I really enjoyed reading Jarratt's book, although, I understand if some of the terms were completely confusing (I thank heaven that I took lit. crit. with Jennifer Bottinelli last semester!!). Most interesting to me was the idea that the sophists rhetoric was everchanging and kinetic (like Heraclitus says that we can never step in the same river twice) while Socrates and Plato's rhetoric is more static, because truth, or the "Divine Truth" is always consistent and unchanging.
Reading Love's Labour's Lost this week really sealed the deal for me in the idea that rhetoric is a feminine art form. In the Shakespeare play, the women are the ones that display the best ability to use their tongue in a witty and persuasive way, much unlike the men who were forced into inaction and incapability for rhetoric. Jarratt says that the language of sophistry is seductive and capable of trickery; this idea also is evident in the play, where the women trick the men, through language and persuasion, into believing their speech after they switch masks to make the men believe that they are different people.
The one really cool thing that I thought was completely hilarious that Jarratt mentions, is the idea that Gorgias had made so much money on teaching the masses rhetoric that he made a solid gold statue of himself, which ties into the idea that I said last class that Gorgias thinks that he is a god (and quite a pompous one at that!).
See you all in class,
Jen
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That's an interesting idea, that rhetoric is a feminine art form, and basing that on Shakespeare. A great example is "Macbeth," in which Lady Macbeth appeals to her husband's sense of masculinity in order to manipulate him into attaining political power through murder.
It's also interesting to wonder whether this is a feministic idea, or the opposite. On one hand, women are using their wits and mastery of language to take charge and manipulate a tyrannical patriarchy that has deluded itself into believing that it is in control. On the other hand, are women surreptitiously coercing the innocent and well-intentioned men into performing atrocities or acting outside of their own interests, instead furthering the corrupt agenda of women?
Another small note, Iago, a male character from Othello, is a master rhetorician.
Yet ANOTHER small note, I am aware that I am commenting on a 3 week+ old blog.
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