UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID FACULTAD DE FILOLOGÍA Departamento de Filología Inglesa II TESIS DOCTORAL La retórica como herramienta analítica Rhetoric as analytical tool MEMORIA PARA OPTAR AL GRADO DE DOCTOR PRESENTADA POR Michael Fosmire Director Juan Manuel Núñez Yusta Madrid, 2015 ISBN: 978-84-608 -1535-8 © Michael Fosmire, 2013 UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOGÍA INGLESA II FACULTAD DE FILOLOGÍA LA RETÓRICA COMO HERRAMIENTA ANALÍTICA RHETORIC AS ANALYTICAL TOOL TESIS DOCTORAL Presentada por: Michael Fosmire Dirigida por: Dr. D. Juan Manuel Núñez Yusta Madrid, 2013 DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOGÍA INGLESA II UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID LA RETÓRICA COMO HERRAMIENTA ANALÍTICA RHETORIC AS ANALYTICAL TOOL Tesis Doctoral presentada por MICHAEL FOSMIRE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my profound gratitude to: My dissertation advisor, Dr. Juan Manuel Núñez Yusta, for his invaluable input and guidance both as a professional and as a friend. Dr. Rosalie Henderson, for providing me every opportunity to devote time to the present study. My mother and father, for their constant love and support. For my mother 7 8 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION / METHODOLOGY 11 PART 1 A GENERAL OVERVIEW 25 1.1 THE STRUGGLE TO DEFINE RHETORIC 27 1.2 RHETORIC’S FIELD: OPINION 45 1.3 A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 70 PART 2 RHETORICAL MODES AND PROOFS 95 2.1 INTRODUCTION: RHETORICAL MODES 97 2.2 DELIBERATIVE RHETORIC 102 2.3 JUDICIAL RHETORIC 122 2.4 EPIDEICTIC RHETORIC 140 2.6 LOGOS 179 2.7 PATHOS 194 2.8 ETHOS 220 PART 3 FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS & OBJECT OF STUDY 271 3.1 JUDGEMENT BY THE AUDIENCE 273 3.2 SCHOLARS FROM OTHER DISCIPLINES USING RHETORIC 283 3.3 TRAVEL LITERATURE 320 PART 4 ANALYSIS 329 4.1 INTRODUCTION 331 4.2 A FICTIONAL CASE 341 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 423 REFERENCES 435 SOUND RECORDINGS (CD) 9 10 INTRODUCTION / METHODOLOGY 11 “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.” -- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass The aim of this dissertation is to present and apply a way of looking at literature that is based on a reading of Aristotle’s Rhetoric. In Part 1, I first provide a general introduction to the problem of defining rhetoric. This leads to a discussion on rhetoric’s field of operations: opinion. I finish with a brief review of the literature. In Part 2, I present a model based primarily on a reading of Aristotle’s Rhetoric. This consists of an in-depth discussion of the three modes (deliberative, judicial and epideictic) after which I present aspects of the three rhetorical proofs: logos, pathos and ethos. In Part 3, I first discuss the role played by the audience as judge. I then discuss the work by scholars who use rhetoric in fields that are somewhat distant from literary studies. I also briefly discuss travel literature in order to provide background for the second narrative under study. Part 4, I use the model presented in Part 2 to critique and analyze two narratives. The first narrative to be analyzed in Part 4 is a fictional narrative from William H. Gass’ Fiction and the Figures of Life. The second is a non-fiction narrative by David Lansing, “Confessions of a Cheese Smuggler.” General conclusions follow Part 4. I am using the phrase “way of looking at literature” in the sense used by Peter Barry in his seminal Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (6). In this primer, which begins with I. A. Richards’ method (Practical Criticism) in the 1920s and ends with theoretical approaches of the 1990s (postcolonialism and postmodernism) (12-34), Barry explains in clear and comprehensible language the various ways of looking at literature in use during this 12 time period. He then proceeds to illustrate their use by example. My dissertation is modeled after these two aspects of Barry’s text (i.e. the type of language he uses and his procedure of explanation and illustration). But these are not the only attractive features of Barry’s primer, for he is also quite fair-minded in his presentation of the various contemporary approaches. That is, not only does he present the respective merits of each, but also reveals what he views as flaws. Barry is thus, in my opinion, a scholar who does not let himself, in spite of his pro-theoretical stance, to cease from being a critical thinker. His example is one that, in an age where post-modern theorists are pitted or pit themselves against so-called Liberal Humanists and vice versa, merits imitation. An important conclusion we can draw from Barry’s equitable treatment is that each approach has something valuable to offer and yet at the same time must be examined for inadequacies or inconsistencies. The question “Which