Praise for
Farnsworth’s
Classical English Rhetoric
Every writer should have this book.
Erin McKean
editor of Verbatim: The Language Quarterly
Mandatory for persons involved in public speaking, this book should prove indispensable also to writers wishing to improve their literary style.
John Simon
author of Paradigms Lost
An engaging and accessible guide, valuable to all who wish to improve their rhetorical skills or better appreciate the abilities of others.
Library Journal
Deserves a place on the shelf next to the dictionary and thesaurus.
ALA Choice
I admire this book and enjoy noting how these allegedly artificial tropes are actually what the tongue naturally seeks.
Peter Elbow
professor emeritus of English, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and author of Writing Without Teachers
Ward Farnsworth’s invaluable review of classical English rhetoric is not only a vital tool for aiding clear expression, but a timely reminder that, despite the confusion of the present technological age, human nature, and our ability to communicate in clear and often beautiful ways, are unchanging.
Victor Davis Hanson
co-author of Who Killed Homer?: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom
Farnsworth’s
CLASSICAL
ENGLISH RHETORIC
by Ward Farnsworth
David R. Godine · Publisher · Boston
For Annie and Sam
___________________
First published in 2011 by
David R. Godine · Publisher
Post Office Box 450
Jaffrey, New Hampshire 03452
Copyright © 2010 by Ward Farnsworth
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information contact Permissions, David R. Godine, Publisher,
Fifteen Court Square, Suite 320, Boston, Massachusetts 02108.
Published in eBook format by David R. Godine, Publisher
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Farnsworth, Ward, 1967–
Farnsworth’s classical English rhetoric / by Ward Farnsworth.
p. cm.
HARDCOVER ISBN 978-1-56792-385-8
EBOOK ISBN 978-1-56792-467-1
1. English language—Rhetoric. I. Title. II. Title: Classical English rhetoric.
PE1408.F285 2011
808'.042—dc22
2009022385
PREFACE
EVERYONE SPEAKS and writes in patterns. Usually the patterns arise from unconscious custom; they are models we internalize from the speech around us without thinking much about it. But it also is possible to study the patterns deliberately and to learn more about how to use the ones that make the words they arrange more emphatic or memorable or otherwise effective. The most famous such patterns, known as rhetorical figures, were first identified and studied in ancient Greece and Rome. Most of them amount to departures from simple and literal statement, such as repeating words, putting words into an unexpected order, leaving out words that might have been expected, asking questions and then answering them, and so forth. Figures of these kinds amount to practical ways of working with large aesthetic principles – repetition and variety, suspense and relief, concealment and surprise, the creation of expectations and then the satisfaction or frustration of them – all as they apply to the composition of a simple sentence or paragraph. This book is meant as a help to those who wish to be on better terms with such techniques. It aims to show in detail what can be done with major rhetorical figures and the best of what has been done with them in English, to present the occasions for their use in systematic fashion, and to offer explanatory comments in moderation.
Rhetoric is a vast, old, and honorable discipline. It may be defined most broadly and simply as the use of language to persuade or otherwise affect an audience. The decline of rhetoric in our times is thus a much broader phenomenon than any mere decline in familiarity with figures of speech, but figures nevertheless are a good place to begin a study of the subject because they tend to be easy to explain, instructive to examine, and frequently useful. It certainly is possible to write well without rhetorical figures, but most of the best writers and speakers – the ones whose work has stood up the longest – have made important use of them, and figures tend to show up often in utterances that are long remembered. The point is not that figures are useful for writing things that one hopes will last, for writing anything in that hope is almost always a mistake. The point, rather, is that durability is one measure of the excellence of a style and the value of the techniques that it employs. It helps us think about quality in ways more interesting than asking what panders best to the fashions of the moment.
Rhetorical figures also show up often, of course, in a lot of bad speech and writing. When used in contemporary political speeches and read from teleprompters, figures often sound tinny – like clichés, or strained efforts to make dull claims sound snappy. This is partly because today’s politician tends to be a creature of very modest literacy and wit who spoils what he touches, but there are more specific reasons as well. First, figures sound splendid when used to say things worth saying. They can show a worthy sentiment to great advantage. But they merely are grating when used to inflate the sound of words that are trite or trivial in substance, a regrettably common use of figures that has helped give a bad name to rhetoric in general. Secondly, an otherwise promising use of a figure often goes wrong because the speaker overdoes it. Too much ornament in any art tends to leave a worse impression than too little. Skilled and experienced students of rhetoric sometimes are able to use a high density of figures to strong effect (we will see examples soon enough), but for most people most of the time an attractive use of these patterns requires moderation and restraint. Thirdly, rhetorical figures only become powerful when they sound spontaneous and are integrated smoothly into the rest of the way a speaker talks. Most of them come to notice in the first place because people use them unwittingly when they speak from passion and with a dash of inspiration. (My young children, when wrathful, are masters of hypophora.) Thus a mediocre speech or piece of writing often announces itself by the forced use of a rhetorical figure too freshly learned or deliberately employed.
But then how does one study techniques that succeed only when they seem unstudied? The answer lies in examples. Rhetorical figures start to sound natural once one has spent so much time with them that they come to mind without effort, and finally serve as shapes into which words assemble themselves by instinct when the situation calls for it. Examples also can do more than exposition to teach lessons about the beauty of a device, about its technical details, and about the occasions for its use – for a sense of the occasion is as important as anything in the mastery of rhetorical