Boethius breaks rhetoric down into genus and species, much like a scientist comparing living creatures. "By genus, rhetoric is a faculty; by species, it can be one of three: judicial, demonstrative, deliberative" (488). While just three species options seems claustrophobic, Boethius highlights that the subject matter can take on more than one of the forms without changing. A text's purpose determines what species it will take on. "A civil question can take any of the forms: when it seeks the ends of justice in a court of law, it becomes judicial; when it asks an assembly what is useful and proper, then it is a deliberative act; and when it proclaims publicly what is good, the civil question becomes demonstrative rhetoric" (489). These species are broad and allow for a moderate amount of interpretation in regards to what type of rhetoric fits where. But how do we adequately reach these species?
Boethius uses the term "tools" multiple times in this piece. "Now the parts of rhetoric, being parts of a faculty, are themselves faculties; therefore the tools which work in the entire oration must also function in each part of the oration, and so they must be present in order to work" (489). The "parts" Boethius is referring to are "the introduction or exordium, the argument, the partition, the proof, the refutation, and the peroration" (489). The idea of these parts being seen as 'tools' is quite elegant. If a rhetorician's toolbox does not contain each of these tools, then we will be missing pieces of our faculty, therefore unable to fit our text into a specific species.
Cicily,
ReplyDeleteI like how you point out the way Boethius’ strict and seemingly limiting rhetorical views actually expand the discipline to a certain degree. Boethius shaves classical rhetoric down into a tiny version of what it used to be, but by not concerning himself with moral ramifications, elements of style, logical, ethical or pathological pursuits, etc., he manages to create a useful role for rhetoric by turning it into a mere tool. This helps spread rhetoric into all other fields and gives it considerable importance. I think this has something to do with why he omits half of Quintilian’s “good man speaking well” and includes instead only speaking well. Seeing rhetoric only as a tool for other pursuits prevents it from having a moral component. Tools are only subject to the wills of those who use them. This is a stark contrast from some Classical rhetoricians who felt morals were part of rhetoric and the subject a valid end to pursue in itself, rather then a mere tool for analyzing others. Boethius’s Christianity must play a role in his limited view of rhetoric. Morals couldn’t be part of rhetoric because they were already a part of his religion. The scientific analogy he uses for his classifications (i.e. genus, species) shows the way he feels about rhetoric in general. Like biology, rhetoric is a tool for earthly and concrete necessities, not higher moral or theological matters.