rhetoric?” must be answered for, as the reader will discover in my discussion, the definition of the term rhetoric has been a subject of dispute since its earliest extant appearance in Plato’s Gorgias. Several different definitions of rhetoric were being proposed and fought over in antiquity and that number has grown ever since. Rhetoric and its practices are being defined and redefined today. What I present below is, in effect, one possible definition of “classical rhetoric.” We can add to the myriad past and present definitions another problem. For even supposing that one chooses a particular definition of rhetoric – in the present study an “Aristotelian” definition – each one usually has so many aspects that it is only possible to reasonably address a few of them. Thus the reader must keep in mind during the discussion below it has been necessary to focus on certain aspects that form part of Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric and to leave many others aside. Further, even after narrowing down my focus on certain elements, I have only managed in my discussion to 13 scratch the surface, due to the vast amount of literature. Be that as it may, it is my hope that the way of looking at literature that I am presenting here will fill what has been identified by scholars as a gap in terms of critical approaches in English studies. The approach I present is based on classical rhetoric with borrowings of ideas, concepts and methodology from classics scholars, from contemporary scholars of rhetoric and literature, and from scholars working in fields not normally associated with literary studies: sociology and business administration. While maintaining certain aspects taken from the abovementioned sources, I then provide an approach that I believe is different from other current approaches. I am aware that that a classics scholar like Heinrich Plett might rightly level the accusation against me that there is nothing new under rhetoric’s sun.1 Still, I believe that the way of looking at literature I am presenting differs from other rhetoric-based approaches advanced in recent decades by scholars of English and literature. The question, “Why rhetoric?” must also be answered. In 1983, Terry Eagleton made a call for a return to rhetoric in Literary Theory: An Introduction. Eagleton states in this primer to literary theory that rhetoric has been in disuse for several centuries.2 Thus, my dissertation is, in some way, a response to the plea made by Eagleton (and other scholars) for students of literature to return to rhetorical methods practiced in 4th century Athens. But rather than focusing on the power and signification of discursive political ideology the way Eagleton does, I instead use concepts from Aristotle’s Rhetoric to examine how logos, ethos and pathos are at work in the texts under study to persuade their audience or readership. These same rhetorical proofs can be used to reveal and evaluate the system of values in which the discourse is enmeshed. My definition is similar to Eagleton’s in that I seek to reveal the effects of argumentative 1 See Plett. 2 See Eagleton. 14 discourse as well as how these effects are produced and what they mean in a particular historical socio-cultural milieu. However, the way I go about doing so is different in that I seek to show in the narratives under study basic rhetorical mechanisms presented in Aristotle’s treatise. Eagleton defines rhetoric as a socio-political discursive ensemble. I break that ensemble down into its constituent parts. Eagleton made his plea in 1983. It is therefore, given his importance as a theorist, perhaps surprising that twelve years later rhetoric does not figure in Barry’s introduction to literary theory as an approach for looking at or analyzing literature – in either an ancient or contemporary version. Barry does, however, state that theory about literature “goes back to Greek and Latin originals,” meanwhile identifying Aristotle’s Poetics as the “earliest work of theory” (21). To Barry’s assertion must be added the very important fact that it is best not to read the Poetics in isolation from other works in the Aristotelian corpus. One reason for this is because in the Poetics Aristotle refers his readers to the Rhetoric for his discussion of dianoia, or thought, a major component of discourse that appears in his discussion of poetics. Nor does Aristotle stop there. For, in Aristotle’s definition, rhetoric is the “offshoot” or “counterpart” of dialectic, which is the object of study in his Topics. Further, in Aristotle’s framework, rhetoric is linked with politics which he equates with ethics. This means that in order to gain an adequate understanding of what Aristotle means when he discusses literary theory in his Poetics, the student of literature must at very least have read Aristotle’s Topics, Nichomachean Ethics, Rhetoric, and Politics.