Assignment: Analyzing the Encomium of Helen

There are a few purposes for this assignment (due Monday, 9/14/15). I want my students to

• understand the respect the ancient Greeks had for the power of speech and persuasion
• become familiar with three genres of speeches from antiquity
• begin practicing rhetorical analysis

Was Helen of Troy Persuaded, or Persuasive?

First, go to Silva Rhetoricae and read the sections about the Branches of Oratory (see the menu on the left side, and go through each of the three types listed there). Be ready for a quiz on these.

Next, you will read a short speech, the Encomium of Helen by Gorgias. Here is the background on that speech. Gorgias was one of the earliest sophists, those "logographers" and itinerant teachers who sold their services training people to compose speeches (or doing it for them). The sophists would often advertise their services by showing off their abilities in practice speeches. That is what this speech is. Obviously he isn't defending the real Helen, who lived 800 years before Gorgias. But everyone knew the story of Helen of Troy from the Iliad. Gorgias set himself the task of defending Helen as though she were his client in court. Wow! If you can convince people that the woman who started the Trojan war was innocent, wouldn't that be someone you'd want to hire to help you in your own legal cases? 

Memeology

To respond to Courtney's and Adam's posts:

Courtney, your examples of cause and effect are also great representations of the almighty enthymeme, which I had no idea happened so often in oratory, writing, and everyday life. Let's take a look at a couple that are different from the ones you mentioned:

1) In paragraph three, Gorgias says that

• Helen's father "was in fact the god...Zeus"

so she

• "was the foremost of the foremost men and women." 

Because everyone in ancient Greek society held the view that the gods were greater than man, and Gorgias knew that, he leaves out the premise "gods are the foremost of, or better than, all mankind" (in this case, the middle premise).

2) In paragraphs 18 and 19, Gorgias discusses how

• perfect bodies are "a pleasant sight to the eyes"

and

• Helen "[took] pleasure" in seeing Alexander.

Again, because Gorgias understands the knowledge his audience has--about the story of Helen in general--he need not add "Alexander had perfect abs" or whatever he would have added (also the middle premise).

Now, as Adam says, we're not really persuaded by this stuff. Gorgias unfortunately didn't have any knowledge about US, about this new and different audience, and our feelings and views. Because of this, he couldn't tailor his enthymemes to appeal to us (kind of going into the topic for the next post). Gorgias was, however, incredibly aware of his audience of ancient Greeks. Thus, his speech would have been more (though maybe not entirely) persuasive to them. Interestingly enough, we still understand the enthymemes Gorgias uses because the story of Helen and the ways of ancient Greeks are still known topics today. Plus, it's easy to determine the middle premises because enthymemes are so familiar to us anyway. (So familiar that we hardly notice them).

Topics of Invention prove Helen's Innocence

From the beginning of the "encomium of Helen" Gorgais uses the comparison topic of invention, specifically the similarity and difference subtopic.  Gorigas explains compares a well-manned city to a beautiful body, a soul full of wisdom, and an excellent deed. By using these  comparisons, we the audience can get a glimpse into the what the Greeks valued and thought were of a higher value. It also shows us the thought process and the reasoning behind his argument that Helen is innocent; he first states common truths that society would accept.

Bringing up her heritage and naming her parents, Tyndareus and Zeus, tied in the testimony topic of invention, especially the supernatural subtopic. Calling upon gods or deity is exactly what this topic of invention id defined as. It looks past reasoning and uses the existence of an all-powerful being to explain the discourse of events. Gorgias uses Helen's parents and their power and beauty, that was then passed onto her, as a reasoning behind her infidelity. She could not help it if men looked to her with absolute beauty and lust, she was born with it and there is nothing that shoe could have done differently that would have changed the outcome of the situation.

In conclusion, Gorgais uses these topics of invention to help defend Helen and make it known that she was not to blame. This is the exact objective of the judicial oratory which is clearly evident in this encomium. Gorgias is looking to past events in order to defend Helen's case. Although Helen was not alive at the time that Gorgias wrote his encomium, he is making an effort to avenge her, and bring justice to her name by pleading her casse to the public, and persuading them to believe that she is innocent and should not be blames for the Trojan War.

