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Reading and the "Written Style" in Aristotle's "Rhetoric" Author(S): Richard Graff Reviewed Work(S): Source: Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Vol

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Reading and the Rhetoric Society of America Reading and the "Written Style" in Aristotle's "Rhetoric" Author(s): Richard Graff Reviewed work(s): Source: Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 19-44 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3886371 . Accessed: 17/05/2012 15:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. and Rhetoric Society of America are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Rhetoric Society Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org Richard Graff READING AND THE "WRITTEN STYLE" IN ARISTOTLE'S RHETORIC Abstract. At Rhetoric 3.12 Aristotle describes differences between a "written"style,which he associates with the epideictic genre, and a "debating"style suited to deliberative and forensic oratory. This paper argues that this seemingly unproblematic distinction constitutes a crucial indicator of the orientation ofAristotle 'sstyle theory as a whole. Passages throughoutRhetoric 3.1-12 offer precepts oriented toward the medium of writing and the reading of texts-that is, they describe a specifically "written" style of prose. In contrast,Aristotle largely neglects the agonistic style of practical oratory, a fact that can be taken as another indication of the literary,and literate, bias pervading Aristotle 's account of prose lexis. In addition to disclosing nuances in the text of Rhetoric 3, this study contributesto our understandingof the ways in which early rhetoricaltheory respondsto and is constrained by the circumstances of writtencomposition and oratorical performance. T he idea thatAristotle stands in a pivotal position in the Greek transition from orality to literacy has become something of a commonplace in the scholarly literature. His observation in the Poetics that a well-constructed dramacan achieve all its tragic effects by being read is often cited as a deci- sive step in the history of literary criticism, a striking instance of the text being considered on a par with-even ahead of-the spoken word and its presentationin staged performance.' Similarly, the notion that Aristotle's theory of rhetoricis both enabled and conditioned by the availabilityof writ- ten texts has been suggested with increasing confidence and frequency. In several recent studies this position has been advanced in the service of chal- lenging received views concerning the disciplinary status of rhetoric in the fifth and early-fourthcenturies BCE. Thomas Cole and EdwardSchiappa, for example, have arguedthat a ratheradvanced literacy-such as is reflected in the works of Plato and Aristotle-is a necessary preconditionfor the sort of analysis and abstractionneeded for a truly theoretical understandingof rhe- torical art (Cole; Schiappa; see also Thomas and Webb). Others have ex- tended this insight to the interpretationof specific aspects of the Rhetoric. Aristotle'sliteracy, or text-centeredness,has been used to explain his literary preferences, notably his distaste for the "oral" elements of Gorgias' poetic prose (Connors46-57; Schiappa98-105; see also Enos 85-90, 119-120). The illustrativequotations inscribed in the Rhetoric have been studied as markers of the work's intendedaudience, presumablyone consisting of literatemem- bers of the Athenian cultural elite (Trevett). Aristotle's characterizationof RSQ: RhetoricSociety Quarterly 19 Volume 31, Number4 Fall 2001 20 RHETORIC SOCIETY QUARTERLY epideictic as aestheticizedwritten form and his analyticparsing of the endoxa of oral culture have been identified as features of the Rhetoric that at once betray an epistemology tincturedby literacy and delimit the social and politi- cal influence of vital rhetoricalpractices (Schiappa 185-206; Haskins, "Rheto- ric between Orality and Literacy"). Somewhat surprisingly,though, in all this work premisedon claims de- rived from Aristotle's (hyper-) literacy,attention has rarelyfocused on those statementsin the Rhetoric thatmost clearly reflect Aristotle'sown awareness of his placement in a literate environment. There are several statements in the treatise where considerationof the written word appearsto take priority over that of the spoken. Indeed, as BernardKnox has observed, "[i]t is in this work [the Rhetoric] that for the first time we are presentedwith critical remarkswhich refer specifically to the text visualized as a writtenpage rather than conceived of as something heard"(Knox, "Books and Readers"13). In what follows, I