Alexander the Grape

Phew! I’m glad Dr. Ryan was correct in her assertion that Aristotle’s Rhetoric would be easier to read than Plato. But, wow, there was a lot covered here. From political rhetoric to forensic rhetoric to epideictic rhetoric – and all of the various sub-categories of each. I kind of feel like we could spend the entire semester just parsing out this particular document. I was surprised at the level of minutiae in Rhetoric, and not just the categories and sub-categories and sub-sub-categories, etc, particularly in comparison to our previous readings. It is as though Aristotle felt the need to get all of his thoughts about rhetoric out in one sitting. I found chapter 7 particularly curious in this regard. Initially the analysis of good versus better and more versus less seemed an unlikely inclusion in such a document but, upon further reflection, I realized just how important a distinction this makes in speech.

Much of our modern speech is based on such distinctions. Certainly marketing is inherently dependent upon these arguments. How else would we know whether to buy Otter-Pops or Popscicles? And if you bought Otter Pops, how would you know whether to eat Alexander the Grape of Rip Van Lemon?