"[T]he grand and beautiful can give pleasure for a long time, but the neat and graceful quickly sate the hearing, the most fastidious of the senses." [261]
While speaking of credibility, I am not sure if I agree with this idea. Without a proper definition of what "grand" means to the writer, there is no context in which to qualify "grand." To me, grand is the language that is used, from the wording to the order of the words. When I see long, complicated working, I think of grand, possibly because it is intricate. But occasionally, this type of writing or speaking is confusing and clunky. It takes many readings for me to get the full gist of what the writer is trying to say.
Perhaps instead of being grand and beautiful, we should concentrate on being grand but also neat. There is something to be said for "the most fastidious of the senses" and what sates it. We should focus on long-standing pleasure that also gives some level of instant gratification. Rhetoric is the art of persuasion, but it is hard to persuade the audience if you first confuse and bore them.
Cicily,
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you put into words what I was struggling with this passage! "Grand" seems like such a relative term, and isn't necessarily always the most elegant or beautiful type of speech. I like that you made the distinction between "neat" and "clunky"- that's a really effective way to draw a line between whether or not you've gone too far with your speech. Your post made me wonder if there is a type of grand speech that would work on everyone, or if it is a completely audience-dependent style? Nice post!
Molly
'Perhaps instead of being grand and beautiful, we should concentrate on being grand but also neat.' I like what you have to say here. I agree the 'grand' is to loosely defined. Distinguishing between neat and clunky as Molly said above might be a more productive way to label a piece vs the three other labels. How can we persuade the audience if you confuse and bore them? You can't unless you've stepped outside the rhetorical confines of grand, simple, ect.
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