... I'm trying to rack my brain and remember who we studied earlier that reminded me of Whately, in that there almost appears to be a criticism of previous rhetoricians. Whately spends almost the entirety of Chapter 1 picking apart, or so it seemed to me, other rhetoricians. Maybe not what they had done wrong, but certainly placing them up for comparison.
But I'm also struck by the tone of how he is using the text to once again talk about the proper meaning and usage of rhetoric insomuch that I start to feel as if he is borrowing from previous rhetoricians, Locke comes to mind, such that each word is powerful and must be used with care.
In Chapter 2 I start to see him breaking down some previous authors, again with the intent of showing that there are certain times and places in which specific rhetoric is needed. When Whately starts to speak of religion and reformation, I almost got a sense he was channeling Augustine.
I think that this is all very necessary, though, and without rehashing the entire reading, Whately is in a sense doing the very same things that we have been doing, as a class for these last few weeks, in which he is attempting to place or categorize previous rhetoricians as to not just WHAT they are saying but HOW they are saying it, and moreover HOW what is being said is being used, or should be put to use.
While a lot of his talk is dry and reads about as exciting as a cookbook, there is a certain "rightness" in his text because he is again taking a lot of the hypothetical from previous authors and starting to place parameters and boundaries around what they are saying, and again how they are saying it and how it should be put to use.
On Page 1022 when Whately talks about Deference, I enjoyed that particular section the most because when we think about rhetoric, so often we think about using it as a way to get people to demure to our line of thought, and here Whately points out that we often times do it to ourselves, often without thinking about it, especially when it comes to matters that we are close with. I think this brings in another valid point and usage of rhetoric, overall.
I couldn't agree more with these observations on the text. I twas interesting to me how he was picking the works of different rhetoricians apart in the beginning in a way that related them to one another. It was almost as if he was making his points about each text not through his own words, but by comparing and contrasting works of rhetoric to each other justly.
ReplyDeleteI have a heard time figuring out the tone being used in this text. I read it in a way that makes it seem as though Whately is questioning and criticizing the texts of the rhetoricians mentioned, but then on the other hand the works seems completely academic so that makes me feel like I am taking it all wrong.
The point you make about his rightness is spot on in my opinion, I completely agree with you on how the way he presents his information and his thoughts give the piece a sense of "goodness" or "rightness" which is really interesting because "good" is something we often discuss in the class but I think this is a different play on the concept that we have seen before.