Blog 3 - Williams 1 -40

WOW – what a change this text is from Elbow! I haven’t decided if that’s a good or bad thing yet because Elbow was much easier to read, but at least there isn’t anything to agree or disagree with in Williams’ text (yet?).

Throughout the entire reading, two main things stuck out to me. One is how interrelated rhetoric seems to be to what was happening in a given historical time period, or it’s kairos, as I learned in another rhetoric class I am currently taking (and how completely out of touch I am on historical facts), and the other being how different each rhetorician’s thoughts and rhetorical methods are.

I am especially struck by what ideas have and have not survived into modern rhetoric. Certainly Aristotle’s ethos, pathos, and logos (21) have survived as well as the “five offices”: invention, argument, style, memory, and delivery, (27) but to see the way everything else has either changed or been abandoned is very interesting to me.

I also wonder what, exactly, modern rhetoric does have to say about certain issues. The idea of rhetoric as a “theory of knowing” (7) vs. “to argue probability” (13) vs. “the discovery of truth” (18) vs. “transmitting knowledge” (38): what do we now believe the point of rhetoric is? Or do we believe that all four, and even more definitions are possible? I tend to agree with Ramus’ view of dialect as the modern definition of rhetoric, “not merely a means of determining truth and falsehood; […] it also was the art of speaking decisively on matters that were in question.” (37)

Another important idea that repeated itself throughout the text was the idea that rhetoric and writing require talent, practice, and instruction. I think this is perhaps the most interesting part of the chapter because I have always very much attributed good writing to talent. I know many would disagree and say that writing is merely taught, but I think that in order to be a really good writer you have to have a natural talent for it. Grammar and syntax can be taught and organization and content can be forced through outlines and other invention strategies (like Elbow’s), but for writing to really be considered “good” I think an extra element has to exist. The element of talent that can’t be taught or mimicked. The idea made me think of this article which suggests that both talent and skills are needed. I agree 100% and I think that much of the idea of writing “talent” comes from the simple desire to write. You either like it or you don’t, you are either good at it or you aren’t. You need grammar and mechanics and syntax, but most importantly, you need an interest in writing. I think this could easily be applied to the idea of rhetoric as composition that the book discusses.