Rhetorical Criticism EMPOWERING the EXPLORATION of “TEXTS”
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Rhetorical Criticism EMPOWERING THE EXPLORATION OF “TEXTS” Theodore F. Sheckels Randolph–Macon College Bassim Hamadeh, CEO and Publisher Todd R. Armstrong, Senior Specialist Acquisitions Editor Tony Paese, Project Editor Christian Berk, Associate Production Editor Emely Villavicencio, Senior Graphic Designer Danielle Gradisher, Licensing Associate Natalie Piccotti, Director of Marketing Kassie Graves, Vice President of Editorial Jamie Giganti, Director of Academic Publishing Copyright © 2019 by Theodore F. Sheckels. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information retrieval system without the written permis- sion of Cognella, Inc. 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ISBN: 978-1-5165-2380-1 (pbk) / 978-1-5165-2381-8 (br) BRIEF TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction to Rhetorical Criticism 1 Chapter 2: Classical Criticism 19 Chapter 3: The Chicago School 47 Chapter 4: Kenneth Burke and Terministic Screens 63 Chapter 5: Kenneth Burke and Dramatism 79 Chapter 6: “Fantasy Theme” Analysis 93 Chapter 7: Narrative Criticism 111 Chapter 8: Genre Criticism 129 Chapter 9: Mythological Criticism 143 Chapter 10: Mikhail Bakhtin, Polyphony, and the Carnivalesque 161 Chapter 11: Ideological Criticism 179 Chapter 12: Feminist Criticism 197 Chapter 13: Constitutive Rhetoric 213 Appendix: Writing a Critical Essay 229 Glossary 235 Index 241 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface ix Chapter 1: Introduction to Rhetorical Criticism 1 What Is Rhetoric? 2 What Is Criticism? 2 What Is a “Text”? 2 Proceeding as a Critic 4 Choosing a Text 4 Reading Closely 5 Understanding the Context 5 Understanding the Rhetorical Situation 7 Choosing Your Rhetorical Perspective 8 Rhetorical Theories as Critical Lenses 9 Michelle Obama at the 2016 Democratic National Convention 10 Notes 17 Chapter 2: Classical Criticism 19 The Origins of Classical Criticism 19 Classical Criticism through the Centuries 20 The Five Canons 20 Inventio 20 Common Topoi of Classical Rhetoric 23 Topoi Offered by Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 26 Dispositio 28 Elocutio 29 Pronuncitatio 31 Memoria 33 Method 34 Application: Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 35 Application: Hillary Clinton in 1995 39 Strengths and Limitations 42 Exemplars • Suggested Applications • Notes 43 iv Contents | v Chapter 3: The Chicago School 47 Literary Studies in the Early Twentieth Century 48 The View from Chicago 48 Critical Praxis 49 Wayne C. Booth 51 Method 53 Application: The Film Invictus 54 Strengths and Limitations 57 Exemplars • Suggested Applications • Notes 59 Chapter 4: Kenneth Burke and Terministic Screens 63 Division, Guilt, Consubstantiality 64 Routes to Consubstantiality 64 Terministic Screens 66 Other Approaches to Language 67 Method 68 Application: Barry Goldwater in 1964 69 Strengths and Limitations 73 Exemplars • Suggested Applications • Notes 74 Chapter 5: Kenneth Burke and Dramatism 79 The Pentad 80 Act 81 Actor 81 Agency 81 Scene 81 Purpose 82 The Ratios 82 How the Dominant Term Affects Discourse 84 Act 84 Actor 84 Agency 84 Scene 85 Purpose 85 Method 85 Application: Point Lookout, Maryland 86 vi | Rhetorical Criticism Strengths and Limitations 89 Exemplars • Suggested Applications • Notes 90 Chapter 6: “Fantasy Theme” Analysis 93 Bales and Bormann 93 The Rhetorical Critic’s Task 96 Method 96 Application: The Port Huron Declaration 98 Application: The National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC 103 Strengths and Limitations 106 Exemplars • Suggested Applications • Notes 107 Chapter 7: Narrative Criticism 111 Roots in Anthropology 111 Rhetorical Twist 112 Implicit Narratives 113 Narratological Questions 114 Narration 115 Characters 115 Setting 115 Plot 116 Types of Narration 116 Language 117 Narrative as Persuasive: Coherence 117 Narrative as Persuasive: Fidelity 118 Method 119 Application: Class Action and North Country 120 Narratological Matters 122 Narrative Coherence 123 Narrative Fidelity 123 Strengths and Weaknesses 124 Exemplars • Suggested Applications • Notes 126 Chapter 8: Genre Criticism 129 Campbell and Jamieson 129 Other Genres 131 The Goals of Genre Criticism 133 Contents | vii Method 134 Application: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert 135 Strengths and Limitations 138 Exemplars • Suggested Applications • Notes 139 Chapter 9: Mythological Criticism 143 Classical Myths and Folk Tales 144 