aim to show that this emphasis on the visual dimension of texts is especially prominentin the account of style (lexis) in book 3, which at several points reveals Aristotle's sensitivity to the opportunitiesand chal- lenges presented by the medium of writing and the practice of reading. I begin with perhaps the most obvious instance-the final chapteron rhetori- cal lexis, Rhetoric3.12, in whichAristotle discusses differencesbetween what he terms the "competitive"and "written"styles of prose. Although this dis- tinction has seemed unproblematic to commentators, I argue here that Aristotle's recognition of a specifically written style provides a crucial but to this point undervalued indicator of the generally bookish character of Aristotle's style theory and the Rhetoricas a whole. The brief account of the lexis graphikUin Rhetoric 3.12 is supplementedby many passages elsewhere in Rhetoric 3 where Aristotle gives special attention to the difficulties in- volved in composing a readabletext. And though some of his remarkson the written style are anticipatedby earlierauthors, Aristotle's analysis offers sev- eral importantand what appearto be unprecedentedinsights into the material conditions of literacy and special circumstances of literate activity in the fourth-centuryBCE. After a brief analysis of Rhetoric 3.12, I situateAristotle's remarkson the lexis graphike in the context of earlier reflections on the style of written speeches. I then concentrateon those passages where Aristotle commends stylistic features not for any demonstrablecontribution to the task of persua- sion, but rather for their capacity to facilitate the reading process. What emerges from this analysis is a conspicuousemphasis on what might be called (adaptinga notion of Roland Barthes') a "readerly"style of writing, one that makes itself unambiguous to the reader and thereby reduces the amount of creative guesswork that goes into the oral interpretationof the ancient text. In the final section of the paper,I attemptto reconstructAristotle's views on GRAFF/READINGAND THE "WRIEN STYLE" 21 the other style identified in Rhetoric 3.12, the lexis agonistike^of practical oratory. I observe that in the whole of 3.1-12 referencesto the distinct stylis- tic featuresof deliberativeand forensic speeches are surprisinglyrare; further, Aristotle'srather lukewarm appraisal of such oratorybespeaks a curiousdisre- gardof the most characteristically"oral" forms of rhetoricalpractice. While I do not here advanceany claims regardingthe largersocial conse- quences following upon the spread of literacy and increased acquaintance with texts, I will argue that these features of Rhetoric 3 have significant im- plications for the interpretationof several well-known Aristotelian stylistic precepts. More broadly,this study aims to encouragecontinued examination of early, foundationalrhetoric texts for the sometimes quite subtle signs of their having been composed with an eye to very specific sorts of discursive practice. Ratherthan interpretingthese signs as simply symptomaticof the culturaland psychic developments that come in the wake of majoradvances in communicationtechnologies, the sort of revisionist approachadvocated here reads texts like the Rhetoric as historically situatedresponses (or chal- lenges) to existing conditions of oral and/orwritten rhetorical performance. THE WRITTEN STYLE Rhetoric 3.12 contains Aristotle's account of the competitive and writ- ten styles of rhetorical prose. The competitive or "agonistic" style (lexis agonistike) is said to be suitable to forensic and deliberativespeeches, while the written style (lexis graphike) is associatedwith epideixeis (3.12 1413b4- 5; 1414a5-17). Complementingthis division based on oratoricalgenre, the two styles are assigned distinct functions (erga). The function of the agonis- tic style is delivery (hupokrisis) (1413b18); it fulfills its purposein oral per- formance before an audience. The ergon of the written style is a reading (anagnosis) (1414al8); as will be shown later, by "reading"Aristotle here undoubtedly means a reading aloud, but presumably one lacking the dra- matic vocal and gestural accompanimentsof full hupokrisis. Concerning specific qualities of the two styles, Aristotlepresents only the briefest sketch. Asyndeton and repetition are identified as features of the competitive style, particularlyinasmuch as these devices encourageeffective delivery (1413b17- 31); a passage in asyndeton, he says, requires active delivery and modula- tions of the "characterand tone" (ethei kai tonbi) of presentation(1413b30- 31). The only quality identified with the written style is
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