Strangeness as Profundity. A Theme in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Book III
In Book III of Aristotle’s Rhetoric we repeatedly meet the idea that a rhetor ought sometimes to speak in a style which is on the one hand strange, unfamiliar or deviant—but which on the other hand is not perceived as such by the audience. It may involve the use of devices otherwise known from poe...
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| 格式: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| 語言: | Français |
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2018
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| 在線閱讀: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| 總結: | In Book III of Aristotle’s Rhetoric we repeatedly meet the idea that a rhetor ought sometimes to
speak in a style which is on the one hand strange, unfamiliar or deviant—but which on the other
hand is not perceived as such by the audience. It may involve the use of devices otherwise known
from poetry, only not so much that they are detected by the audience. The article addresses, among
other things, the use of rhythm in oratory, on which Aristotle makes pronouncements similar to
those on strangeness and unfamiliarity. It further considers what some of the few commentators on
Book III have had to say about the issue and proposes that there is more to say: The unnoticed or
“subliminal” use in oratory of poetic and other “strange” devices may, it is argued, serve to create an
impression in hearers that there are great depths of meaning hidden underneath the words. That
such unobtrusive strangeness may be read as signaling profundity is a hypothesis supported in the
article by authentic instances of modern readers’ responses to texts with similar features, as well as
by a sophisticated scholar’s analysis of a classic piece of oratory: Lincoln’s Gettysburg address.
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