RHETORICAL CRITICISM

Reference: Thompson, Alvin Louis. "Literary Patterns and Theological Themes in the Gospel of Mark.“ Dallas Theological Seminary, 1992.

The task of rhetorical criticism

To discover how an author shaped his work to communicate his message and highlight important material.

Rhetorical criticism as an approach“Within literary circles, rhetorical

criticism is viewed as an approach to literature that focuses on the means through which a work achieves a particular effect on its reader.”

[Mark Allen Powell, What is Narrative Criticism (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), 14.]

Rhetorical criticism focuses first on how the content is communicated.

Rhetorical Criticism is an effort…Rhetorical criticism is an effort to

understand the structural patterns that are employed for the fashioning of a literary unit, whether in poetry or in prose, and in discerning the many and various devices by which the predications are formulated and ordered into a unified whole. Such an enterprise I should describe as rhetoric and the methodology as rhetorical criticism.

[James Mulenburg, “Form Criticism and Beyond,” Journal of Biblical Literature 88 (1969):8.]

What is the structure…The rhetorical critic is interested in what is

communicated, but works under the assumption that the content of the message is communicated through the structure of the message and, by identifying the author’s “literary architecture,” one is better able to understand the author’s message.

“literary architecture” – “surface structure”“structuralism” – “deep structure”

The structure helps to communicate the content and emphasis.

“Form and content cannot long be held apart.”[Amos Wilder, Early Christian Rhetoric (London: SCM Press, 1964), 12.

Observing and DiscoveringRhetoric:

“the faculty of observing in any case what are the available means of persuasion”

“the art of discovering the best possible means of persuasion in regard to any subject whatever.”

[Aristotle, “Rhetoric” 1.2.1355b in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Jonathan Barnes, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).]

Cicero: The art of rhetoric Invention (inventio)

The discovery of valid or seemingly valid arguments to render one’s cause plausible.

Arrangement (dispositio) The distribution of arguments thus discovered in the proper

order.Style (elocutio)

The fitting of the proper language to the invented matter.Memory (memoria)

The firm mental grasp of matter and words.Delivery (pronunciatio).

The control of voice and body in a manner suitable to the dignity of the subject matter and style.

[Cicero, De Inventione, 1:7.9. Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press, 1949).]