Monomyth 145 Northrop Frye 145 The Monomyth 146 The Mythoi 146 Phases 148 Conventions 149 Goals of Mythological Criticism 149 Method 150 Application: Three Super Bowl Ads 151 2011 Ad, Narrator Eminem 151 2012 Ad, Narrator Clint Eastwood 151 2014 Ad, Narrator Bob Dylan 152 Other Bases for Myths 154 National Myths 154 Popular Culture Myths 155 Strengths and Limitations 157 Exemplars • Suggested Applications • Notes 157 Chapter 10: Mikhail Bakhtin, Polyphony, and the Carnivalesque 161 Polyphony 163 The Carnivalesque 166 Method 166 Application: Polyphony in Barack Obama’s 2008 Election Night Address 168 Application: The Carnivalesque on the Floor of the US House of Representatives 172 Strengths and Limitations 174 Exemplars • Suggested Applications • Notes 175 Chapter 11: Ideological Criticism 179 Marxist Approaches 180 Post-Colonial Approaches 183 Critical Rhetoric 187 viii | Rhetorical Criticism Queer Theory 188 Method 189 Application: Hamilton 190 Strengths and Limitations 194 Exemplars • Suggested Applications • Notes 194 Chapter 12: Feminist Criticism 197 From Feminism to Feminisms 197 And Criticism? 200 Method 202 Application: Broadway Musical/Film Grease 203 Application: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s Inaugural 205 Strengths and Limitations 208 Exemplars • Suggested Applications • Notes 209 Chapter 13: Constitutive Rhetoric 213 Perelman and Black 214 James Boyd White 215 Louis Althusser 215 Charland on the Quebecois 216 Dissident Groups, Other Groups 218 Method 220 Application: The American President and The West Wing 220 Excerpt from The American President 222 Excerpt from The West Wing, “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet” 223 Strengths and Limitations 226 Exemplars • Suggested Applications • Notes 227 Appendix: Writing a Critical Essay 229 Glossary 235 Index 241 PREFACE ne writes a textbook such as this one because, in one’s own experience O as a teacher of rhetorical criticism, one has felt that students need an introduction to the subject that, first, is detailed without being overwhelming; second, offers enough examples to make critical practice something students might emulate with a degree of ease; and, third, is succinct. If a textbook can meet those three goals, it is likely to, first, be read, and, second, empower students. Students will go from staring at a text of whatever sort—speech, advertisement, memory site—to knowing a number of routes they might take in acquiring an understanding of both what it has to say and how it works in persuading or otherwise affecting an audience. So, there are four key goals informing this textbook: sufficient but not overwhelming detail; examples that help make critical praxis clear; a succinct treatment suitable for an under- graduate audience; and empowerment of those fledgling critics. Chapter 1 develops this idea of empowerment further. It talks about how rhetorical theory offers a variety of lenses that bring into focus different aspects of a text. So, I’ll let chapter 1 speak to why theory-based rhetorical criticism empowers. In this preface, I want to highlight the textbook’s features, including material intended to facilitate the book’s use in the classroom. First, it is important to understand the textbook’s target audience. One can come to the study of rhetorical criticism at a number of points in an academic career, ranging from fairly early in one’s undergraduate study to graduate school. This text is targeted at the former group: Students who have had some basic courses in communication and are now embarking on a range of major courses. Quite often, at this point, students are sampling from the different areas of the communication discipline, taking a relational communication course, a mass communication course, and a rhetoric-oriented course. That students are sam- pling is important, for it means that only some of the students enrolled in the course I am imagining are going to become rhetorical critics, whereas for others, the course—and the textbook—represent an exposure to an endeavor that will end up in the background as they develop as media or interpersonal scholars. One hopes, of course, that the course—and this book—will attract many to the ix x | Rhetorical Criticism: Empowering the Exploration of “Texts” rhetorical enterprise. So, in addition to building an understanding of rhetorical criticism on a foundation of “the basics,” the course—and the textbook—try to interest students in what we rhetorical critics do. The audience, then, is neither graduate students nor my professional