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.

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. 

Popular Persuasion: Opinions are greater than Truth

Introduction

            This rhetorical analysis of Gorgias’s Encomium of Helen will focus on two chief parts of the judiciary oratory convention that Gorgias implements to various effectiveness: enthymeme and the topic of invention of testimony.

Enthymeme

Aristotle codified enthymemes as a way that
judiciary rhetoricians persuaded the jury.
Today, we are much more aware of what
"memes" are than what enthymemes are.
Would grumpy cat approve of our lack
of rhetorical knowledge?

Rather than being truly epideictic, Gorgias’s Encomium of Helen is more of a judiciary rhetoric.  Gorgias speaks of the past only and uses chiefly enthymemes, which are, according to Aristotle’s Rhetoric, most suited for judiciary rhetoric.  Enthymemes are informal logic that leaves out either a major or minor premise.  They rely chiefly on popular opinions rather than truth to persuade others.  Enthymeme is employed, among many other cases, when Gorgias claims, “For the will of a god cannot be hindered by human forethought. For it is not natural for the superior to be hindered by the inferior, but for the inferior to be ruled…by the superior….accordingly, if one must attribute responsibility to…the gods, one must acquit Helen of infamy.”  Here, the obvious and common premise that all humans are inferior to the gods is left out of the argument.  These enthymemes are highly efficient to Gorgias’s argument.  He relies on the popular opinion to prove his case.  His arguments, thus, seem logical and indisputable to his audience even though they are not based on pure truth.  Gorgias also secretly employs the pathos of appealing to popular belief whilst maintaining a somewhat deceiving appearance of logic.

Gorgias relies chiefly on enthymemes rather than testimony to
prove Helen as innocent.  Both are methods that Aristotled 
codified as useful for judiciary rhetoric.  However, not
including more instances of testimonymight not be the 
most effective approach.

Testimony 

  Unlike the use of enthymeme to great effect, Gorgias loses some of his ethos and credibility by not truly examining another important judiciary convention—testimony.  Gorgias does not examine any testimony except appealing briefly to the supernatural and the written law.  He calls on the supernatural to acquit Helen as one can see in the previous paragraph, which is effective as an enthymeme.  However, if the popular opinion did not support the supernatural as a motivator, he would lose its effective testimony.  Furthermore, Gorgias briefly compares the ineffectiveness of written law, saying it is not always effective: “For the strong habitual force of law is banished because of the fear prompted by the sight [of battle].”  Here, he attempts to prove that law might be overcome by fear and thus is not Helen’s fault if she does not obey law.  This argument is effective to an extent, but because Gorgias calls upon no other testimony to prove Helen innocent, he is a bit ineffective in this sort of argument.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

"It is in the nature of the visual sense to
long for some things" -Gorgias    

The sum of Wendy's, McDonalds,
Taco Bell, Panda, pasta, and the Creamery

My roommates gave in,
not I.

Two years ago I witnessed my friends surrender to a very irrational persuasive influence known as the Gilmore Girl sitcom.

In said television show, the mother and daughter binge on fast food when times get tough. They give in to the body's natural desire to eat, much like Helen's natural desire to follow after Alexander, as explained in Gorgias' "Helen's Encomium." After my friends watched episodes of binge eating, they wanted to give it a try. One night during finals week, I accompanied them to seven different fast-food restaurants and...the rest is history. My point is that Gorgias is right when he says, "It is in the nature of the visual sense to long for some things and for other things to give it pain. And in many there is produced much love and desire for many things." By simply seeing the Gilmore Girls eat incessantly, my roommates desired to do the same.

But is Gorgias logical when he claims that such actions, brought about by seeing, "ought not to be blamed as a sin but ought rather to be accounted a misfortune"? I don't think so. We have been given agency, as Katie J mentioned, and we are expected to choose the right over the wrong. I believe Gorgias' logos fails when he ignores the fact that an attraction to one choice or the other is necessary to act on our agency. He makes it sound as though seeing something automatically persuades one to act upon it. Although such was the case with my roommates, I believe that in most cases we are more rational creatures, endowed by God with the ability to discern, and have the power to say, "I see the good or the bad here, and I will choose the good." Helen really did have the choice to follow after Alexander or not. She wasn't so forced into it as Gorgias claims.

