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MIAMI UNIVERSITY the Graduate School Certificate for Approving The MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation We hereby approve the Dissertation of Kerrie Lehman Carsey Candidate for the Degree: Doctor of Philosophy ________________________________ Director (Kate Ronald) _________________________________ Reader (Heidi McKee) _________________________________ Reader (James Porter) __________________________________ Graduate School Representative (Michael Pechan) ABSTRACT DELIVERING FAITH: TOWARD A NEW THEORY OF DELIVERY IN THE CONTEXT OF PREACHING by Kerrie Lehman Carsey This dissertation redefines delivery, the fifth canon of rhetoric, examining its traditionally low status in the field of rhetorical theory and employing the ancient art of preaching to reclaim delivery as a valuable site of persuasion. Throughout rhetorical history, the fifth canon has met strong and consistent denigration as mere ornament, or worse, a tool of manipulation. Its physical, noetic, and emotional elements render delivery resistant to classification and a unified theory for instruction. Even those who uphold delivery’s importance to the art of rhetoric, such as Cicero, seem to privilege invention as the dominant realm of persuasion. My work uses preaching as a lens, striving for a better understanding of how delivery, from the politicized space of the pulpit, functions in this genre of religious discourse. I argue that in the context of the live speech event, consideration of the speaker’s ethos, or character presentation, can best deepen our understanding of the effects of delivery upon an audience. As a rhetorical art, preaching offers fertile ground to study character presentation in the oratorical performance, and the ways delivery fosters assent and works to define group identity. Case study research at a Protestant church, involving taping sermons, interviews with the preacher, and focus group discussions with congregants explores the relational nature of delivery in discourse communities. DELIVERING FAITH: TOWARD A NEW THEORY OF DELIVERY IN THE CONTEXT OF PREACHING A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English by Kerrie Lehman Carsey Maim University Oxford, Ohio 2011 Dissertation Director: Dr. Kate Ronald Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One: The Place of Delivery in the History of Rhetoric 17 Chapter Two: Preaching and Rhetorical Theory 44 Chapter Three: The Relevance Imperative 89 Chapter Four: Ethos and the Politics of Delivery 116 Chapter Five: Delivery and Identification in a Religious Discourse Community 139 Conclusion 172 Works Cited 184 ii To Rebecca, my mother, for your friendship To Kate, my mentor, for your encouragement And to James, my husband, for your strength iii Introduction Delivery’s Denigration Historically, delivery has been the most neglected of the five rhetorical canons— invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Along with memory, this canon often remains in the realm of simple oratorical skills, receiving cursory treatment to prepare students for classroom declamations or mock trials; with the rise of alphabetic text, both concepts have fallen to the margins in that they seem obsolete (Welch 18). However, unlike memory, delivery has met aggressive denigration from those who divorce what is said from how it is said. The Greek word hypokrisis shares a root term with and thus connects with acting (hypokrites) (Nadeau 53) and suggests using the body to portray a persona and accurately convey thought and emotion. This root eventually gave us the term “hypocrite” as it exists today, a negative term referring to one who wears a mask, who does not practice what he preaches, so to speak. The Latin terms for delivery, pronuntiatio and actio, split the canon into voice and gesture, respectively, but retain the idea of bodily skill, the physical communication of an oration. In On Rhetoric (fourth century BCE) Aristotle himself viewed the very consideration of one’s oral delivery of a speech a “vulgar matter” and did not seem to lament the fact that no system for teaching delivery existed (3.1.5). What he did lament is that attention to this vulgar topic is necessary, in that delivery “has great power… because of the corruption of the audience” (3.1.5). In other words, the listener’s susceptibility to artifice requires that speakers take heed of their delivery, “not because it is right but because it is necessary” (3.1.5). Even this early in classical rhetorical theory, delivery seems to have been excluded from the process of knowledge production because of the suspicion that a charismatic oral performance might mask flawed logic and turn crowds away from the most prudent action. At best, delivery became a mere supplement to the