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MIAMI UNIVERSITY the Graduate School MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation We hereby approve the Dissertation of Gretchen Linnea Dietz Candidate for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy ______________________________________ Jason Palmeri, Director ______________________________________ Kate Ronald, Reader ______________________________________ John Tassoni, Reader ______________________________________ Elaine Miller, Graduate School Representative ABSTRACT RECONNECTING RHETORIC AND POETICS: STYLE AND THE TEACHING OF WRITING by Gretchen L. Dietz This dissertation examines the disconnect between rhetoric and poetics in the field of composition studies and argues that style can mend this frayed relationship. Chapter one asserts that rhetoric and poetics were separated by historical accident; however, the poetic tradition is central to rhetorical study and must be reclaimed, and style serves as a key concept. Chapter two analyzes the figures in rhetorical manuals and recovers these tools for style pedagogy. Chapter three reclaims visual theories from classical rhetoric and shows how these theories reinvigorate pedagogy and allow us to think about style beyond alphabetic text. Chapter four asserts that style can be practiced within a larger aesthetic approach to the teaching of writing that invites creative experimentation and risk. The study includes student writing and student interviews; it also makes the case for alternative assessment practices. Finally, chapter five argues that the field can and should take style seriously, from the first-year writing course to graduate training to overall programmatic goals. This requires imagination and consciously looking beyond our disciplinary limits. RECONNECTING RHETORIC AND POETICS: STYLE AND THE TEACHING OF WRITING A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English by Gretchen L. Dietz The Graduate School Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2016 Dissertation Director: Jason Palmeri © Gretchen Linnea Dietz 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication……………………………………………………………………...…………iv Acknowledgements…………………………………………...……….…………………..v Chapter 1: Reconnecting Rhetoric and Poetics……………………….…….……………..1 Chapter 2: Reclaiming the Figures…………………………….…………..…………….18 Chapter 3: Reclaiming Theories of the Visual…………….…………..…………………50 Chapter 4: An Aesthetic Approach to Teaching Composition…………….…………….74 Chapter 5: Implications for Pedagogy and Research…………………………...………103 Works Cited…………………………………………………………….………………117 iii DEDICATION For Jo Dietz iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS One needs to be a recluse to write a project like this, but I didn’t complete it alone. Jason Palmeri was ever present and encouraging through email, phone, personal meetings, and his book. I have to say Jason coached me through this entire PhD program, from my first panic-stricken day as a teacher to these final formal pages I type now. He has undoubtedly shaped my thinking and my beliefs. Kate Ronald appeared as an expert at crucial times. She provided the perfect critiques that would shake up everything, make me question what I thought, and just all around work harder. John Tassoni extended advice in his office that looks like a small art gallery; he also travelled across campus to meet me in mine, right before my comprehensive exam, asking passionate questions about pedagogy. Elaine Miller signals my entrance into the intense world of graduate seminars in philosophy. I admire her intelligence, tenacity, and style more than I can express. Miami University is part of my growing up. Thank you to the people who guided me, notably LuMing Mao, a true inspiration, and a few good friends: Dustin, Tory, and Kirk. Thank you to the Miami University English Department for awarding a fellowship to support the completion of this project, and for sending me to Sun Yat-Sen University in south China during the summer of 2014—a life-changing experience. Thank you to my family for their endless reserves of support and humor. Mom, Dad, Marcus, Stephanie, and a tribe of aunts, uncles, and cousins loved and cared for me across distances far and wide. Devon, my confidante, provided counsel from the desert. And thank you to my most treasured friends: Dan, Anthony, Kev, Maria, Greg, and Anne. These people are the light of my life. v Chapter One: Reconnecting Rhetoric and Poetics As a doctoral student in a rhetoric history seminar, I encountered Aristotle’s Rhetoric as a foundational reading of week one. After completing that seminar, I wondered why I was not asked to read Poetics as well. It did not make sense to me that a field with its foundations in classical rhetoric would ignore one of the most influential works to emerge from that