture as much as they wanted a show of rhetorical finesse.

Things not as they appear

After reading Aristotle’s Book 1 on Rhetoric I found some new insight by rereading Pericles’ Funeral Oration. One might look at this ceremonial speech as a tribute to those who had fallen, but based on some historical background discussed our class and guided by Aristotle’s Rhetoric, we might see that things aren’t always as they seem. While it might have seemed to the Athenians that Pericles was honoring the fallen warriors, I believe that Pericles was using the ceremony as an opportunity to promote his own desires.

A typical epideictic speech focuses on displaying, singling out, and praising specific virtues of an individual such as courage, honor, charity, or strength as shown by Pericles as he discusses the sacrifice of the warriors.  What was interesting to me was the virtues that Pericles singled out and praised were the very virtues he hoped to see in the Athenians that would help promote his dream of establishing an empire.

I’m not stating that this is a wrong or evil thing for him to do, but I was surprised by how my opinion of his speech changed after reading Aristotle’s Rhetoric. What I once viewed as words of praise and honor, I began to see as words of persuasion; persuasion to become the type of people Pericles was describing. I have no doubt that the fallen Greek warriors had many attributes, some favorable, others not as favorable, it is also possible that those fallen didn’t die as heroic a death as he described, yet he chose to focus the minds of the audience on a grand idea, “Beautiful Athens, something worth dying for”. We have no idea if this was the cause that these warriors were fighting for or not. For all we know they could have been mindless fighting machines merely following Pericles command, yet the way it is portrayed is to paint the picture of a glorious cause surrounded by all the virtues we admire.  

The Battle Against no Foe

Largely in response to John's post, I would like to piggyback off of the cause and effect theme he discussed.  Due to the judicial nature of Gorgias' Encomium of Helen, reasoning is everything.  There must be a cause and effect, an A leading to a B.  With Gorgias, he sides with and defends the underdog, Helen, so that he might woo listeners with seemingly flawless pathing of logos.  In reality, Gorgias mostly lures in the audience with sweet words so that they can watch him glory in beating up a straw man.  Gorgias sequentially lays down the pieces of his case without an opponent to rebut, simply reveling in how amazing he is with the occasional "Am I right or am I right?" to the audience.  There was no real concern for the case itself. 

Aside from that digression and going on to Katie's post, though Gorgias does attempt to make his monologue epideictic in nature by praising Helen's hopeless frailty to the power of the gods, the method he utilized was one of judiciary rhetoric.  Going back to the opening theme of the previous paragraph, Gorgias piles enthymeme upon enthymeme so as to amass sound reasoning for a case he most likely cares nothing for.  Gods are superior to men, so who was to blame Helen for succumbing to the sway of Love?  Gorgias sure was not one to point his finger, as it net him more food for his ego. 

I say this is Gorgias, so this is Gorgias.  No one to contend?  Too bad.

Ceasing the bashing on Gorgias' methods and motives, as Katie said, the excellent use of Helen's inferiority to the superiority of the gods proved highly beneficial in terms of persuasion.  By taking something that hit home to the audience and following it up with skillful use of enthymemes, Gorgias was successful in unopposedly asserting his views.  Unfortunately, a single testimony proves insufficient.  Even if Gorgias was speaking the truth, he was running a one-man race.  Alone, one is both the winner and the loser.  

Cause and effect, Virtue and Vice.

In Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen we see a heavy usage of cause and effect throughout the entirety of the speech. This make a lot of sense in a judicial speech because one needs to describe why something happened. Why did someone do something? What caused it? However I might classify this particular speech epideictic in nature. The word encomium actually means “praise of a person or thing”, it also is nearly synonymous with the word epideictic, which means "fit for display." Gorgias is bold enough to praise Helen so that he might flex his rhetorical muscles. He praises and defends a woman reviled by the Greeks for her lewdness. Gorgias still uses cause and effect in his faux-judicial speech as he analyzes why Helen left subsequently starting the Trojan War.  Her actions are clarified by defining several plausible causes i.e. abduction, the will of the gods, love etc. Through dissection of the plausible causes of Helen’s abdication Gorgias acquits her of her charge by stating that what she did was permissible. Circumstance demanded that she had to do what she did. He argues that one cannot blame Helen.

It is important to note the idea of virtue and vice which is mentioned in the ninth chapter in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Basically virtue is good and beautiful, and vice is evil and ugly. The common coconscious between the Greeks at that time is that what Helen did fell under the vice category and therefore shameful. Gorgias infers that it is more shameful to accuse Helen in ignorance. In the very last paragraph Gorgias says, “I tried to put an end to the injustice of blame and ignorance of opinion.” In reality I’m sure Gorgias doesn’t really care about clearing Helen, I think he is more concerned with showing his prowess in speaking.