Did I Miss Something Here?

I was under the impression that Gorgias was trying to defend Helen in what seemed like a court of law. Yet, while he started out well enough, giving Helen ethos and building up sympathetic pathos, I was expecting a lot more logos for an appeal to a court room. He is obviously a skilled rhetorician, but his argument didn't seem to hold much merit when actually analyzed. She was obviously involved in some love affair, and his reason that she is innocent is that she is an innocent girl overcome by a goddess. I wonder if a similar argument would work for someone who murdered someone else. Were they overcome by Ares? Or someone who stole, were they influenced by Hermes? This piece was very aptly named as an “Encomium” is a speech of praise, not one of argument. In my opinion the speech was talking about Helen, not her innocence, but maybe I am just missing an important argument he makes. Does anyone think they can clarify for me?

Anyway, I have quite a few humorous experiences with rhetoric but one that applies the best is probably the time I was babysitting for a little boy and his sister. The boy wanted to do something he wasn't supposed to but he didn’t want to get in trouble by himself. I don't remember exactly what the intended “crime” was, but let's say it was taking another cookie for simplicity’s sake. So as I am sitting right by them he leans over and in a loud whisper says to his sister, "hey let's take a cookie." She protested. "C'mon! It will be fun and we won't get in trouble. Trust me." Then they both look at me guiltily as they start to do whatever it was they weren't supposed to do. I was amazed at how fast this little boy won over his sister. At that moment he was a master rhetorician; he knew his audience wanted a cookie also, he got her emotionally compromised, and he established his ethos by claiming to be trustworthy. However, like Gorgias’ speech, his argument was not very sound; especially since I heard every word.

I Pity the Fool (who is so Easily Persuaded)

Gorgias’s Encomium of Helen attempts to acquit Helen from the crime of causing the Trojan war.  Gorgias claims Helen was either persuaded by the higher authority of the gods, abducted by force, or, his most important point, persuaded and conquered by love.  Gorgias, though a rhetorician himself, insists that “those who have persuaded and do persuade are shapers of lying discourse.”  Furthermore, he expounds upon the idea that “He who persuaded…did wrong; while she who was persuaded as one constrained by means of discourse is wrongly blamed.”  Is he being a hypocrite when he tries to persuade us that persuasion is bad?  And is there no chance of it being Helen’s fault because she was so easily persuaded? 

Is Gorgias Genuine?

             Maybe Gorgias’s take on persuasion is already a little doubtful because he is a persuasionist.  He obviously wanted to persuade us that persuasion is wrong in order to acquit the beautiful, legendary Helen of her crimes.  As a Sophist, Gorgias was most interested in persuading people and creating belief.  He was not so much concerned with truth.  Therefore, it stands to reason that Gorgias could be a hypocrite while still convincing others that persuasion is incredibly wrong.  He did not try to delve into the psyche of Helen, just prove that she was innocent.  Furthermore, Gorgias’s lexis, or the style and delivery of his speech, becomes extremely persuasive himself because he employs various examples of how common people cannot help but be persuaded by superiors and Love.  This hypocritical but effective persuasion reminds me of the time where my brother Jake persuaded me to have an “eat-your-ice-cream-as-fast-as-you-can” contest because it would be fun.  I ate mine in three bites and he hypocritically, slowly savored his. 

Mr. T would not approve of Helen's decisions.

 

Is Helen Easily Persuadable?

            Although Gorgias claims that the persuaders are totally and utterly at fault, I completely disagree.  We all have our agency.  However, it is much easier and popular for Gorgias to claim we are not at fault when we are persuaded to do something dumb than for us to suck it up and take responsibility.  Gorgias as a Sophist was more interested in popularity than right or wrong.  Helen, then, should have some responsibility for her persuasion.  Likewise, when, persuaded by anger and hunger, I angrily grabbed Jake’s unfinished ice-cream, I could have blamed Jake as the original persuader, but in actuality, I needed to blame myself for my own actions.

Ice Cream is a Understated yet Powerful Form
             of Persuasion, especially when younger brothers
          still have theirs when you are finished.