era. While investigating this question, I realized that the centrality of Rhetoric and the lack of attention to Poetics in the rhetoric history seminar is symptomatic of a much larger problem in the field.1 Poetics is not anthologized in The Rhetorical Tradition, the field’s canonical reference text. Consequently, it is not often cited in articles. The current field of composition studies separates rhetoric and poetics. Over time, scholars have thought of these two terms differently, contrasting one against the other, presenting rhetoric and poetics as separate modes of discourse. Rhetoric scholars today tend to define rhetoric as having to do with persuasion and action, whereas poetics is concerned with literature and beauty. For instance, in the 2011 book Rhetorical Style, Jeanne Fahnestock distinguishes between rhetorical persuasion and literary value. She claims that rhetoricians “focus on texts that influence the attitudes and actions of their audiences” while those who study literature “attend to texts (fiction, poetry, drama) prized ultimately for their aesthetic value and uniqueness” (12). However, in the foundations of rhetoric, this dichotomy between persuasion and beauty does not exist. The major contribution of Poetics is that Aristotle distinguishes poetic genres, but at the same time, he explains that these poetic genres are not separate from rhetorical, audience-based considerations. In fact, Aristotle argues that poetic works cannot be fully defined without taking into account their effect on the audience (Aristotle 33).2 The interrelated relationship between rhetoric and poetics is present through rhetorical history and we would do well to return to its origins in classical rhetoric. Aristotle is far from the only thinker who shows that rhetoric and poetics are inseparable. Quintilian encouraged students of rhetoric to analyze the style of literary 1 Aristotle’s mentor, Plato, was aware of the power of poetics. In Book X of The Republic, Plato banishes poets from the ideal city because their use of metaphorical language would deceive and “deform its audience’s minds” (344). 2 Aristotle also unites rhetoric and poetics through the concept of mimesis. The term is often understood simply as representation or imitation. However, scholar and translator Stephen Halliwell explains that for Aristotle, mimesis is not just a copy. It is both a representation of the material of everyday life and an enacted mode of poetry (22). When one reads Poetics, she will find that for Aristotle, mimesis is a thoroughly rhetorical idea because “mimetic artists represent people in action” (Aristotle 33). 1 texts and speeches (Quintilian 107). He stated that the teacher of rhetoric could point out “the beauties of authors” so that each student could offer himself to the public as “a master of eloquence” (Quintilian 107). During the Renaissance, Henry Peacham published a handbook that contained the rhetorical figures, and demonstrated how beautiful elements of language function in persuasive discourse (Peacham). When one takes a wide view of rhetorical history, the division between rhetoric as persuasion and poetics as beauty simply does not hold up. Rhetoric and poetics are separated in the current field of composition, and I am calling for their reintegration. To do so, I present evidence to show how these two concepts were never separate in the first place. As a whole, I embrace the historical relationship of rhetoric and poetics as a guiding framework, with a special emphasis on reclaiming poetics. I find that the rhetorical term that best allows for reclaiming poetics is style. While there are several new books in the field that historicize style, none of these books adequately account for the field’s poetic traditions. Brian Ray’s 2015 reference guide on style acknowledges the poetic tradition, but briefly, and presents it as secondary to the rhetorical tradition. This is as an improvement over Paul Butler’s 2010 sourcebook on style, which does not mention poetics at all. Butler played it safe and excerpted from Aristotle’s Rhetoric. I credit these scholars for contributing valuable works to the current renaissance of style, but the field has not yet historicized style enough. If scholars do not continue to historicize style in relation to both poetics and rhetoric, the newfound interest in this concept will dissipate. I seek to complicate the methodologies by which scholars have been historicizing style. Butler’s Out of Style (2008) views the history of style as a clash between opposing forces that expand or constrict stylistic resources (25). Although the methodology of historical dialectic is commonly accepted among academic scholars, this is far from the only method of historical interpretation. In fact, a method that sets
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