text, an afterthought that leads the orator to make minute adjustments depending on the type of audience. In Aristotle’s day and beyond, proponents of a more developed teaching of delivery met suspicion and often harsh repudiation, as evidenced by their defensive stances when justifying their consideration of the canon. Gilbert Austin (1806) summarizes this “strange prejudice” against delivery, stating that past “injudicious use” and the difficulty in assembling a proper standard for delivery (5) have caused suspicion and a low status in rhetorical theory. Like many theorists of his day, Austin also used preaching as the means of exploring a rhetorical concept, critiquing the result of 1 delivery’s denigration—preachers who “stand stock still in the pulpit” (6) for fear of seeming theatrical (7). Jacobi (2006) explains that throughout history, many have assumed that rhetors would “use artifice, ornamentation, sweetness to achieve the goals of the persuasion, and that shortcomings in delivery can harm their rhetoric’s effectiveness” (22-23). Thus, the danger of delivery is that it might make false speech appealing or true speech unappealing. Kathleen Welch (2006) deepens the claim, stating that memory and delivery have been put down in the field of composition as an attempt to suppress ideology and the political nature of language. She equates this denigration to that of the humanities and sees repeated attempts to invalidate writing by reducing it to mere tool (18). Memory and delivery, then, are “dangerous to the status quo of the process movement” because they challenge the primacy of invention as well as the notion of the autonomous writer (19). Welch claims that rather than being obsolete, these rhetorical canons morph and change form to fit conditions, thus challenging the written/oral binary and upholding the contested nature of language. Despite this kind of attention to the fifth canon’s potential in classrooms, courtrooms, and public debates, delivery “remains subordinate to language proper” (Fredal 251). Like James Fredal, I want to explore the fifth canon as a “nonlinguistic bodily skill of character presentation,” and not just a supplement to a written or oral text (252). In other words, delivery itself can make meaning, both through and in addition to the prepared text. This is not to say that delivery can stand alone as a rhetorical art. Like the other canons, theorization of delivery seems to function best when it acts in recursive relationships. The canons tend to loop back to one another. Working on arrangement can generate (invent) new ideas. Consideration of pronuntiatio can help a speaker make critical stylistic decisions in the choice of words and phrases. Memorization (or the creation of note cards) loops back to inform the overall arrangement of the text. Therefore, I do not wish to treat delivery in isolation, but rather I try to consider its overall role in persuasion, taking into account context, purpose, and the larger rhetorical process of oral communication. Ancient and later writers never seem to tire of reporting Demosthenes’ (fourth century BCE) alleged claim that delivery is the first, second, and third most important element of rhetoric (Nadeau 53). However, the pattern persists of recognizing delivery’s importance, defending against accusations that it acts as a realm of artifice and deception, but failing to produce a full study of the subject. As chapter one shows, because oral communication is so strongly culturally 2 bound and coded, any attempts at fuller treatments of the fifth canon eventually seem silly and outdated. However, I hope that by keeping fellow canons in scope and by focusing on the ancient art of preaching, I can create a framework within which scholars in composition and rhetoric can study the role of delivery in its varied forms and contexts. Religious Rhetoric Today For the purpose of this project, I consider delivery alongside various other rhetorical elements, such as pathos, the artistic proof of appealing to audience emotion. But primarily, I pair the fifth canon with the sermon. I assert that sermons and religious discourse are, like the fifth canon, valuable but neglected areas of study in composition and rhetoric. The presence of religious thinking within and surrounding public discourse seems undeniable, but too often, scholars in our field do not seem to know what to make of it. For example, in recent years, scholars have made significant effort to recover women’s voices in Europe and America, examining their rhetorical strategies as they fought for their own and others’ rights. Yet, despite this respect and attention, many ignore the fact that most of these pioneers who spoke out for women, slaves, child laborers, and other
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