The Emotional & Ethical

I found De Oratore to be one of the most pleasant reads we’ve had thus far, and I found myself more able to relate. Similar to other posts on Cicero, I, too, was drawn toward the use of pathos in rhetoric. At first, I was especially drawn toward the fact that "the speaker must himself feel the emotions he wishes to excite" because I think that gives the orator ethos in itself; doing the research to know which emotions to use and which emotions would be most effective could be pretty tricky. I find ethos and credibility to be tied to eloquence in this sense. Tracing back to our discussion on Friday, using eloquence and the emphasis on education and learnedness allows for the orator to be more of a common person and to empathize with his audience, putting the audience on the same plane as himself (where the orator is as affected by his speech as he wishes his audience to be).

 I also liked that, on page 333, the heading was "Rules and cautions for emotional oratory," because emotions do have the power to swing a person, and the orator must be careful not to rely too heavily on emotions to persuade the hearers: "For, if you glorify the doing of something ruinous or unprofitable to your particular audience, hate is engendered."  One should not employ pathos if it is to compensate for not having enough knowledge on the subject to use logos or ethos; pathos should be "awakened if the hearer can be brought to apply to his own adversities," which also returns to the topic of knowing one's audience. And, as Antonius told us, "nothing in oratory ... is more important than to win for the orator the favor of his hearer" (328).