Rereading Aristotle's Rhetoric

10. Aristotle and Theories of Figuration

Jeanne Fahnestock 166 10 Aristotle and Theories of Figuration Jeanne Fahnestock In Book 3, chapter 10, Aristotle identifies three verbal devices that produce effective expressions: metaphor, antithesis, and energeia. Aristotle presumably has no developed concept of figures of speech, but by distinguishing these three devices, he establishes prototypes for the three subsequent categories of the figures: the tropes, schemes, and figures of thought. By grouping these three, he also identifies the semantic , syntactic, and pragmatic sources of figuration, and, unlike his successors, he unites them with a strong view of the functional nature of the figures in rhetorical discourse, as a detailed examination of the figure antithesis demonstrates. The current fixation on metaphor and the obscurity of antithesis represent a loss of Aristotle ’s functional understanding of the figures. Book 3 of the Rhetoric appears at first to be Aristotle’s grudging concession to a demand that he produce a complete art, one that will include not only sources of support but also advice on lexis and taxis, “for it is not enough to have a supply of things to say, but it is also necessary to say it in the right way” (3.1.2). Aristotle apparently would have preferred that manner of saying count for nothing compared to the matter said, and that the facts of the case alone should suffice for a judge’s decision. But given the usual “corruption” of audiences, he has to acknowledge that delivery is a factor and that therefore “expression . . . has some small necessary place in all teaching; for to speak in one way rather than another does make some difference in regard to clarity, though not a great difference” (3.1.6). Yet despite this unenthusiastic start, Aristotle’s treatment of lexis in Book 3 does make a substantial contribution to the linguistic art of rhetoric when judged against the fuller discussions of style in later classical and early modern treatises. Aristotle does, for example, stipulate the important categories of stylistic assessment taken up in later rhetorical commentaries, including word choice, prosody, perspicuity, appropriateness, correctness, and the nature of the “mean” for prose composition. Compared to later manuals, however, Aristotle’s comments on these issues are perfunctory , and his cursory treatment is especially obvious in the scant attention he pays to the formal verbal devices that will later be called the figures of speech. By Theories of Figuration 167 contrast, the first-century B.C.E. Rhetorica Ad Herennium catalogs some sixty-four such devices, and later manuals, notably the grand compilations of the sixteenth century, amplify the catalogs of the ancients, creating more intricate distinctions and divisions. Aristotle only mentions a handful of “figures” including asyndeton, metaphor, simile, hyperbole, antithesis, paronomasia, and devices like parison and homoioteleuton associated with producing balanced cola. As Kennedy points out, Aristotle has no word for figure of speech (Kennedy, 1991, 242), nor does he explicate a thoroughly worked out theory of figuration. Thus it often seems easier to discuss what Aristotle does not accomplish in Book 3. It can be argued, however, that the treatment of lexis in Book 3 does illuminate the much more detailed attention to figures in the Hellenistic and Roman rhetorical tradition and that Aristotle does in fact establish a theory of figuration, at least by default. This theory of figuration results in part from the de facto categories of verbal device established in the Rhetoric, categories that in turn suggest the nature and uses of figuration. Furthermore, there is much in Aristotle’s incidental remarks on verbal devices that not only anticipates but even goes beyond later commentary on what the figures of speech can accomplish. Thus Aristotle may actually have had a fuller understanding of the potential uses of verbal devices than later writers who focused exclusively on the figures as vehicles of ornamentation or literary expression. He may have specified fewer devices, but he seems to have held a more complex view of the effects that verbal devices could achieve. Critical to a reassessment of Aristotle’s implicit theory of figuration is the moment in chapter 10 when he specifies three devices that can help an arguer create distinctive, “urbane” expressions: metaphor, antithesis, and energeia at the service of “bringing before the eyes” (3.10.6). These three are the sources of “well-liked expressions” (3.10.1) that create “quick learning” (3.10.4).They are, in effect, keys to creating what we would call “sound bites,” brief trenchant phrases that are more likely to fix...