Why Study Greek Rhetoric?

We pose such a question for readers of this Companion to consider because what one studies and how one goes about the study of Greek rhetoric ultimately are decisions fueled by the values, interests, and purposes one brings to the table. The extant texts of classical Greece are mute until read, but how they are read and the purposes to which such readings are put are contingent matters. The point worth stressing at the very outset is that all accounts of classical Greek rhetoric are necessarily partial; that is, no single account can exhaust the limitless interpretive possibilities of the relevant texts, and all accounts are guided by the scholar’s sense of what is important and noteworthy about the texts. Because what is ‘rhetorically salient’ about Greek texts varies from scholar to scholar, discipline to discipline, time period to time period, the interpretive possibilities are limited only by human imagination.1

Scholarship on Greek rhetoric may be usefully described as motivated by two basic purposes: historical reconstruction and contemporary appropriation.2 Described most simply, historical reconstruction engages classical texts to describe the intellectual, aesthetic, economic, or political work that such texts performed in their own time or what such texts might have meant to those living in the classical era. Contemporary appropriation is typically motivated by a desire to draw inspiration from classical texts to meet current theoretical, political, or pedagogical needs. For example, a historical reconstruction may try to describe what ‘enthymlml ’ meant to fourth century audiences while a contemporary appropriation might ask: ‘How ought we teach the enthymeme today?’ A historian may ask: ‘What intellectual and political work did Gorgias’ Encomium to Helen do in the late fifth and early fourth centuries?’ while a contemporary theorist may draw from Gorgias’ texts reinforcement for contemporary anti-foundationalist approaches to epistemology.3 One way to distinguish between the two activities is to note that anachronism is considered a

Mistake for historians but not for those who wish to reinterpret classical texts to inform a contemporary theory or pedagogy.

Such a distinction does not imply, of course, that historians do their work in a vacuum. As Chapter 2 of this Companion, written by T. Poulakos, nicely documents, historians are guided by current needs, values, and interests that arguably complicate the distinction between historical reconstruction and contemporary appropriation. To acknowledge that historians are influenced by current theories and interests does not imply, however, that the distinction between historical reconstruction and contemporary appropriation collapses. Indeed, as the subsequent chapters of the Companion illustrate, historical reconstruction is alive and well. Fidelity to the methods of classical philology, a preference for argument by example, and sensitivity to the features that make Greek texts/authors distinctive and different from us still help to distinguish the purposes and methods of the historian from those who are more interested in argument by analogy and who are attracted to features that make Greek texts/authors similar to us. Of course, both sorts of intellectual projects are valuable, but keeping in mind the different purposes of historical reconstruction and contemporary appropriation may help readers navigate and assess the amazingly diverse interpretations generated by scholars in classics, philosophy, history, literary studies, communication studies, and English.