To be quite honest, I haven't read any Plato, Socrates, etc. So while I am studying this from a rhetoric standpoint, it is also my first introduction to these writers and their content. But the quote that really caught my eye was this:
"Then if this speech is approved, the writer leaves the theater with great delight; but if it is not recorded and he is not granted the privileged of speech-writing and is not considered worthy to be an author, he is grieved, and his friends with him."
I think I latched onto this because it remind me of another paper I read in my Digital Rhetoric class that I am also taking this semester. It was an article James Porter on intertextuality and discourse communities. Porter makes the same argument that Socrates does in Phaedrus: that to some extent writers write to fit their writing community. I am not sure where I stand on this: do we write to fit into a mold, or is it more creative than that? The very fact that we are studying the Sophists, and that I can connect them to a more or less modern rhetorician seems to support the 'conform' theory of rhetoric/writing, but there have obviously been changes in rhetoric over the centuries, which supports the creative/innovative theory. And then I'm back to trying to decide where I fall on the spectrum.....
I find this entire post fascinating! You've got some clear insight here, but I do have to pose one question: despite there having been changes in rhetoric over the years, has much really changed? Sure we have shifted over from a prowess in oratorical skills to a focus on the written language, but the elements, when juxtaposed (as you have done with this class and your Digital Rhetoric class), cast very similar shadows.
ReplyDeleteYet I digress. Your quote poses the question that I was most interested in (and what I wrote my blog post about): the presentation of what we want to write (or speak) about. Near the beginning of this text, Socrates explains that he was caught up in Phaedrus divine frenzy due to how impassioned he was with what he was speaking. This shows that how you deliver is more important then what you deliver. I think this reinforces that point. I’m curious to what your thoughts are on this though, and would love to continue discussing this idea with you!
It's all a terrible, terrible cycle. In order to be innovative, we have to still meet the needs of the community which may cause restrictions on being innovative, but those restrictions in some cases allow us to be innovative in new ways that we couldn't have done without the restrictions.
ReplyDeleteJust as texts both hold themselves together and break themselves apart because of intertextuality, the demands of the audience and our responses to them work together to keep meaning together and at the same time expand it.
Of course, there are always many other ways of communicating - which is where we get into the conversation about literacy and kairos. I guess I'm just stuck at 8 am in WRIT 371. Good connections you made, though!